I made this chapter, extra special. ;)

DISCLAIMER: Nope. I don't own Percy Jackson. Okay? Rick Riordan does.

CHAPTER 15

PERCY's POV

We were now at Annabeth's house waiting for her as she fixes her stuff.

"Almost done, guys!" she yelled from her room and peeked out her head from the door. "I'm so sorry, I fell asleep."

"It's alright." I said quickly. Annabeth came out of her room with carrying a backpack and some paper bags. She was wearing khaki shorts, grey tank top and a cartooned style hoodie. She looked simple yet so cute.

"Let's go." She gestured us to come and we went out of their apartment.

Nico drove us to Montauk beach where we had reserved cabin for us to settle in.

"So, tell me again why where not stopping by Thalia's house?" Annabeth asked from the backseat.

"Well, she said she already have a ride. I'm guessing Jason will take her here." I replied to her.

"Oh, I see." Then I looked at the front mirror to take a peek at her. She got a book from her bag and read it. She was reading Jay Asher's The Future of Us.

"Ehem." I was startled and looked at Nico, who even though facing the road, had a smile—a teasing smile—across his face. I felt my face heat up and immediately looked outside.

"So obvious." He said and I can feel him smiling while he said that. I just ignored it.

We arrived at Montauk beach and settled ourselves in our cabin. We had a great view of the beach which I, of course, made sure that we do get the cabin that has a fantastic view.

While we settled in, Nico offered to gather some cut woods from the wood shop just a few meters back from the beach.

He got his keys and went on his way but before he could he went near me and whispered,

"I'm giving you privacy now. Better take advantage of it while Thalia and Luke are not yet around." Then he winked at me and smirked. I shook my head, disbelieving Nico's mischievous ways.

Annabeth sat in the hammock and looked at me. She gestured for me to come and sit next to her, so I did.

We were in silence for a minute or two then she spoke.

"I love this place. Did you know that this was the first place I've ever went since we came to New York." She said.

I looked at her, "Really?"

"Yah! We didn't go to our house first because dad wanted to show us this beach."

"I see. Why is that?" I asked.

"Well, when my dad was here during some conferences and get himself stressed out, he would go here and he would get himself stress free." She said while gazing out at the sun setting down.

"I love it here 'cause it reminds me of my dad." She looked at me thoughtfully.

"See, my dad loves beaches and not just beaches. Basically, anything that has to do with aqua." I said, chuckling. I heard her giggle which made me smile.

"I bet you're a lot more like your dad." I faced her and looked at her intelligent grey eyes.

"How can you say that?"

"Well, I can see that you love the ocean which you already stated that your dad loves it too; you love anything that involves water like swimming or the water fountain…"

I looked at her, surprised. "Wha-what do you mean?"

She let out a small laugh, "Well I saw you once, just letting the water from the fountain touch your face, which is why you're regularly visiting the detention class."

I laughed at that. "So you're stalking me now, Chase?" I smirked at her.

"Not a chance Seaweed brain! I'd rather stalk a tree than you." She said with a mocking face.

I touched my heart and faked like I was hurt. "Ouch! You've hurt my inner being."

She stuck her tongue out and laughed softly.

I really like hearing her laugh; whether it's a giggle, a mocking laugh or a whole-hearted laugh. It's like the sound of the waves of the ocean to me. It actually keeps me calm. I smiled at that thought. I can't believe that she has this effect on me.

"Uh, Percy?"

"Yeah"

"Is there something on my face?" She looked at me curiously.

"No, why?"

"Well, you keep on looking at my face with that smile of yours, so I thought that you're making fun of me." She reasoned out.

I felt my cheeks go warm. "Uh… I, uh…"

"Nevermind. Anyway, why is Thalia and Luke taking so long to come here? And where the hell is Nico? He should be back by now." She stood up and went outside to look for them.

"I'll call Luke." I suggested.

"Okay, I'll call Thalia." She said.

I dialled up Luke's number and waited for him to answer.

"Percy?"

"Where are you? What's taking so long?"

"I, uh… made a detour. Sorry bro, we're on our way."

"Okay, well you better hur—wait, we?" I asked. He became silent.

"I got to go now. I'll see you in a bit." Then he hung up. That was weird.

I stood up and joined Annabeth outside.

"Thalia said she's on her way now."

"Yeah, so did Luke."

"Well, all we have to do is to wait for Nico to come back with the cut woods so we can start the bonfire." She suggested.

"Okay."

After a couple of minutes, Nico arrived carrying a sack of cut woods.

"Woah Nico! We're only staying her until midnight not for a week." I said to him.

"Well, I got it in a much cheaper price, so I thought I would but it. Besides, we might need a little bit more woods to keep us warm tonight. I heard it'll be down to 15 degrees later."

