Annabeth:

It had been a week since my date with Percy and I was honestly okay with that. I wasn't rushing to get back into a relationship with him or become best friends again. At the moment I had Daphne and myself to look after.

Besides Percy, I had gone on one other 'date' this month with this guy that was a fellow architect.

I meet Daniel or Dan as he liked to be called, last year at a convention for architects. He currently resides in Sacramento, but occasionally he'd came down to visit friends in the Bay Area. And by friends I mean just me for the casual hookup to help release pent up frustrations.

This past weekend was no different as Dan and I met at a hotel far away from my neighborhood in Noe Valley. Daphne was being watched by Bobby and Matthew for fast cash and I was physically busy and mentally distracted by the current events in my life.

I mean I had a chance encounter with the man I once loved more than life itself and I didn't truly know how to feel about it. I mean should I be appreciative to the universe or curse the gods for making us cross paths.

I was in the middle of pulling my pants back up trying to zip and button them when Dan started his usual tirade of 'why don't we make this official' take.

"I mean this, this works for the most part." He said while gesturing between us.

This wasn't the first conversation about this and I doubted that this would be the last. I'll admit the sex was good and he was intellectually my type but it didn't feel right at the time.

"Because I have a lot going on right now." I said.

Dan's face looked sour at my statement.

"Is it because of Daphne? I know you said she's shy but I'm great around kids."

"No, it's not." I said while I grabbed my purse fully prepared to leave Viz Valley and head back home.

"Annabeth." He said while grabbing my wrist.

"Please. I'm begging Annabeth. I want this to go somewhere."

"Maybe." I said.

Dan's eyes got a light glow in them.

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"How does 50 each sound?"

Both Matthew and Bobby looked at each other silently contemplating my offer for watching their niece. By the time I made it home Daphne was asleep on the couch with a Disney movie playing in the background.

"We were actually planning on going to a concert with the money." Bobby said looking past me.

"And 50 would put us 25 dollars short. Each." Matthew said while looking dead at me.

Out of the two of them, Matthew was always the one to look you in the eyes while requesting something. Bobby on the other hand couldn't look someone in the eyes to save his life.

I reached into my purse pulling out more money to hand over to the boys and spilling different little items while trying to gather 50 dollars. The twins were trying to help gather the contents of my purse not complaining about the extra pick up job.

"Why didn't you ask dad for concert money?"

"Because, it's not a concert in San Francisco. It's in Vegas. You know dad. He doesn't really like the idea of us leaving the city let alone the state." Bobby sounded so disheartened in his last sentence.

The boys were seniors in high school both over eighteen and although I ways allowed to do basically anything to survive; the boys weren't. They weren't demigods with monsters and Gods trying to kill them at every opportunity. They were just boys that dad didn't want any harm to come to.

"So, does your mom know?" I asked.

"Yes and no. She knows we're buying tickets but we haven't told her where the concert is." Matthew said.

"So, I'm the fall guy who gave you the money."

Matthew just gave a small smile while Bobby nodded until Matthew slapped his arm.

As much as I disliked these two growing up they had grown on me in recent years and were just as hard to say no to as Daphne. I gave them the extra cash sending them on their way as I started to put the contents of my purse back inside it.

First it was the lip balm, then the various toys of Daphne's I carried around, and finally the business card that had a choke hold over me.

While I still didn't remember setting up a date with him. my phone logs told a different story.

Ding

My phone alerted me to a new text message and then another. I picked it up fully expecting it to be one of the twins asking to let them back in as they had a bad habit of leaving things at my house. Instead I flipped my phone over to see texts from Percy asking me if now was a good time.

Honestly. It wasn't, but curiosity got the best of me asking him what was wrong.

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Author note: this was really more of a filler chapter. Sorry.