A/N: Hello my lovely readers. I did it again. I am so so sorry. I have no control over my life (in both the super busy sense and also I just cannot force myself to commit to as many things as I've committed to). I've had a really busy few weeks, and this next week is going to be hell, but I will try to get the next chapter up in 2 weeks! This is way shorter than I want it to be and I'm used to writing, and it's a bit of a filler, but it's necessary and cute. I hope you all enjoy it. Please please please follow and review!

Chapter 8: After the After Party

Annabeth ducked into the restaurant and looked around. Spotting Piper, who was wearing sunglasses and drinking water, Annabeth made her way over. "Hey girl. How does it feel to be twenty-one?"

"Oh shut up. Can you please not yell? And why'd we have to meet so early?"

"Piper, it's been two days since your party. You must be really hungover."

"Yeah," Piper said, sounding near tears. "I don't know what happened. Everything was fine. Then we took some birthday shots. Then the girls and I took some more—I think you left by then, making this your fault," Piper said, glaring at Annabeth. "Yes, Annabeth," Piper said, in response to Annabeth's shock. "You are the responsible mom, hence you should have prevented this from happening. Then, before I knew it, it was like 6am, and Thalia and I were drinking and watching a movie. At least I didn't end up making out with a rando. At least, Hazel, ever sober, said I didn't. And I think she handed me off to the body guards before she left, so I don't think I did."

"That's good then. Or wait—did you want to make out with someone?" Annabeth asked suspiciously.

"I didn't think I did. But God, that Jason guy in Percy's band is so hot. Do you think you could set us up?"

Annabeth wrinkled her nose. She did agree that Jason was very hot, but he was related to both Percy and Thalia. "Piper, you know he's Thalia's brother? And Percy's cousin?"

"THALIA HAS A BROTHER?" Piper shouted, then held her head. "When you're so hungover you hurt yourself," she said, wincing. "That's even better, Annabeth. Because that means that we'll be related when we get married to those two hot pieces of ass."

"Piper, you know that Percy and I aren't actually—"

"Shhhhh," Piper said, putting her finger on Annabeth's lips to cut her off. "I'm still hung over from my birthday, which I can somehow extrapolate to mean that it's still my birthday, so everything I say goes."

"Didn't know you knew the word extrapolate even when you were sober, but okay, Pipes."

"Fuck off, it's still my birthday," Piper said, still all up in Annabeth's face.

The guys slowly started filtering into Percy's house. First Jason and Frank came in, joining Percy in watching his movie, and made some small talk. Nobody knew when Nico came in, but he showed up after Frank and Jason but before he told them to 'shut up because he loved this part of the movie'. Finally, after hearing faint crashes coming from the garage for about an hour, Leo emerged into the living room covered in sweat and a large grin. "I set up a cool new piece for my drum set," he told them, grinning, as though he hadn't been doing the same thing since before the band was formed. They all just hoped that this piece of percussion wouldn't fall off and catch on fire, as some others had.

Leo joined them and they sat in comfortable silence watching the movie. No one knew what it was, except for maybe Nico, but it seemed to be an action movie with Annabeth's friend Hazel in it. Percy figured it would be easy to figure out the name, as the girl looked like she usually acted in more emotional movies.

"Wow, she's so pretty," Frank said with a sigh, as the camera cut to a close-up of Hazel's face.

"Good night, eh?" Jason asked.

"I mean, I only talked to her a little bit, but she's so beautiful and so sweet. She seems like she has such a pure heart, but—" Frank trailed off. It was evident that Frank wanted to get to know Hazel, but he was such a romantic and he only wanted something that was real. When the band began, all the girls that talked to Frank wanted to get to know him for his personality, but ever since he got some muscle, more girls thought he was hot and interacted with him because of his muscles and fame—a fact that Frank would never be comfortable with. He thought Hazel liked him for him, but he'd thought that before.

"Don't worry, Frank," Percy said, breaking the silence the room had fallen into. "Hazel's one of Annabeth's really good friends. "I know Annabeth, and anyone that hangs with her has got to be the real deal."

Percy cringed after he said that. Everyone turned to look at him with grins on their faces. "So how was your night, Percy?" Nico asked. "You and Annabeth both mysteriously disappeared so early," he said, smirking.

"Yeah, so? We took a walk," Percy shrugged.

"And then there was that snapchat on your story," Nico continued. "And the snapchat on her story," Nico finished, with a shit-eating grin.

"Yeah, ok. I slept over," Percy said, getting all defensive. "But we didn't sleep together. And now that I think about it, I was having so much fun that the thought never crossed my mind." Percy felt a confused look develop as he realized what he had said.

"Who are you and what have you done with Percy Jackson?" Leo said, laughing. "But for real man. It's been less than a month and you are so whipped."

Percy tried not to be angry, seeing as he and Annabeth weren't even dating, so there was nothing for him to be whipped by. "Whatever," he muttered.

"By the way," Jason started. "When do we next get the pleasure of Annabeth's company?"

"I don't know. I think she said she's got an album coming out soon. She's probably insanely busy."

"INVITE HER!" Leo shouted.

"Guys, shouldn't we start practicing?"

"Oh, come on, Percy," Frank said. "We all know we won't get that much done anyway. If Annabeth doesn't cut practice short, something else will."

"Ok, fine," Percy sighed. "I'll see if she's free." He started typing a text.

We're practicing rn and the guys want u to come over. R u free?

The guys or you? ;) Yeah, I'm free. Can I bring Piper?

Percy glanced over at Jason and smiled to himself. Hell yeah, she's awesome, he wrote.

Annabeth looked up from her phone with a sly smile on her face. "Hey Piper—want to come to Percy's band practice?"

"Will Jason be there?"

"I mean, he's in the band."

"Hell yeah! Ow! Still a little hung over. We need to swing by my house so I can put on something cuter and take an aspirin."

"Let's go then."