What. Did he just say that? Will was shocked. What did Colin mean, "it's about damn time?" A million things started running though Will's head. Mostly though, he was focused on Max and Justin, both of them had a look of what Will could only describe as anger as their faces. Will looked at Colin, still processing what the boy had just said. Will hadn't noticed, but his mouth was hanging wide open.

"Wha—what do you mean, you knew?" Will spoke with shock, nervousness, and even anger. How could Colin know, how could Lily and Maggie know. No one knew, well no one except his mother. Will spoke again, this time with much more anger, "did my mom tell you guys? I can't believe she would do that, she promised!"

"Wow, wow bro, calm down. Your mom didn't tell me anything." Colin was hit off guard by the anger in Will's voice, he seemed to think Will would find what he said funny, but he definitely didn't.

"Then how did you know?" Will's eyes began to water, to him, it was just too much happening at once. His brain began to overload.

"Dude, you're my best friend. We've known each other for like…. Our whole lives. In that time, you have never ONCE showed interest in a girl." Colin reasoned. After pausing for a moment, he continued to talk, "I've always just suspected that you may not be of the hetero-persuasion. Oh, and don't even ask, of course I'm still your best friend."

"You guys don't hate me?" Will had started crying, but only a little. He was so overcome with emotion, happiness over Colin saying he still loved Will, and fear about what he had just done. Coming out, whenever Will did it, made him emotional. He was putting a relationship completely into the hands of another person, and Will didn't like that.

"Are you serious Will? You really thought that we, the people you've known for like all time, would hate you just because you liked boys? That is some seriously messed up logic." Lily spoke frankly. She almost sounded like Annabeth, Will noted.

"Hon, I think I speak for all of us, when I say, if anything we love you more now!" Maggie added. "You have trusted us by exposing yourself to us." She always had a huge smile on her face, and right now, Will really appreciated her optimism. Justin and Max still hadn't said anything, but they no longer looked like their parents had caught them in bed.

"What about you guys?" Will asked them sheepishly, their faces were not a good sign. They both looked to Will, like they were about to be sick.

"Uhhh, what?" Justin stammered. For stopped for a moment, and found his composure, "Will, I agree with Maggie, I certainly don't hate you. I'm just surprised, that's all. I honestly thought you were just going to say you were, 'friends with benefits,' so I was just taken aback for a moment. Your being gay, does not end our friendship." When Justin said that, Max nodded in agreement. Max also hit Will on the back.

"Stop being stupid Will," Max said finitely. At that Will, who had been slowly crying for minutes now, began to sob. He didn't want to, but he had been afraid for nothing. He just felt so loved. Everyone he had come out to had been nothing but supportive. Their response really did make Will feel stupid. He should have known that they wouldn't hate him.

"Now," Colin interrupted Will in his thoughts. "Stop crying, because everything is fine." Will chuckled, and Lily smacked Colin on the arm, sending the don't start with him message. "God, what, that hurt Lily!" Colin was annoyed with her, which wasn't all that unusual.

"This is emotional for him, Will feel free to burst into tears," Lily put her arm on Will's shoulder, "don't let anyone ever tell you what to do!" She was glaring at Colin the entire time she spoke.

"Yeah ok whatever," Will could tell Colin was going to fight her, and say that it wasn't a sad moment, so crying wasn't necessary, but he must have decided it wasn't worth it. "I need details! Who are you dating, what is his name, where did you meet, where does he live, how much money does he make, EVERYTHING."

Will swallowed deeply, his adam's apple, moving up then down. "Uhhh, well as you may have guessed, I'm not dating a girl, I'm dating a boy." Will was still nervous, but it was becoming easier to talk about. "His name is—uh—Nico, Nico di Angelo."

"That is such a cute name!" Maggie and Lily yelled at once. "He sounds french or something."

"Italian, he was born in Italy. He came to the states when he was young though, he doesn't have an accent. He does speak fluent Italian, though." Will felt like he was bragging about how cool Nico was, which he really was. To Will, Nico was the best person on the planet. "We met at Camp, you know that Camp I go to during the summer."

"Oh right, that camp that you never really give any details about, or really talk about at all, except to say that you go there during the summer. Does this Nico go to camp with you? Or is he a counselor. BRO, are you dating an older boy? High five!" Max said as he though his hand in the air, waiting for Will to do the same. He didn't.

"No, Nico is my age. And yes, he also goes to the camp." Will didn't want them to ask much about camp, he wasn't technically allowed to talk about it with mortals. "He lives in New York, on Long Island, and uh I don't think he makes any money at the moment…"

"Do you have a picture of him? Please tell me you do!" Lily was practically jumping up and down when she said that.

"Uh—yeah I have a lot of pictures of him, let me find one." Will started looking through his phone for pictures of Nico, almost every photo on his phone now was of him and Nico. He found a photo of him and Nico at NYC Pride from the summer, he decided to show them that one. "Here, this is one of us, when we went to the city for the Pride Parade." Will showed the picture to them all, and Lily, Maggie, and Colin all went "aww," Max and Justin just nodded.

In the picture, Will was kissing Nico, who was blushing, and they had a pride flag around them. "THAT. IS. SO. FREAKING. CUTE." Lily sounded like she was having an aneurism. "He is so hot too, Will you seriously hit the jackpot, I wish I was dating someone that cute!" When Lily said that, Colin looked very offended.

Will had become less spacey during the conversation, but something was clearly still bothering him. Colin was able to pick up on that, he rarely missed anything when it came to Will. "So now that we know who your boyfriend is, why are you all mopey?" Colin made sure to stress the boy part of boyfriend. "What did you guy fight about?"

