54. Closet

"Ready or not," Reyna calls out to the empty living room. "Here I come!"

She wouldn't have imagined this sort of life for her ten years ago. A life of staying home, cooking meals, cleaning the house, the every other day sword practice or the 2 kids and just as childish husband. Her days as a lawyer are over, she's done, and Leo's only doing half days at the garage now because not only was Reyna a lawyer, she was a badass lawyer who pretty much set them up for life in under fifteen years of working.

And she's only thirty-four.

So now she plays hide and go seek with her daughter Elizabeth and son Jacob and she's happy and carefree living in New York. She worries about monsters constantly, comes home from grocery shopping to find Percy and Annabeth lounging in her living room- gods know how, those two are the only ones who manage to break into the Valdez's near impregnable apartment- and meets up with Hazel and Piper weekly for lunches, spa days, a movie or even a sleepover, kicking the husbands out of the house to go fall asleep in a bar or something while the babysitter gets paid more than Reyna used to make in a month when she was a teenager paying for things like school and house bills.

But she can't complain because it's a better deal than she'd ever thought she'd get, and she has a husband whom she loves very, very much.

And who, he assures her every night when she's straddling him or when he's making her writhe on their bed, loves her very, very much in return.

So her life, as it turns out, did not turn out lonely, sad and unsatisfying. In all of the ways that matter, and none that she thought she'd ever achieve, she's won in this game of chance. She has two beautiful daughters, a sister who occasionally sends a letter and postcard, a group of friends who are as mismatched as they come, and a husband.

She's rounding the corner to the kids bedroom when a pair of arms wrap around her from behind and suddenly there are four bodies in a tangle of limbs on the hallway floor, three of them struggling to pin down the other.

Reyna finally gives up when Jacob sits on her tummy, Elizabeth flops on one leg and Leo covers her eyes.

"This is cheating." She announces.

"Us? Cheat? No." Leo says. "This is strategic counter maneuvers which will help us win this game."

Did she mention her husband was more childish than their kids?

"Mommy didn't find us!" Jacob said before she could reply. "We were in the closet!"

"And you managed to get your father out?" She fakes shock. "I'm impressed, he's been in there for a long time!"

The kids don't understand her joke, but Leo takes his hand from her eyes and frowns at her. "Now you know better than anybody that that is a lie."

She shrugs as best she can with her shoulders pinned by her husband. "A man can always change his mind."

His lips twitch upwards just a second before he kisses her.

Their kids roll away in disgust, exclamations coming from them both.

"Gross!"

"Mommy, Daddy, stop, that's yucky!"

When Leo pulls away she's breathless and flushed, panting slightly and unfocused.

"Proof enough?" He asks her with a goofy grin.

She pushes herself up on wobbly arms. "You are definitely the best gay man I've ever kissed."

She giggles when he kisses her again to shut her up.