Percy traced swirling, nonsensical lines into Annabeth's bronzed skin as she hummed happily, the remains of their dinner around them. "What are you thinking about?" she asked after a long moment of silence, leaning back to look at him with bright eyes.
"You," he answered honestly, mumbling into the soft skin of her shoulder.
She grinned loosely, craning her neck to give him a peck on the cheek. In turn he pulled her closer to him. "What are you thinking about?"
She hummed, thinking. "Work."
Percy made a mock wounded sound and began to pull away but she just laughed, grabbing onto his arms. "Kidding, kidding! You, of course. How happy I feel." She stretched out her arms, resettling in his, their noses almost touching. "You're amazing, Percy. You really are."
He felt the warmth on his cheeks as he averted his eyes. "Yeah, well you're not that bad yourself."
She giggled, raining down kisses on his cheeks and shoulders. "You," she murmured between pecks. "Are the cutest teddy bear of a punk I've ever seen."
"T-teddy bear?" he spluttered. "I – not even like, a grizzly bear?"
"You're stupid."
"I hate you."
"Nope," she beamed. "You love me, remember?"
He couldn't help the grin that stretched across his face. "That I do."
"But -"
"But?" she laughed at the stricken expression on his face.
"But," she smiled and sat up onto her knees and dragging him up with her. "We really do I need to get back to our apartments before it's morning and tourists start pouring in and see us naked."
He groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her side. "No," he moaned quietly.
Wriggling out of his grip, she leaned over and reclasped her bra behind her back, squealing when Percy tackled her from behind, smothering her in kisses as she giggled and tried in vain to push him off. "Percy -" she admonished, breaking off into a moan as he flicked his tongue against the spot on her neck.
"Sure you want to get up still?" he teased.
"Yes!" she squealed, pushing him off and tossing him his shirt.
He groaned but complied, buttoning up his shirt with a sigh. "Do you see my pants anywhere?" he asked once he had finished that task.
"Yeah, I see them, hold on – Perce, what's this?" she asked, plucking out the white card sticking out from his pocket. He had been carrying it around since he found it, still incredulous that he had managed to obtain a job interview.
"Oh, yeah that," he said, taking his pants from her and shoving his legs into them. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."
"Nothing?" asked Annabeth dubiously, turning it around. "Babe, there's a phone number on the back."
He scratched the back of his head and shrugged. "Yeah, I know." He didn't want to get her hopes up – or his for that matter – until he was completely certain.
He felt her stare boring into the back of his head as he busied himself with the belt. "O-kay, babe," she said doubtfully, but dropped the subject. Already completely dressed, she was arranging her hair into a careful braid - it had gotten somewhat mused by their, ahem, late night activities. "Anyway, I really need to stay at my apartment tonight. I have another meeting with the big client in the morning." She passed it off as nonchalant, but he could hear the excitement in her voice. It was her first time co-managing such a large project and God, she was brilliant at her job.
"Do you want me to stay with you?" he asked, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Oh, absolutely not! I need to actually sleep tonight, you complete asshole," she teased, batting his hands away from her waist. He sighed as he slung his jacket over his shoulder and the pair began walking out the door, his arm resting across her barely clad shoulders.
"You know, you look kind of badass in a way," she commented, eyeing him as he raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, really?" He glanced down at himself. He had missbuttoned the shirt and left the top two open. He looked kind of drunk, not cool.
"Yeah. Only you could made a tailored suit look punk. Totally hot by the way."
"Hot enough to let me stay at your place tonight?"
She laughed. "Not a chance, babe."
-x-
It was finally Friday, and he was kind of dying a little on the inside. Or at least, that's how it felt as his heart tried to make a break from it by dislodging his ribs in the process. Oh, and his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on his jeans and coughed a little into his hand. The receptionist barely glanced up before setting the economy sized hand sanitizer bottle on the counter. "Erm thanks," he said awkwardly, ambling over to the counter and squeezing a bit into his palm.
She finally looked up to smile at him as he approached. Percy managed a weak smile back, dropping his eyes before he could see how hers widened. "Oh, wow," she breathed.
"Sorry, what was that?"
She turned a deep red, and stammered. "Oh, um nothing. How do you um, know Mr. Helios?" She tried in vain to flatten down her curls, averting her pale eyes.
He shrugged. "We met at a party."
"A party?" she said, eyes widening as she turned to stare up at him. "Wow, you must know a lot of um, really cool people."
"Uh, yeah I guess." He went back to take a seat, wringing his hands as he waited. He was so busy being anxious over the interview that he didn't even notice the furtive glances she gave him every couple seconds.
"I'm Daphne, by the way."
"Percy," he replied, glancing up. She was pale, with thick, curly hair and very, very pink cheeks. In a way, she almost reminded him of a less confident Annabeth.
"Percy," she repeated underneath her breath. "Well, I'm Daphne – I mean, you already knew that." She giggled nervously, and Percy's eyebrows rose. Erm, okay. "So, job interview right?"
"Um yeah. Didn't you schedule it?"
"Oh! Yes. Yes, I did. Erm, anywho I'm sure you're going to do phenomenally. I bet you do everyone phenomenally. Whoops! I meant everything. I mean – oh gosh, I'm rambling." She was turning very red in the face now, and to be quite honest Percy had no idea what she was talking about. She waved her hand. "Anywho, you're going to do great. Just remember – he loves firm handshakes."
