Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus series, RR does.
CHAPTER 4
"Where were you?" Of course he wouldn't have escaped Piper's inconvenient questions and so, she caught him when he was leaving the campus for the day.
They'd been friends long before they'd both moved from New York to Los Angeles, since the very beginning of their crazy high school times. She'd been similar to him, with her he could have just chilled out, like with few of their peers then. Yeah, he'd had other friends. But Piper was more than just a friend, she was his best friend, his partner in crime. Girly teenage magazines would have probably called them BFF. Well, simply put, she was like a sister to him.
"Nyssa told me she didn't see you in the workshop today" He was going to the Machine and Assembly Language class with the said girl but had never expected her to actually notice when he wasn't around. He sighed. Damn his killing good-looks.
"Geez, Beauty Queen, do I have to give you reports on everything I do?" he cut her off, praying to whoever was ruling up there that he hadn't been blushing. Piper lifted her eyebrow.
"Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed today?" she asked, surprised. He shook his head nervously and tried to grin at her.
"Nah, you know me. Just can't stand any limiting of the sweet freedom" he inhaled deeply and drew aside his arms to add some dramatic effect and (hopefully) make her believe he was fine.
She only rolled her eyes. Before she could have said anything else, the two of them saw Jason waving to them from beside his car.
"Hey, Superman!" Leo greeted when they approached him. "Saved some lives today?" he asked, hoping to move the other two's attention from him to his second best friend.
Jason smiled. "Not really. Just almost killed Reyna instead" Leo cursed in his head, almost not noticing the drop in Piper's mood. From all the girls around, it had to be her! And Jason absolutely had to remind his about that!
He didn't even know why he was bothered so much with the humiliation he'd brought upon himself. Not the first time, not the last one either, right? But with Reyna, something felt different. Maybe it was because it had been the first time he'd got to take a girl to Taíno's? He shook his head. No time for such thoughts.
"You coming, man?" he heard Jason call and cursed again, this time aloud, turning around to see his friends already in the blue Toyota Avensis. Damn, Valdez! Don't lose focus or they'll start asking questions!
"Yeah, I'm coming!" he hurried to say, jumping in the back seat.
Still fearing they would bother him without need, he tried to bring up a new topic. "Man, how many times have I already told you to change the drive to something... Dunno... Cool?" Piper snorted with laughter. "I bet your dad wouldn't have anything against splashing out on a new car for his baby boy" he added, grinning. Teasing, that was his field for display.
He saw Jason roll his eyes in the rear-view mirror. "I don't need one. Toyota's doing all the job just fine" he said yet again.
Leo was just opening his mouth to counterattack when he saw her. Reyna was coming out of one of the campus' buildings, going in the direction of the parking lot. She was carrying the flower from him, he noticed with surprise. However it brought him a great amount of relief, he suddenly felt an untamable need to throw himself on the seat on his left to hide from her sight.
What was happening to him?
"What's wrong?" Jason asked the question from Leo's head out loud. The asked one tried not to panic and to come up with an answer that would satisfy his too nosy friends.
"Uh... Just dropped something..." he said, hoping they hadn't heard the note of uncertainty in his voice that he obviously had. Please, please, please.
He looked in the window and straightened, seeing that he was safe. For then.
Jason and Piper exchanged glances that didn't foretell him anything good. Damn, they'd seen through his disguise.
"What have you done to Reyna?" Piper had never been the one to beat around the bush. He exhaled slowly, one part of his brain wondering if by doing that he could have suffocated and saved himself from the awaiting interrogation.
"Hey, why have he actually had to do anything? Maybe it was just a misunderstanding or something like that..?" Jason tried to defend him, sounding unconvincing even for himself.
"Thanks man, that was very helpful..." Leo thought, seeing Piper's eyes fastened on himself in the rear-view mirror. He was hoping she couldn't see the blush he felt was creeping its way on his face.
"So?" Piper demanded an answer "What's bothering you?" There was silence between the three. Sure, they were his best friends, talking with them had helped him a countless amount of times but... What should he say if even himself didn't really know what was going on in his head?
He sighed. "I'm not sure, actually..." His friends exchanged nervous glances again. Really? He could see them, didn't they know that?
"What do you mean you don't know..?" Jason said cautiously, stopping on a red light. "Does it really have to do something with Reyna..?" he added after a moment of hesitation.
"Woah, man, one question at a time, please!" Leo put his hands in front of him in a defensive gesture.
"Is it about Reyna?" Piper cut in between their verbal exchange with a mix of worry and hope in her voice. He couldn't blame her. If Reyna now had anything to do with him, she wouldn't be Piper's rival anymore, as Jason's best friend from high school times. Not that the blond gave her anything to fear. For Leo's taste, in this matter he was almost too blind for it to be believable in.
Wait. Had he just thought about Reyna being interested in a relationship with him? He snorted quietly. Not happening in a million years, Valdez.
"Yeah, it's about her" he finally said, feeling himself getting hotter while Piper's eyes were trying to pierce his skull through. "I think I totally screwed up" he added, smiling pessimistically.
"You made a move on her?" Jason asked, surprised. Piper sent him a jealous glare he obviously didn't get the way he was supposed to.
"No! That's the problem! I didn't do anything!" Leo exclaimed. "I don't even know why it's the way it is now!"
Piper lifted an eyebrow. "The way it is now meaning..? Have you argued or something?" she asked, ably re-braiding one of the thin braids falling on her face. Leo kept silent. "You haven't even talked to her, have you?" Piper asked skeptically.
Leo nodded. "Yup. Dunno why, but I'm scared off my ass even thinking about it, not mentioning doing it..." Jason shook his head, motioning for the car on their right to go first.
"I don't understand. So, what have you done to her?" the blond asked, concern heard in his voice. Piper bit her lip. Leo felt like Hulk now, only that he was red instead of green.
"Well..." he muttered "I was working with her in the lab and there was an explosion, my fault, obviously!" Jason and Piper exchanged surprised glances. Leo making a mistake in Chemistry?
He didn't notice that as he was starting to turn on his babble mode which activated when he was nervous. "And I thought What the hell? and invited her for lunch at Taíno's, as amends, and it was pretty amazing and then Joe played some calypso and we started dancing!" Jason's eyebrows travelled up as he stopped in front of their apartment. Reyna dancing? The only time he saw that was at the prom, when she was having the first dance of the night with him. Her first and only dance then, to be precise.
Leo kept talking. "And then she run away! I figured I'd probably done something wrong so I wrote her a note and bound it to that flower she was carrying!" His head fell in his hands. "I don't know why but I'm too scared to talk to her and she probably hates me and I don't know what I should do!" he finished, panting for oxygen to be an exchange for the overused air in his lungs.
Piper smiled gently. "The Casanova finally trapped? That's kinda cute" He looked at her with despair in his eyes.
"It's not funny, Pip-"
"I think you should talk to her" Jason interrupted the beginning of their half-serious fight. "Reyna isn't the type to keep grudges. I bet she's already forgiven you, if she's ever had anything to forgive, that is" he smiled and the three of them got out of the car. "I bet you've just overinterprated things. Come on, man, a talk won't kill you" he said, patting on his friend's back while Piper was looking for the keys in her bag.
"Yeah... I'll try..." Leo tried to smile and keep the thoughts of dying from Reyna's hand out of his mind... At least for the dinner time.
ZJeM, 07-09.01.14
From author:
"The Taíno were seafaring indigenous peoples of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. They were one of the Arawak peoples of South America, and the Taíno language was a member of the Arawakan language family of northern South America." - thank you, aunt Wiki.
I'd like to thank hi for their review, as I couldn't have sent a PM to them. :D
2 follows and 1 favorite, I'm impressed. ;)
I'm going to finally write some more Leo-Reyna interaction, only I have to come up with any idea how to do this. XD
THANKS FOR READING!
