Annabeth at Goode[EDITING]

Chapter 29

PERCY

"Percy Jackson, are you even listening to me?"

My head snapped up and I looked at the speaker.

"What?" I asked Annabeth.

My girlfriend sighed. "You are absolutely hopeless." She looked past me. "Look. She's torturing your sister."

"What?" I followed her gaze. Two girls were sitting on a bench not that far away from where Annabeth and I were standing. Miley was talking her head off, while Brielle looked zoned out. "Oh. Yeah. I'll go save her."

I walked away from Annabeth and over to the two girls.

"Hi Percy!" Miley chirped.

I didn't respond to her. I focused on my sister and smiled. "Brielle, wanna hang out?"

Brielle's eyes widened to the size of tennis balls. She mouthed something, but I didn't understand. Behind her, Miley pursed her lips.

"Come on," I said, taking Brielle's wrist. "We're hanging out."

I pulled her up and I pulled her away from Miley. Once we were out of Miley's earshot, Brielle hissed, "I am so going to kill you."

"Why?" I asked. "In case you did realize, I kind of just saved you from that."

"And I appreciate that, Percy," she said. "I do. But that was a really bad idea."

"Why?"

"Because." She paused to glance back at Miley, then she returned her gaze to me. "She thinks that there's something going on. Between us."

I raised my eyebrows. "What?"

"She thinks that I like you, or we're secretly dating or something. And you asking me to hang out just made it worse."

"Well I didn't know that," I mumbled.

Brielle smiled sympathetically. "Look, it's fine. I... I just don't know how I'm gonna explain it to her. 'Oh yeah, he just asked me out. But there's nothing going on between us!'"

I laughed. "Well, why don't you just go hang out with someone else?"

"With who?" she asked, pulling a water bottle from her bag and taking a sip.

I looked away from her and saw a curly-haired boy turning the corner. "There's Connor. Why don't you hang out with him? Don't you like him anyway?"

Brielle spat out some water and coughed, putting her hand to her throat. "What?!" she demanded. "Where did you get that idea?!"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It seemed like you kinda liked him..."

"Well I don't," she said, blushing. Then she cracked a smile. "But he is kind of cute."

I couldn't help but smile. "Just go hang out with him. But don't do anything stupid."

"I won't, jeez."

"I mean it."

"You're annoying when you're overprotective," she told me.

I rolled my eyes. "I love you," I said in a sing-song voice.

"Love you too!" she replied, standing on her tiptoes and kissing my cheek. When she lowered herself, her eyes grew wide.

"Shit," she said. "Is Miley still looking?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Shit. I should probably go."

I nodded as she rushed away, trying to catch up with the son of Hermes.