"Oh, okay."

I helped Nico prepare the bonfire while Annabeth was inside the cabin preparing the smores. Thalia came around 8:30 in the evening and Luke came a couple of minutes after. Hmm… very suspicious.

"Sorry I'm late. Got stuck at home. Jason's being, well, Jason." She said as she made her way inside the cabin.

Luke came up to me and Nico. "Sorry I was late guys, I uh, something came and for my apology, I brought the grill. Knowing Percy over here forgot to bring one."

I mentally slapped myself to that. How can I even forget that? Stupid me!

"Crap! Thanks dude! You're a lifesaver!" I said to him.

"Uh, I'll go set this up." He went to the spot near the cabin and set up the grill.

We started our little gathering around nine and while Luke was preparing dinner, Thalia suggested playing a little game.

"Okay guys! Let's play soccer!"

"But isn't it kinda dark. I mean, it might be difficult to see." I retorted back at her.

"Well, that's the thrill in it! Come on! Let's play!"

We were divided into two teams, Thalia and Annabeth and Nico and I. We drew our goal lines 10 meters away from each other and began to play. Thalia had the ball and kicked it to Annabeth. Nico chased her while she continues to run, she almost made it to our goal when Nico snatched the ball and began kicking it to their side. I tried to block Thalia but she was too fast! She got away from me and blocked Nico and took the opportunity to grab the ball and kick it to Annabeth. I had to run as fast as I can so that I can be able to catch it before she does but unfortunately, I'm clumsy and I run straight through Annabeth and we both fell back on the sand. I was on top while she was at the bottom.

She was laughing her head off, "Good going, Seaweed brain! Hahaha!" She continues to laugh.

I stared into her face, it was really lovely. I got up from our position 'cause it was quite awkward and sat beside her.

"I'm tired" She stated.

There were some sand on her face and some hair strands too. I wipe the sand off of her face and tucked in the loose hair strands. I gazed into her eyes. Her face was so soft and smooth. She doesn't need make up to look beautiful because she already is.

"Ehem!" I regained my consciousness back and looked up to see Thalia and Nico, smiling creepily at us.

"Stop staring at each other or both of you might melt." Thalia said. Nico just let out a small but irritating laugh.

It was a good thing though, that it was dark. They won't see me blushing. Frankly, I've been constantly blushing these past few days. What the hell is wrong with me?

Saved by Luke, he called us back saying that dinner was ready. We all went back to the cabin and ate our dinner and after which, we went out and we sat around the bonfire.

We started to do our smores.

"Hey guys, what do you want to do?" Luke asked. I find it a bit weird that Thalia and Luke are sitting next to each other. Before, you couldn't even get those two in the same room but now…

"Hey Percy, what do you suggest?" Annabeth faced me.

"Uhm, I guess we can tell ghost stories?" I suggested.

"Nahhh! That's too mainstream. How about we tell each other our deepest darkest secrets." Thalia suggested.

I felt Annabeth stiffened next to me. I looked at her and she had this unreadable expression on her face.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah" was all she said but didn't even bother to look at me.

I turned to Thalia, "Why so?"

"Well, since we're all friends and well we've known each other for quite some time now, we don't even know that much about each other. You know, except for the super obvious." She said.

"Well, let's give it a go then." Luke said.

Nico was silent during the whole thing and I swear he kept on looking at Annabeth from time to time.

"So, who'll be first?" Thalia said. She looked around and pointed her index finger to Nico.

He looked nonchalantly at her and then shrugged.

"Since you're the quietest person in our group, I guess we should start off with you." Thalia said.

"Hmp" was all he said.

He taught of something first then looked at every one of us.

"We went to San Francisco last summer…"

"We all know that!" Thalia butted in. Nico gave her a look and she mouthed sorry.

""We were there because dad had some people to talk to. One night, I was walking past a neighbourhood when I witnessed something horrifying…"

He stopped and looked a bit uncomfortable then he continued.

"To cut the story short, I won't be filling in much of the details but, yeah I guess I can say that I've witnessed something I shouldn't have."

We we're all silent but we respected Nico, especially Thalia and Luke since they don't know Nico as much as I do.

I coughed out to break the silence.

"I guess it's my turn now. Heh" I sheepishly smiled.

"Uhm, I guess my deepest darkest secret is that…" I thought about it really hard. I never told anyone about it but I guess it's time.

"I have a brother"

"You mean you're not an only child?" Luke asked.

"Well, technically, I still am but only to my parents."

They all looked at me, quizzically.

"What I meant to say is that my dad had another child with another woman."

Another silence.

