Ordinary (A Percy Jackson Story)

Chapter 4

Saying Luke wasn't nervous at all would've been a lie. He kept glancing out the window like Ethan would appear any time now and roll his eyes at them.

Bianca was just as anxious, though instead of fretting and glancing out the window like Luke, she was drawing with kids crayons on the paper place mats. Octavian was tapping his foot with both hands placed around his coffee mug that had gone cold a fifteen minutes ago.

The waitress came around giving them funny looks and refilling Luke's mountain dew.

None of them said anything as she did.

"Can I get you any thing?" The waitress asked politely.

Bianca gave her a forced smile. It was so good Luke almost thought it was real. He off-handedly wondered how many times she'd used it against the customers at Mcdonalds. "No thanks, We're still waiting for a friend. He should be here any minute, though."

The store's chime of a bell went off signaling another person coming in. All three of them looked over in hope that it was Ethan, but it was just two middle-aged guys in business suits. The first guy was wearing a black suit with a yellow tie, the other guy looked the same just with a green tie.

Luke let his shoulders fall. He checked his watch again, for the fifth time in seven minutes, and recounted the minutes. It had been at least twenty minutes since Ethan had run off. And with each passing moment Luke couldn't help but feel like something really, really, bad had happened.

Had Percy figured him out? Had Annabeth caught him? Did he get hit by a meteor from space? He'd tried calling him on the new phones that they each had but Ethan hadn't answered.

Another waitress lead the business guys towards a table in the other half of the room behind a decorative glass divider that split the restaurant into two different sections. Luke frowned as one of the guys said something to her and the woman appeared a little confused but then switched the tables to one on the same side as they were.

Bianca didn't pay them any mind and went back to drawing....Luke thought it was suppose to be a happy meal box but it kinda looked like a square with boobs. Luke took a sip of his soda so she wouldn't notice his snickering.

"If your friend isn't here in the next five minutes, I'm ordering food." Octavian grumbled half-heartedly, "I didn't eat this morning."

Luke didn't bother mentioning all he'd eaten in the past 24 hours was half a slice of cold cheese pizza. He was also really hungry. And still tired. Luke played with the condensation on his glass drawing a smiley face and a frowny face. His stomach growled.

"So I don't think I quite caught your names." Octavian said if only to distract their obvious worrying.

Bianca looked up surprised, "Huh, I guess not," She said, "I'm Bianca. Bianca Di Angelo."

Recognition flickered in his eyes, "Di Angelo, like Nico? Son of Pluto?"

Bianca let out a sorrowful sigh, "Hades, and yeah. He is...was... my brother."

Luke suddenly got a chill. He frowned looking around the store feeling like yet another person was walking over his grave. In total Luke counted there was about five families, including them. Two families on the other side, with little kids (Luke could hear a mother chastising them), and on this side there was an old senior couple stubbornly refusing to talk to each other, and the two business guys. You'd think with such a big city, there would be more people coming in to IHOP even after the lunch rush.

"Luke? You okay?"

Luke snapped back to were Bianca was looking at him. "Huh? What?"

She sighed.