Finally something he understood. "Wow, great, thanks Delphine."
"Daphne, actually."
"What?"
"Erm, nothing."
"Er, okay. So, uh what else does he like?"
"Um, well don't lie to him obviously. He hates it when people don't tell him the truth – he's basically the god of honesty. Um, he loves music which is a given, totally." She giggled. "Oh, but what a lot of people don't know is that he loves, like really loves, poetry."
His eyebrows went up. "Poetry."
"Oh yeah. Especially the classics. He reads the ancient Greek plays like literally all the time."
"Wow, thanks Delphine."
"Daphne."
"What?"
"Oh, nevermind."
The phone on her desk rang and she excused herself to take it while Percy attempted to find a way to bring up poetry during the interview.
The clacking of her putting the phone back up startled him out of his thoughts. "He's ready to see you now."
"Oh. Great." He swallowed past the dryness in his throat and wiped his hands on his jeans again.
"Seriously, don't worry about it. You're going to do great – he'll fall in love with you on spot." She muttered something he only caught the end of.
"You know you did what?" Percy asked, his eyebrows crinkling as he tried to understand her. She squeaked.
"Nothing, nothing! Go on in, you don't want to be late!"
Throwing her one last odd look, he went into the large double oaken doors.
A young guy was sitting at the desk, and couldn't be much older than Percy himself. He was as blond as Annabeth, with bronzed skin that completed the cool surfer look. He grinned when he saw him.
"Percy, my man! You look great, bro."
"Er, thanks. So do you, Mr. Helios." He clapped his hand on Percy's shoulder and shook Percy's hand with the other. He tried his best to be firm, thanking Delphine silently for the advice.
" Call me Paulo. Man, we got totally crazy at that party. I'm surprised neither of us got alcohol poisoning."
He ruffled his hand through his hair. "Tell me about it."
Paulo grinned again before letting it fade into something more serious. "Okay, I'm going to be straight with you. You have an amazing taste in music, and a crazy awesome person to party with. I would be crazy not to want to work with you."
"Wow. I – wow," Percy blinked in surprise, grinning. "That's fantastic, thank you."
He put up his hand though, and Percy settled back in his chair, waiting for him to go on. "The problem is, we're not hiring too much in the city."
He felt his heart drop."The city?" He imagined producing music in the woods upstate somewhere and almost snorted. The deer would make for excellent company, he was sure.
"Not this city anyway," Paulo clarified. "Here the most I could get you is some internship. Still pretty cool, but you wouldn't be getting paid and it would only last six months, with no promise of getting a job here afterwards. It would mostly be getting coffee, anyway. However,"
"However?" Percy prompted when Paulo paused dramatically.
"Yes, however, I can get you another job. Working with artists directly. Producing music, finding the next greatest artists. Are you interested?"
"I- yeah! Of course, I'm interested." He was grinning so much his cheeks were getting sore. Oh god, he couldn't believe this was happening to him.
"Brilliant! I'm so excited to have you aboard for the Chicago branch."
"Yeah, me too. I can't belive this is – wait, what?" He could feel his grin slipping off his face. His heart was in his throat.
"You heard me right. This time next month we're going to be in Chicago!" He grinned. "Isn't that spectacular?"
"Well, yes, I just - I need to consider some… things first. I don't think I can just uproot my life here and move to Chicago…" Percy was at a loss for words, his head swimming. His mom, Grover, Rachel, Annabeth… how could he leave any of them? And Chicago pizza sucked.
What was he going to do? His fingers threaded through his hair, yanking as his hands balled up into fists. He couldn't leave Annabeth. He loved her. He loved her.
Fuck.
Paulo made a regretful noise. "Well, Percy I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, I'll need your decision in a week."
Percy felt his heart plummeting. "A week?"
"Yep," Paulo said, toying with a trinket in his hands. "Take it or leave it, it's your choice, but I can't sit here waiting, kid." He picked up his phone and punched a number. "Send in my next appointment please, Daph." Paulo turned back to him, a sliver of pity in his eyes. "Just get back to me when you can, alright?"
Percy struggled out of the chair, stumbling slightly at the sudden surge of nausea. His vision wavered as he tottered, blinking the haze out of his eyes. "Don't disappoint me!" Paulo called after him as the doors closed behind him.
"How did it go?" Daphne asked him, beaming. He scowled, his head already pounding as he trudged past her.
"Great. Just great," he sighed.
A/N: I had this written for a while but just now got around to editing it. I originally wasn't going to put this up for a couple of days but your reviews were so sweet and made me so happy last time, i figured it wouldn't be very fair to make all of you wait.
I made (and almost immediately) broke a new year's resolution to write every day, but I am going to try and update every five days at most until the end of the story.
Which unfortunately will not be long.
During this story's short hiatus I was working on several things, including a Frazel oneshot I'm excited to get back to, but ultimately decided to shove back until I finished this one. Good news though, there will be a sequel to this.
The details haven't been solidified yet, but the general idea definitely has. I definitely foreshadowed it in the last chapter, so if you think you know what it is leave it in the reviews - i'm really interested in what you come up with :P.
Anyway, since this author's note is really long I'll go ahead and end it.
Leave a review!
Anna x.
PS: follow me at frankzhangly for updates on my progress on the next chapter and other ideas (: