It's getting harder to deny that Percy is pretty much unofficially her boyfriend at this point.

They hang out after school, text, call and, of course, kiss. Despite all of that, they still haven't entirely discussed what they are, and Annabeth knows that she should probably bring it up at some point. But it's surprisingly difficult to get herself to mention it.

She's, once again, dwelling on the topic when he appears by her side in the middle of the hall during a passing period.

"You, me, mall after school," he says quickly.

She's barely managed to get an "Okay" out before he leans down for a quick peck. Then he's off down the hall leaving her with seconds before the passing period ends with a blush on her cheeks wondering if anyone saw him do that.

Another trend is how much more brazen he's been about them lately, with frequent touches and flirting. She doesn't think people generally think anything of it, but in the friend group it's so obvious that Leo doesn't even have to make jokes about it anymore.

Annabeth manages to slip inside the classroom just in time, mind still stuck on Percy and wondering why he chose the mall. (Then again it is getting really close to winter break and too cold to really hang outside.)

Per usual, he shows up by her locker after school.

"Ready princess? He asks but doesn't wait for a reply as he grabs her hand and starts to pull her towards the exit.

"Sure," she replies, stumbling a bit at the quickness of his pace. "But why are we going there?"

"I want ramen."

"And," he says, shooting her a sideways glance. "you."

Outwardly, she shakes her head, but internally she feels the telltale giddiness she's come to associate with Percy.

Percy is bouncy on the car ride, somewhat distractedly trying to hold a conversation while asking about her day.

She's beginning to think that something is up, there's more to this than ramen, but she doesn't say anything.

They get to the mall and Percy reaches for her hand.

"Ready?"

It's the second time he's asked her that, and she's not sure what she needs to be ready for.

"Yeah, you okay?" she asks, unable to help herself.

He shoots her a quick glance. "Yeah, why are you asking?"

She just shrugs, trying to play it down after noticing how he reacted. "Nothing, you just seem…jumpy."

"That's cause my heart is racing from being around you," he says with a grin. A sentiment that would have been sweet is he hadn't delivered it with such dramatics.

"Sure…" She rolls her eyes.

They start walking towards the food court, Percy once again scanning the shop windows and Annabeth once again watching him.

They slow down by the store with the purse he had looked at the last time they were here.

Suddenly, it clicks with Annabeth why he'd been acting so strange.

"Hey, can we go in here?" she asks, startling him. "There's a cute sweater I want to see."

She points to the mannequin inside the store wearing a deep burgundy sweater.

As she expected, Percy nods. She lets go of his hand and walks straight to the row of sweaters, parsing through the designs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Percy begin to follow her, then stand awkwardly for a second, before wandering away over to the purse.

She doesn't look at a single sweater she touches, her mind running a mile a minute as she pieces together everything.

Percy had wanted to look at the purse, with her specifically. The purse that he was thinking of getting for his mom, which is why this is a huge deal since Percy is tight lipped about his family and home life to an extreme.

A part of her softens as she realizes that this is him trying. Even if it's a small thing, and he's kind of fumbling, at least he's trying.

She notices him walking over and immediately picks up the first sweater she lays her hand on.

"What do you think?" she asks, holding it up.

Percy looks at it. "Isn't it too big?"

She realizes in her haste she's picked up two sizes up. "Oversized is a thing you know."

"Right... well, I prefer skin-tight if you know what I mean."

She rolls her eyes and puts the sweater back. "What have you got there?"

He's holding the navy-blue purse he's been looking at. He holds it out to her.

"What, um…what do you think of this?"

The anxiety on his face is apparent. She takes it from in and examines it.

"Good size," she says, zipping it open. "And a lot of pockets, which is good. I like this inner one here," she points it out to him. "Overall," she concludes her examination. "I like it. Pretty color too."

Her somewhat clinical overview of the purse seems to calm him down. "Oh, cool…um…"

"You wanted to get something for your mom right?" she prompts, hoping he'll go along with it.

"Yeah, you think that's a good gift?" he finally says.

She nods. "Yeah, at least I would like getting it so I'm sure she would too." She hands it back to him.

"Okay, cool, um, then I'll get it."

"Great, let's go then." She starts to head towards the counter.

"What about your sweater?" he asks, falling into step beside her.

"They don't have my size," she lies. "And a certain someone told me he doesn't like oversized."

Her teasing elicits his first smile in a while. She considers it a success.

"I mean, it can be good. If you're wearing nothing else…" He says, just as someone is walking by.

