More Than Friends

The fight

My alarm went of at a horribly early hour. I groaned as I turned it off. But then I remembered I was meeting Annabeth soon, so I got ready and ate breakfast, and went outside to wait for her.
She came out a few minutes later. I had been listening to Believer by imagine dragons while I waited and didn't notice her at first. She tapped me on the shoulder and I passed the music as a furious blush crept onto my face.
"Whatcha listening to?" She asked.
"Imagine dragons." I replied as I handed her an earbud to listen with me. Death Valley by Fall Out Boy came on next. Annabeth gave me a thumbs up to show she liked the song and we started walking.
The earbuds caused us to walk extremely close and our shoulders were brushing against each other's. After Immortals and Roots came on, we were at school.
I was kind of disappointed, but atleast we had the class together.
I had to go to my locker first though. Annabeth waited for me and we talked about bands, but then our conversation was interrupted by the smell of sickeningly sweet perfume. Courtney Maxwell walked up to us, her heels clicking on the ground.
"Hey Percy." She said, completely ignoring Annabeth.
"What do you want, Courtney?" I asked while rolling my eyes. Annabeth seemed to be analyzing the situation and it looked like she came to the conclusion that she loathed the life size Barbie doll standing in front of us. Her nose crinkled up all cute and she glared at Courtney.
"I just wanted to ask if you wanted to sit with me at lunch." She said while twirling a piece of bleached hair around her finger. Her extremely tight dress didn't leave much to the imagination and Annabeth looked at her with distaste.
"No thanks, Courtney. I'm going to sit with Annabeth." I wrapped an arm around Annabeth and steered us away from Courtney, leaving her with a confused look on her makeup caked face.
Once we were away from her, I dropped my arm from around Annabeth.
"Sorry. It was just easier to get away from her that way."
"It's okay. I didn't mind." She grabbed my arm and wrapped it around herself again. She looked at me hopefully and I smiled at her.
Then the bell rang, telling us it was time to go to class.
Near the end of class Annabeth went to the bathroom and wasn't back when the bell rang again, so I picked up her bag and went to wait outside the bathrooms for her.
Atleast that was my plan until I saw some guys around Annabeth. One grabbed her arm and she slapped him away, but she couldn't fend of the other two at the same time.
I immediately dropped her bag and rushed over to them.
"Leave her alone!" I yelled. I hadn't realized this before, but now I say that it was Luke, a senior held back a few too many times, and two guys from the football team.
"What are you gonna do about it?" Luke sneered and grabbed Annabeth again.
I didn't even think about what I did next. All I knew is that my fist was flying towards Luke's face.
Annabeth gasped and the two goons turned on me while Luke clutched his now swollen jaw.
Luckily I had a lot of experience dodging punches from big guys because of my old smelly stepdad, Gabe, before my mom met Paul.
I got in a few punches before the taller football player hit my face. I was going to have some trouble explaining my black eye to my mom later.
Then the other one punched me in the stomach. My abs made it hurt less, but it still hurt like heck. The guys was easily fifty to one hundred pounds more than me and a few inches taller, and I'm not even scrawny. I'm six feet tall and very toned from swimming, but I don't have the bulk that they did. Needless to say, I doubled over in pain.
But Annabeth took this time to jump on the taller one's back and got her arm around his neck.
While they were distracted, I punched the guy who hit my stomach in the face.
Annabeth hopped off of the other guy and they got Luke up off the floor and walked the opposite way.
I'm immediately turned to Annabeth.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but you on the other hand..." she was right. Now that the adrenaline had faded, my hand felt like I had just punched a brick wall and my face and stomach ached.
"I'm alright." I shrugged off the pain.
"No you're not." Annabeth had a pained look in her eyes. "Thank for standing up for me though."
"Any time." I managed a smile. "But maybe I should go to the nurse, atleast to get an ice pack."
Annabeth just rolled her eyes at me with a smirk on her face, but she took my non injured hand in hers and laced her fingers with mine. I felt myself blushing as red as a tomato and her hand in mine was sending tingles down my spine.
We walked to the nurse and sat down on the chairs to wait. A minute or so later, the nurse walked out and her eyes widened when she saw us. I must have looked worse than I thought.
She got me an ice pack and asked who I got in a fight with. I told her about Luke and the two football players who were harassing Annabeth.
The nurse nodded with-was that respect in her eyes?
After a little while, Annabeth and I got out of school. She had to call an uber for us to get home since we walked to school.
The Uber driver looked at me with wide eyes as he started up the car. I was just dreading telling my mom.

When we got there, my mom was still home. "Percy? What are you do-" she stopped when she saw my face and bandaged hand. She didn't even seem to notice Annabeth next to me.
"PERSEUS JACKSON! What did you do?! Were you in a fight?!"
I quickly explained what happened for the second time today. Then my mom turned to Annabeth.
"Of course I don't blame you, dear. And Percy, that was a vey bad thing you did for a very good reason so you're not grounded. But you had better not get into any more fights!"
"Thanks Mom."
Annabeth and I headed to my room. I closed the door out of habit and we sat on my bed.
"Thanks again, idiot."
I laughed, which is incredibly painful after getting sucker punched in the gut.
Annabeth gently picked up my bandaged hand and kissed it lightly.
I could feel the blush spreading across my face for what felt like the hundredth time today.
Annabeth chuckled quietly. "You're cute when you're blushing." She said.
Is there a color redder than a fire truck? If there is, that was the color of my face. She laughed again and met my eyes.
We scooted closer on the bed and started to lean in. Our faces were two inches apart when she suddenly pulled back.
I was worried I had done something wrong. As if reading my thoughts, Annabeth spoke up.
"Sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just that-"
"You have a boyfriend?" I cut her off.
"No! It's just I'd rather go out on an actual date with you before we kiss."
"So you like me?"
"Yes. For some strange reason, Seaweed Brain."
I winked my good eye. "It's because I'm hot, right?"
She playfully hit my arm. "No. I like your personality. You make me laugh and you're incredibly sweet, even if you are extremely oblivious. And well, you are pretty hot too."
"Well then, would you like to go to dinner with me once my stupid black eye heals?"
"I would love too."