Hi! First off, I am so, so sorry about the huge delay in posting this update. I could give you a list a mile long of my various excuses, but instead I'll just say thank you all so much for your patience and I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's slightly short and not very exciting, really. I wrote it as sort of a filler chapter to sort of space out the action/plot chapters a bit. But I think it's cute and I hope you enjoy it.
One of my favorite things about having a dog was the excited greeting I received every time I walked in the door. When the kids were young, I'd come home from work each day to shouts and running feet as they dropped everything to say hello. This, of course, faded as they grew older and while coming home to them was still my favorite part of the day, I was surprised sometimes by how much I missed the hugs and sticky kisses. Ollie nearly made up for it though.
His reddish-gold head appeared in the entry window to the left of our front door as I approached, keys dangling from one hand. He panted up at me through the glass, his tail wagging behind him. I smiled and unlocked the door. "Hey, boy," I said, stepping inside and closing it behind me. The overgrown puppy ran in excited circles, tail whacking my knees with each pass. Smiling, I dropped my workbag on the floor at my feet and bent to give him my full attention. He reined in his enthusiasm enough to stand still and be petted, though his tail continued beating back and forth behind him. After a few seconds of this, Ollie, apparently satisfied, began moving again and cast expectant glances back at me every few seconds while I stood, removed my coat and shoes, and then grabbed the strap of my bag to toss into the office on my way. The golden setter dutifully led the way.
Logan was sprawled across the couch in the living room, a book propped up and open before him. He glanced up as I walked by. "Hey, Dad."
"Hey," I replied, stopping in the doorway while Ollie walked inside and planted himself on the rug in front of the coffee table. "How was school?"
He shrugged a shoulder. "Fine. I'm glad it's Friday."
"I'm with you there." He nodded and, apparently satisfied with that acknowledgement, turned back to his book. I'd spent more than enough time around Annabeth to know the conversation was over. Smirking, I left him to it.
The kitchen was surprisingly quiet considering the amount of people in it. Annabeth leaned over the island, a blueprint spread out before her, working on a sketch of another. She glanced up and smiled when I walked in, gray eyes bright and beautiful.
Nicky and Carly sat at the table with Hannah, who had basically become a Jackson in all but name at this point, playing a board game. Blokus was a family favorite; one that required a decent amount of strategy and which Carly especially had taken a liking to over the past months. She had always seemed a pretty even mix of the both of us, but as she grew older, it was impossible to miss the bits of Annabeth in her. I had no doubt that, when the time came, she'd be a great asset to any Capture the Flag team.
"Hi, Daddy," she said now, glancing over her shoulder at me.
"Hi," I replied, looking between the three of them. Hannah offered a smile in greeting. "Who's winning?"
"Me," Carly answered, followed by a slightly impish laugh clearly directed at her brother.
Nicky stared down at the board before him with a narrow, four-square piece in hand and the look of someone fighting a losing battle but refusing to give in—the ever-present competition that existed between the three Jackson kids was one for the record books. He finally settled on an open space and made his move, leaning back in his chair while Hannah took her turn.
He glanced up at me and gave in to a grudging smile when he found me smirking at him. His was a position I'd been in before. Many times. There had come a point not long into our friendship as kids when Annabeth and I had had to stop playing certain games together entirely. She literally always won and it had wounded my twelve-year old ego before I liked her enough not to care. "How was school?" I asked him.
"Good," he replied absently, his eyes on Hannah now as she placed her own piece down on the board. I watched, largely unnoticed, as his eyes fell first on her hand as she made her move, and then travelled up to land on the warped skin that had lined the side of her neck since our encounter with the Hydra six weeks earlier. Thanks to Nectar and Ambrosia, the scarring from the monster's venom was not nearly what it could have been, nor was it really all that bad. Hannah's skin was on the fairer side, but given some time, the pinkness of the scars would fade and, in certain lighting at least, they likely would be visible, but only just.