"Percy!" she pushes him lightly and he laughs.

"What, just thought I'd get it clear."

She shakes her head as they get in the line.

"Is this what you came here to buy?" she asks, once again broaching the conversation.

Percy stiffens a little. "Yeah," he relents. "I need something for her birthday."

"Oh, when is it?" she asks, absently looking at the assortment of small things, clustered around the line.

"Next Saturday."

"That's nice! Well I think you chose well. It's very pretty."

"The color is what caught my eye."

She looks at the bag in his hands. "The dark blue?"

"It's my favorite color."

She didn't know that. "Mine is green," she offers, definitely not thinking of his eyes.

"That's my mom's favorite color too."

Annabeth shoots him a smile. "She has good taste. Why not get her a dark green purse then?"

Percy is also looking at the random things, strewn about. He reaches to touch a scrunchie.

"Blue is kind of our thing, she always gets me blue stuff ever since—"

He freezes as if realizing what he was saying.

It's the most he's shared about his mom, or his family in general but clearly, he's approached a sensitive line.

She doesn't say anything, just throws him a quick glance and gives him the space to say something if he wants.

It looks like he has to force out the words. "since my dad died." He mumbles them so fast she almost doesn't catch it.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says. "It's cool you and your mom have a color thing. I don't really see my mom that often."

It's not something she really wants to talk about but the switch of the conversation about her seems to help him.

"Why?"

She shrugs. Honestly it doesn't really bother her as much as it used to. "My parents are divorced and she lives far away. I only see her every few months or so."

Percy looks at her as if he's seeing her in an entirely new light, and that, more than anything, makes her squirm.

"I'm sorry."

She shrugs again. "It's whatever, I'm used to it. Also my step-mom is nice enough."

He just nods. Thankfully, the cashier calls him up, so she leaves him to go ring up and drifts towards some of the other clothing racks in the area.

She's perusing some cardigans when an employee around her age walks up to her.

"Hi, can I help you with anything?" he asks a little to intently. She forces a smile and shakes her head.

"No thanks, I'm good."

"Are you sure?" he presses. "We have more cardigans in the back too. I mean you already look good but if you wanted more options—"

"I'm good," she repeats, starting to move away. Can this guy get the message?

"Oh come on—"

His words fall short the same moment she feels a hand on her back.

"Maybe you didn't hear her," Percy's stern voice comes from behind. She spins around to see him glaring at the employee. "She doesn't need your help."

"So," he continues, clearly mad. Automatically, her hand comes up to rest on his chest, as if that would calm him down. "I suggest you back away from my girlfriend."

Her heart stops at the words. Her hand drops and she just stares at him.

The employee mumbles something unintelligible and walks away and Percy grabs her hand to pull her out of the store.

"The nerve of that guy," he's saying under his breath, but all Annabeth replays over and over again is Percy calling her his girlfriend.

"You okay?" he asks, finally noticing her silence.

"Hmmm," she replies, still in somewhat of a daze. "Yeah."

"You sure? You seem out of it. You didn't actually…want to keep talking to that guy right?"

She turns sharply at the words. "Of course not!"

Is she crazy or does Percy release a breath at that? "Okay good."

"Just…" she tries to find the words. "Just haven't seen you jealous in a while," she ends up teasing.

Percy makes a face. "I wasn't jealous."

That just makes her smile wider. "Sure you weren't…it's why you were glaring daggers at him."

"I wasn't—"

"You're cute," she says cutting him off, leaning up to give him a peck on the lips.

Before she can walk away though he grasps her hand and pulls her closer. "Maybe," he says in a low voice, leaning in. "We should take this somewhere more private."

If he would have said those words a month ago, she would have rolled her eyes and blushed. Now she blushes and can't help but agree.

-.-

Her giddy excitement for seeing her boyfriend the next day wanes when he doesn't show up to her locker in the morning. In fact, she doesn't see him at all until math class when he stomps in with a frown on his face.

He barely passes her a glance as he sits down, immediately pulling out his phone.

"Hey," she says tentatively, suddenly extremely unsure about her position with him. Had he just said that yesterday to get the guy to back off?

He nods at her, acknowledging her hello but doesn't say anything. She frowns at him.

"What's up?" she presses, determined now to actually get a response. How does he go from calling her his girlfriend to practically ignoring her the next day.

He mumbles something unintelligible.

"What?"

He looks up from his phone to glare at her. "Why do you want to know?"

The annoyance in his tone is palpable and just serves to make her madder. "Forget I asked," she shoots back, immediately turning away from him.

Whatever he might have said is cut off from class starting. The entire time Annabeth doesn't look his way even once.

Fuming, she takes down notes while a thousand thoughts run in her head. Why is Percy always like this? Fine one day and then the next… clearly something had happened and he's just refusing to tell her about it.

Instead, he's taking it out on her.

Well, less so than before, but still, his tone wasn't great and all she'd done was ask a simple question.

At some point during the class her anger turns to hurt which is even worse. She tries her best to just focus on the math as a distraction from the mess of emotions in her head.

They get the last five minutes as free time to work on the assignment and she puts her head down and gets two and half problems in before the bell rings.

She's decided to just get up and leave without talking to him again, but he stops her as she's about to walk out.

"Annabeth." Once again, the use of her real name stops her. He looks regretful. As he should.

"Listen I'm…I didn't mean…"

He's stumbling through an apology but on her right she sees Rachel looking their way. "It's fine," she says quickly, cutting him off and turning to walk out of the room.

She doesn't want to do this in front of others cause she's not really sure if her and Percy's relationship is actually public and also she does have a class to get to.

By the time lunch rolls around she's entirely focused on working out a physics problem with Leo when she vaguely feels a presence next to her.

"No but wouldn't the force be coming from this direction?" she posits as Leo and her lean over the problem.

"Well following the right-hand rule…" Leo starts to work out the problem and after a few minutes the two have finally reached an answer.

"Hell yeah, thanks Leo!" She meets his hand in a high-five, wide grin on her face from finishing the problem, only to have it disappear when she turns to see Percy sitting next to her with a frown.

She turns back to her lunch, unsure of how to deal with him.

"Hey," Percy hisses by her side, poking her to get her attention.

"What?" she replies quietly, meeting his eyes.

"Stop ignoring me."

"Me! You were ignoring me earlier." She can't believe him.

"Well, I didn't mean to." He whispers back.

"You did."

"I was in a bad mood."

"I'd say you still are," she fires back.

"I apologized!"

"I said it's fine!"

"And then you ran away like I was poison."

"I had a class to get to!"

"Right."

This argument is really getting them nowhere. She takes a breath trying to reel it back in.

"It's fine, really…plus, earlier, Rachel was looking our way and I didn't think you'd want…" she drifts off unable to finish the sentence.

"Oh."

"Yeah," she sighs, deflated from the whisper argument. "So it's fine."

Percy just looks at her, searching her eyes for something. Finally, he sighs too. "Okay."

"Okay."

And with that she turns back to her food feeling a little better but still weird. They haven't really fought like this in a while and it's different fighting with him as a boyfriend.

But everything is fine, and she knows she just needs to get over this slight hiccup. So, she focuses on the conversation at hand and gradually forgets her mood.

The end of the lunch period finds her at a better place and Percy shoots her a small smile as he walks away.

Now that her own feelings are sorted, it occurs to her that she didn't ask why Percy was in a bad mood, or what caused it.

She asks him first thing after school when he appears by her locker.

"Just…didn't get much sleep."

"Oh…I'm sorry," she replies, surprised to hear that answer as the reason. Then she gets the strangest flashback to a few months ago at Jason's party during that night she slept in the same room as him, his nightmare.

Hesitantly, she continues. "Did you have a nightmare?"

Percy physically jumps back half a step at her words, and she immediately regrets it, wondering if she's pushed some line. But then again, her brain reasons, at some point you'll have to know if you're dating.

If he's really her boyfriend, then has to let her in at some point.

"Why…Why would you ask that?"

"Cause it's a common reason to get bad sleep?" she replies and sees Percy's shoulders relax. "Plus, you had a nightmare that one other time too."

And again, those shoulders are stiff and he's wary. Feigning nonchalance, she shuts her locker and adjusts her backpack.

"So I just thought maybe that was it," she finishes.

He's quiet, clearly reeling from her words, his posture stiff. "Yeah, something like that," he finally mumbles.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear it, maybe some food will help?" she suggests, walking towards door.

He follows beside her, clearly a little confused from what had to feel like a little whiplash. "Uh, yeah."

She resolutely starts walking towards the door, heart thumping from navigating the sensitive territory as he lags a half-step behind.

"Where do you want to go?" she asks, once they've hit the chilly air. It's the last days of November and winter is officially here.

Realizing he hasn't answered, she turns back to look at him. "Well?"

