Chapter 23

Percy POV

I could listen to her laugh all day, I thought as I watched Annabeth throw her head back and let out a laugh that wasn't a lady like giggle, but a full, gasp for air type of laugh. Hey eyes closed and her lips that I couldn't take my attention away from opened. I couldn't help the smile that shot on to my face as she threw her arms around my neck and pushed her chest flush against mine. My grip on her hips, on that dangerous amount of skin showing on her back, only tightened. My fingers pressing into her body to remind myself that tonight she was here with me. Mine.

We were in the middle of the dance floor of the club, bodies pushing against us as we held each other close. Our bodies were positioned as if we were going to join the rest of the club goers in the grinding of bodies to techno music, yet Annabeth and I only held each other, moving slightly, but mostly lost in our bubble.

Earlier, as Annabeth and I were finishing our most recent drinks that definitely had Annabeth looking a little flushed and had myself even more concentrated on the way her body moved as she walked, Fiona let us know that her and Bobby were calling a cab and leaving, to 'get freaky' as Fiona had said. I took one look at the engineer and wondered if that man had an ounce of freak in him, but Annabeth was laughing and hugging Fiona goodbye, and then we were alone, and on the dance floor.

Annabeth's hands that were around my neck went to my hair, as they always tended to do and I had to bite back a groan as she ran her delicate fingers against my scalp. The things that she could do to my body with a simple touch….

I met her eyes, and we both silenced our earlier laugh session. As her grey orbs held mine, I lifted a hand from her waist and stroked the side of her face, brushing back a strand of hair, then tracing her eyebrow, cheekbone, and eventually lips. I heard her breath catch, and I knew that a conversation needed to be had.

After Zoom meetings with Grover and sponsorships and calls with competitions that I would be eligible to compete in, I should have been eager to rush back to Aspen. In fact, I should have told Annabeth that I had to change my plain ticket and leave before the scheduled post New Year departure. Yet one look at her naked body curled into my side in the morning as the sun beamed in from her large windows, and I knew there was no cutting this trip short.

The mere thought of saying goodbye to her made my heart contract in my chest.

So now, surrounded my sweaty bodies and tipsy from the shots we drowned earlier, knowing full well this is the worst place to have this conversation, I needed to say my piece. Because there was no way I was getting off that plane tomorrow in Denver, with a handshake goodbye, and a hole in my chest.

I quickly led her over to a standing table in the back, where we could not be bumped into by drunk bodies as a revealed things that would normally stay buried deep in my own head.

"Annabeth," I spoke softly, despite the loud music around us. Her eyes held mine, urging me to continue. I took a deep breath before opening my mouth again, before the words could get stuck. "This was built around the fact that you needed a decoy, and I needed a distraction," I started.

I watched her eyes widen slightly, thrown off guard by this talk that we both had been avoiding like it was a virus the past few days, and felt her try to pull her body away from mine. I only held her tighter, our bodies flush, not letting her hide from the hard things, as I know she did so often.

I continued, "We both know that. But we also both know that what we have, this bond that seems to have wrapped its way through my insides and tied me to you, this is real." I paused briefly, enjoying the way that she didn't try to create more distance between us now, but seemed to be itching her face closer to mine. "Annabeth when I think about leaving you tomorrow there is a dread that curls into my body, and I don't know if I can return to the world that was so toxic when I left, and magically be okay. I know it will be an adjustment, to find the love for the sport again, to say sorry to so many people I let down when I closed off after the accident, to find my footing in a place where I was so lost."

This time it was her who raised a hand to my face, her fingers faintly running along my jaw line. Her eyes were misty and her throat swallowed before she spoke in response. "You're so much stronger than you think Percy, they are going to be accepting with open arms and you are going to thrive…"

I cut her off. "You told me, it feels like a lifetime ago, that you believed in my Olympic goals, and you were going to cheer me on the whole way." I paused to give her a smirk. "I'd like to cash in that favor, starting now."

She let out a small scoff, one of almost sadness, but didn't let go of my neck. "And give you weekly motivating speeches from New York? That'll do the trick."

"No Annabeth, don't you get it? This is something we have been avoiding for so long because its uncomfortable, and you shy away from uncomfortable," I only squeezed her hips at response to the anger that flashed through her eyes.

"I do not…" She started.

I held up a finger to her lips, as I kept talking, keeping my finger there. "I know you pride yourself on practicality and pleasing all of those around you, but I ask you to please, just for once, think of yourself. I want this, whatever this crazy magic we have, to continue. I want to continue to wake up and see your smushed face in my shoulder, I want you to meet Blackjack and take him on walks with me, I want to seek your face after I finish a ski run that I'm proud of, I want to keep exploring and experiencing life with you."

As I kept blubbering like an idiot, I watched as her eyes went from guarded, to the soft, curious gaze I had grown to love. She opened her mouth, and I was expecting a long list of reasons why everything I was saying was going to be impossible and all of the other Annabeth nonsense that would be spewed.

Instead, she raised herself on her toes, and gently raised her mouth to mine. The kiss was slower than our early, sloppy drunk kisses shared on the dance floor. Her mouth opened for me and my tongue set out to brush against hers, over and over again. The kiss spoke for our unwritten future, set by Annabeth's pace of course.

She pulled back and held the back of my head down so she could rest her forehead against mine. Speaking in only a whisper, she uttered the words that physically filled my body with a lightness I haven't felt in so long. "Can I come to Aspen with you?"