After her initial shock, the twelve-year old had accepted the injury with surprising grace. If she didn't exactly love the scars, she had certainly embraced them and, at this point, Nicky seemed more bothered by their presence than she did. Hannah may not have been the daughter of a particularly warlike Olympian, but she was still Roman and Camp Jupiter tended to view scars the way other people viewed a cool, new hairstyle or a particularly stylish shirt.
Nicky though, gods help him, seemed to have inherited every ounce of my fatal flaw as his own, and I knew the fact that Hannah had been hurt that day weighed heavily on him. He'd told me as much, but given how intimately I understood how that particular flaw worked, I knew no amount of reassurance from anyone, even Hannah herself, would ease the guilt he felt until he made peace with it himself and began to see the scars as a reminder that she'd survived rather than that she'd been hurt. It was a process. He'd get there.
For the moment, he studied the misshapen skin below his friend's ear not with any overwhelming remorse or guilt that I could see, but with willful disinterest that he tried hard to make reality. He was trying. It only lasted a few seconds before Hannah, feeling his gaze on her, turned and met it with her own. She offered a small smile upon finding his eyes on her and he returned it before looking away, back at the board where Carly was slowly working at cornering and cutting him off. Hannah eyed him for another second, like she knew as well as I did what her friend had been thinking, before she too shifted her attention back to the game and the moment was lost.
I turned away before either could catch me watching them and rounded the island to where Annabeth stood. I kissed her temple and settled against the counter beside her. "Hey."
"Hey," she replied. She straightened minutely but waited an extra few seconds to finish shading the edge of the tower she was sketching before looking at me. "How was work?"
"Good," I said, "How's yours?"
"Alright." She smirked. "I figured I'd take advantage of the quiet while everyone was distracted."
I studied the sketch over her shoulder. "Office building?" I guessed.
"Doctors' office. It's actually going up in town."
"Really?" I asked, "Where?" It wasn't unusual for her firm to contract outside of the city, but such projects didn't usually fall so close to home.
"That old industrial plaza off the highway. It's been empty for years."
"Where they tore down that warehouse?"
She nodded. "They're finally doing something with the space." She smirked playfully, rolling her eyes up to mine. "You can pass the new office every day on your way to work and think of me."
I grinned back. "You say that like I won't actually do it."
She exhaled in a laugh but looked appreciative of that answer. She glanced away then and at the clock above the stove. It was a few minutes to five. "You're home early," she commented.
I shrugged. "It was a slow afternoon. I figured Brad could handle an hour on his own."
"Well, in that case," she said, turning back to her work, "You should make dinner and let me finish this."
"Thanks," I snorted but asked, "Did you have anything particular in mind?"
She shrugged a shoulder, pencil in hand again, "There's ground beef in the fridge that needs to be either cooked today or put in the freezer. You can use that." She nodded vaguely toward the other end of the counter, where a bowl held a couple of tomatoes she'd bought early in the week. "Those too."
I considered that and then nodded as triumphant laughter erupted from my daughter across the kitchen. "How?" Hannah demanded good-naturedly.
Nicky just shook his head, looking from the game board to his sister. "You shouldn't be this good," he said flatly. This elicited another giggle from Carly and he smiled now too. "Like, seriously, you win every time."
"I'm better than you," she informed him, playfully and without antagonism. Hannah began laughing in earnest.
I chuckled myself and noticed Annabeth's lips twitching up in a smile as well. "She is scary good at that game," I murmured loudly enough for her ears only.
She smiled, depicting a careful archway at the entrance to the doctors' office, and matched my pitch. "Good. It's about time one of our kids took after me."
I raised an eyebrow that she didn't see. "I'm sorry, have you met our oldest?"
She laughed and swatted my arm. "That's not what I meant."
I smiled. "I know."
She met my eyes now, amusement shining in her features. "It's a good thing too. The poor girl needs some logic to balance out the impulsiveness she inherited from you."
"I think I turned out okay," I offered.