Percy looks half caught between retreating back in his shell and being with her. Well he's not going to pull back from her again, not this time.

She grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers and all but pulls him to her car.

"Woah, why so rough?" he comments, following along.

She smirks at him. "I thought you could handle a little roughness."

Percy's eyes widen in surprise and she's personally proud of catching him off guard. Bur before he can respond she just drops his hands and gets into her car. A second later, Percy appears on the passenger seat.

He's still staring at her, some mixture of surprise and something else she can't place but she finds herself starting to squirm under the gaze.

"So food," she repeats. "Where do you want to go?"

"Wherever you want, I don't mind," he answers, proving to be entirely unhelpful. She starts driving just to have something to do.

"That's not helpful," she points out. "You need to choose, direct me."

"Easy," he says leaning back. "Your mouth, here." He points to his own lips. "My hands, there." He gestures towards her. "And your hands on—"

"That's not what I meant!" she cuts in, cheeks heating up at his words. She doesn't think she can hear Percy finish the rest of that sentence.

Percy, being the jackass that he is, just busts into laughter and she finds a second at a stoplight to lightly swat at him.

"Stop it!" she says, unable to stop the smile on her face. Whatever the tension was, it's officially diffused.

He catches her hand the next time she tries to swat at him and holds it.

"McDonalds," he finally replies. "I want a Big Mac."

At least he made a choice, and just in time too. She turns into the parking lot.

"Let's go inside," she says as she parks. "It's cold."

"I can think of way to keep you warm," Percy smirks at her and she can also think of many ways. Which is exactly why they should go inside.

She grabs his hand again, rolling her eyes and hoping he can't read her thoughts. "Let's go."

Maybe it's because she's staring at the menu when they walk in, she doesn't realize who's at the counter.

"Percy."

She looks across from her to see the girl at the register who she's now recognized as their classmate Amy Barns.

Percy's ex.

"Amy," he replies with more ease than she would have thought. "Nice to see you, I'll get a big mac and fries and…" he pauses to look over at her.

She can't really think of anything food at the moment. All she knows is that Amy is his ex and is looking between her and Percy.

"And a vanilla shake," he finishes, turning back.

He pays and walks over to the side, as she follows numbly beside him her mind running a mile a minute.

The shake arrives first, which he hands to her, and she automatically sips just to have something to do. Once he gets the food, he leads them to the furthest table.

"You want some fries?" he asks, unwrapping his burger. She shakes her head, still stunned that of course of all the people to run into it has to be his ex.

"Hello? Why aren't you talking?" he asks, nudging her lightly with his leg.

"That's your ex."

Percy shrugs. "So?"

"So? So she's, I mean, your…" she fumbles, not sure how to explain what she's feeling.

"I mean she's not the first so…"

Right. Player Percy. God, how could she have ever forgotten.

"No she's your fifteenth or something," she mumbles under her breath, a mixture of jealous and upset.

Percy puts down his food mid bite to raise an eyebrow at her.

"Do you really think I've dated fifteen people?"

"No, well, I mean, I don't know, you're always dating people," she crosses her arms, refusing to meet his face because all of a sudden the gap between their love lives is bigger than ever before. Of course, Percy has to be her first anything.

"Two, I've dated two people." He says.

Her jaw drops. Impossible. He has to be joking with her or something. She's heard—

As if he can read her thoughts he smirks. "Rumors and flirting aren't the same thing as dating."

She can't get over the fact that everything she thought she knew about him and girls wasn't true.

"Really?"

"I mean, three, if I count…" he looks at her and she flushes for no good reason.

To stop herself from saying something stupid like 'third time's a charm' she frowns.

"So you're just a flirt."

"And you love it baby," he replies, winking at her.

She hates that he's not entirely wrong. Their relationship literally started with a game of chicken.

"Shut up and eat," she mumbles, and he laughs.

And though she's flustered and embarrassed, a part of her can't help but smile at his laughter, how relaxed he looks now compared to how tense he was earlier.

She's not quick enough to school her expression though because he catches her looking, meets her eyes and the laugh morphs into one of those sweet smiles he sometimes gives her.

The kind of smile that makes her heart race for a reason she doesn't think she can bring herself to name just yet.

A/N: A really long chapter to make up for the fact that I missed last week's update, I hope you guys liked it! It's a bit more serious with them working more of their shit out but hey we got some big developments in this one!

My goal is to have another chapter out on Dec. 27, since I update every other week so I'll see you here then!

Please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

And as always, thanks for reading!