"I found out about it two years ago. His name is Tyson. He's 5 years old now and he's living with my Dad at South Carolina."

They all looked at me with different expression. I never really talked about my dad. See, he and my mom got divorced when I was twelve. I know most of you will think that I hate my dad but in all honesty, I love him. He's my inspiration on pursuing my dreams of becoming a renowned swimmer. He was a swimmer when he was younger then became a Marine Biologist. He loves everything about the ocean. I would seldom visit him during spring break and we'd go fishing on the lake near his house. He got involved with another woman who died after giving birth to Tyson. I met him after a few months and I stayed the whole summer there with my mom to help dad take care of Tyson. At first, I thought they were going to get back together but I thought wrong. They're on good terms, friends even but that's that.

"Wow. We, uh… well, uhm…" Thalia said utterly.

"Okay then. Who's next?" I asked to change the topic. I really don't like talking about my dad with them though. I'm not really comfortable with it.

"I'll go." Luke said.

"Mine is that I actually almost killed my dad."

Well, this is much creepier than ghost stories. We were all agape.

"Wha—" Annabeth was about to ask when Luke raised his hands.

"It was during spring time where I have spent a summer with my dad at Italy. I just got my driver's license and we celebrated by drinking at a bar. You can say that my dad is really cool because he tricked the bouncers by telling them that I was 18 which I, by the way, looked like one before. We had a fair share of drinks but I drank more. When we were about to go home, dad suggested that we stay in for the night since we were both drunk—well, dad was just tipsy, on the other hand I was drunk."

He said as he stared in to the fire.

"I told him that I was fine so we drove off. He was still guiding me throughout the whole ride. He even offered me to let him drive, of course a prideful person that I was, I said no. We were driving past a cliff side when all of a sudden a truck which I did not see suddenly showed up in front of our car and crashed into us."

"I was less injured because I turned the wheel and the passenger side was the one that crashed the truck."

"All I knew was that my dad was in a coma for about 6 months."

"So that's why you've been away when we were freshmen back then." Thalia said giving him a sympathised look.

"Yeah, well, anyway… who's next?"

"I think we should stop…" Annabeth said in a lower voice. I can sense a different aura in her. Something felt absolutely wrong.

"Why?" Thali asked.

"Well, it's just that, what if some of us don't want to share anything huh? I mean, like what if that 'deep dark secret' is something that can ruin a person's reputation or even life?" She said, a bit yelling.

We all stared at her and I swear she was at the brink of crying.

"Is there something you want to tell us, Annabeth?" Thalia asked. Her face full of concerned towards Annabeth.

She looked up on each one of us the stood up and run. I got up and chased after her.

She was running fast, damn! She's a fast runner but I still managed to catch up on her and grabbed her by the wrist and face her to me. She was crying, really hard.

"Oh, Annabeth." I locked her inside my arms and held her tightly. Making her feel that I was there for her.

"I…can't…it's…" She said in between sobs.

"Shhh. It's okay Annabeth. It's okay." I caressed her back and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

"I just can't…bring it up…it's too…painful…" She said and I can feel that whatever her deep dark secret is, it sure as hell made her a wreck.

As soon as she calmed down, we both decided to go back to the cabin. We were a bit far from where the cabin is so we took the time to walk slowly.

I was still holding Annabeth, keeping her by my side. She stopped on her tracks which made me face her. I looked up to her beautiful face. The moonlight made her face even more beautiful. I think that word is underrated.

"Percy…"

"Yes?"

"I…"

Then with one swift move, her lips landed into my cheek.

"Thank you." She gave me a grateful smile.

"Anytime, Wise girl. I am always here for you. Remember that, okay?" I said it almost like a whisper.

I swear to the Greek gods—which by the way I learned to love ever since I've read mythological books—that Annabeth looked flushed. She… she was blushing. I look intently straight into her eyes and so did she.

"Percy, I…"

Then, much to her—and my—surprise, I planted a kiss on her flushed cheeks then I made my way to kiss the top of her nose… then at that very moment… that very beautiful moment, I cupped her face and slowly made my way down to her lusciously pink lips.

At first, I was shock with what I did, and I bet Annabeth was too, shocked but after a few seconds, she responded to my kiss. Slowly but surely, I held on to her perfectly tiny waist and made her face me. She crept her soft and wonderful hands up to my neck.

The kiss only lasted like fifteen seconds but felt like hours. It was perfect. We both pulled away from each other, catching our breath and looking flushed. We both rested our foreheads from each other.

She looked up to me, with her majestic eyes, she smiled to me.

I smiled to her. We didn't say anything, we just looked at each other knowingly and we both headed back to the cabin with hands intertwined with each other.

OH MY GODS! Hahahaha! Well, what do you guys think?

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