Will looked down at his feet, and his face darkened. "Well, I sorta admitted to Nico that I wasn't out, and that I wasn't correcting you guys when you called him my 'girlfriend,'" at first Will didn't really understand why Nico was so angry about it, but after the call with Reyna, he understood.

"Are you fucking kidding?" Lily smacked an arm again. This time it was Will's arm though, "God! Guys can be so damn stupid. What is this boys phone number, I'm going to fix this for you." Lily put out her hand, asking for Will's phone.

"He won't answer my calls, so sorry," Will looked like he was going to cry again. "Gods, I just want to hear his voice." With that, Will did begin to cry again.

"I'm not stupid Will, I've fought with my boyfriend too, as I asked give me his number, I'll call him on MY phone. He doesn't know who I am so he'll answer." Lily used the same voice to talk to Will in that moment, that she used when she talked to Colin. With that, Will said his phone number, and Lily quickly dialed it, and waited for Nico to answer.

Will couldn't hear much of the conversation, except for what Lily said. He guessed about 3 rings passed before Nico answered, "Yes, hello, is this Nico di Angelo?" Lily asked, there was an inaudible sound on the other line, it was Nico probably saying yes, "good, this is Lily, Lily Hawthorne, I'm Will's friend, well at least I am at the moment, but I may not be for long considering what he did to you." Lily smirked at Will.

"Put it on speaker," Will asked. Lily glared at him, then she made a gesture that said no one else speak, especially none of you boys. Lily proceeded to put the phone on speaker, and Will could hear everything.

"So, I'm guessing Will came out then, or do you think I'm a girl?" Nico sounded bored to everyone, but Will could hear the concern in his voice. Lily appeared to be able to hear it too.

"Haha, what kind of name would Nico be for a girl? Besides, even if I did think you were a girl at first, your voice would clue me into that not being true." Lily was smiling. Nico didn't have the most masculine voice, but it certainly wasn't girly either. Colin and Max must have found what she said funny, because they began to laugh, they tried to hide it but they were not good at it. Lily sent a death-stare in their direction.

"The phone is on speaker, isn't it?" Nico asked.

"Yeah, Will made me, he wanted to hear your voice, but don't worry, I'm not letting him talk." Lily assured him. Will's face turned a bright red.

"Good." Nico was very firm when he said that. He obviously wasn't over the whole, not coming out thing. "Not to be rude or anything, but why did you call?"

"I'm going to work all this out for you guys, so you can return to being my OTP. Even though I just found out who you were." Lily sighed before speaking again, "look Will is a stupid teenage boy, and he makes mistakes, so take it from someone who has also dated stupid, clueless, idiotic, dumb, irritating, and annoying teenage boys, they learn. And I'm sure Will never meant to hurt you by hiding you. To be honest, he only did it because he lives in a small town. There are definitely going to be people who aren't going to like Will now. That's just inevitable." Lily said that like there was no problem, like it was just a fact of life.

"Wait—there are going to be people who will be mean to Will? I thought people today didn't mind being gay?" Nico had only lived in places where homosexuality was no big deal, NY, mostly, he hadn't really seen much of the deep south in the 2010s. Will knew that Nico was going to blame himself if anything happened to Will now that he was out, "I never would have been mad if I knew that, oh gods."

Will knew he was not supposed to talk, but when he heard the last thing Nico said, he had to say something. He needed Nico to not blame himself for any problems that might arise because of his coming out, all of which would most likely be at school. Will grabbed the phone, and took it off speaker, when he did that Lily did not look happy. "Sorry Lily, I have to talk to him." She just huffed in response.

"N, look I know you don't want to talk to me, but you have to know that nothing is going to happen to me!" Will could hear Nico breathing heavily on the other line, "babe, I love you so much."

"Gods Will, why didn't you tell me that coming out in your home town could put you in danger. Now I'm going to be worried all the time about you. And if anything happens to you it will be my—"

"Nico, listen to me, I should have come out a long time ago. If anything happens, it won't be your fault. Maybe we all have my town pegged wrong, who knows, it may not even be a big deal." Will's friends were all staring at him, as he was frantically trying to make up with Nico. Will whispered the next thing he said, so that his friends couldn't hear it, "plus if anyone tries anything, I'm a badass demigod that can heal people, I think I'll be fine. Not to mention my amazing boyfriend who would kill anyone who hurt me." Will was trying to get Nico to laugh, or calm down but it didn't seem to work.

"Gods, Will, I don't want to be fighting anymore." Nico was no longer trying to hide his emotions, "can we please just make up, and be done."

"Of course! Yes, absolutely! Gods I wish you weren't in New York right now," Will almost asked Nico to shadow-travel to his house, but he didn't.

"You know, I could be there with you," Nico responded, like he heard Will's thoughts.

"It's way too dangerous Nico!" Will snapped back. There was nothing Will cared for more than Nico's safety. He had to say no, no matter how much he wanted to be kissing Nico right now.

As he was talking about it, a voice yelled at Will from the table, it was Colin, "hey Will! Come on, get off the phone! Sit back down!"

"Look Nico, I have to go, I love you so much, more than anything in the world. I need you to know that." Will spoke closely into the phone.

"I do know that Will, I love you so much too, have a fun night." With that, Nico hung up the phone, and Will returned to his seat.

Hey guys! It's possible I may write some M rated outtakes, and post them in a separate story, I'm not sure yet! Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!