"Only because I made sure you did."
"Oh, thanks so much."
She laughed. "You're welcome. Now go start dinner and stop distracting me."
"So bossy," I murmured. Annabeth, without so much as looking up, threw an eraser at me with deadly accuracy. Laughing, I turned away and raised my voice, addressing the kids, "What do you want for dinner, guys—spaghetti and meat sauce or tacos?"
"Tacos!" Carly answered immediately.
"Definitely tacos," Nicky agreed.
I chuckled, unsurprised. For whatever reason, that meal had always been a crowd pleaser in our house. "I thought so. What about you, Hannah? Are you staying for dinner?"
"Um, if I can, sure," she replied, "My parents are going out tonight so I was just going to eat leftovers."
"We're fine with it if they are."
"Thank you," she said. I smiled at her in response.
Logan appeared in the kitchen then, cell phone in hand. "We're having tacos?" he asked.
"Yeah," I answered, pulling the beef Annabeth had mentioned from the refrigerator, "That okay with you?"
"Yes," he said with conviction, walking toward the counter opposite his mom. He stopped there, resting his elbows atop it. "Can I go to Jarrod's tomorrow to play video games?"
"When?" Annabeth asked, looking up.
"I dunno. After lunch?"
"Do you have homework?"
"Just math. I'll do it before I go though."
She nodded approvingly and then turned to me. I shrugged. "Fine with me."
"Cool. Thanks," Logan said. He wandered over to where his siblings and Hannah sat then; answering the question Nicky asked him about which games Jarrod had. Hannah, meanwhile, helped Carly round up all the game pieces and put everything back into the box before the younger girl left to put it away. Then, apparently uninterested in the boys' conversation, she wandered over and asked if she could help with dinner.
"Sure," I told her, mixing the cooking meat atop the stove. She hardly counted as a guest by this point anyway. "Do you know how to cut tomatoes?"
She nodded and, after finding the necessary materials for the task with surprising ease in a kitchen that was not her own, she set to work next to me. After a few seconds, she smiled down at the countertop. "Did Nick tell you how my mom bought a tomato plant last year?"
I looked over at her, and then at Nicky, who was still talking to Logan and not paying attention. "No."
Hannah gave a laugh now. "Well, she got one last summer, right after I went to camp. She was really excited about it."
I smirked, looking at her. "And?"
She laughed again. "My mom does not have a green thumb. Like, at all." She fought a smile. "It didn't even survive the summer."
"Oh, man," I said, chuckling.
"Yeah. I think she thought I'd like it once I got home, because of my godly mom and everything, but it's probably good that it died."
"The Demeter kids at Camp Half-Blood were always really good with that sort of thing," I said, stirring the browning ground beef, "You don't think you are?"
She shrugged, moving on to the second tomato now, "I don't know. Maybe. I don't really care, I guess." She paused and then smirked. "Go figure. I'm a daughter of Ceres and I hate gardening. "
I grinned. "You know what? It's okay. I know a daughter of Zeus who's afraid of heights, so it happens." Hannah laughed.
Annabeth looked up then and at me with an expression that clearly communicated how quickly said daughter of Zeus would kill me for telling the young half-blood as much. But though she tried to fight it, she was smiling too. I smirked at her. She rolled her eyes and looked away, only smiling wider.
She looked back down then at her work spread before her and, apparently satisfied with her progress for the night, straightened to gather the papers into a neat pile. "Boys," she said, picking them up off the counter, "Clean and set the table for dinner, please." She left the room then and returned a minute later, empty-handed, and set to gathering the rest of the necessary ingredients for the meal while Logan and Nicky set out places for everyone. Carly, by now, had returned. Annabeth handed her a bowl to bring to Hannah for lettuce and tomato.
Overall, the six of us made a good team. Dinner was ready in no time.
And when we all sat down together to eat, I decided that quiet, uneventful nights like this one were probably my favorite kind.
Thanks for reading!
