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Inevitable

Annabeth's POV

It had been a really long time since I last saw Grover. Appearance-wise, he still looked exactly the same as he did five years ago.

He and Percy were sitting on the couch, furiously cursing at each other while they were engrossed in their current game: Mario Kart. I offered to sit out first and play later, allowing the two to rekindle their old friendship.

As I sat idly watching the two, I realised that I had not texted BM in a long while. With more time spent with Percy, I found myself less dependent on sharing my life with BM. However, I felt conflicted about the whole thing. He too had not been sending me messages. On the other hand, he was still a good friend of mine that I trusted. The least I could do was to at least meet him for a coffee or something of that sort. With that in mind, I made a mental note to send a message to him later to arrange a meetup.

As I delved deeper into thought, Percy let out a victory chant. He stood triumphantly over his defeated friend as he boasted about his superior driving talent. Grover let out a reluctant sigh and handed me the controller.

"Good luck, he's actually really good at the game," he confessed, leaving a smirking Percy waiting for me to accept his challenge.

I begrudgingly accepted the controller and took my place on the couch. Leaning back against the velvet cushions, I selected Yoshi while he selected Waluigi.

"For the memes," he said.

As we battled down Rainbow Road, I reminisced to a time when this was not a rare event but a common occurrence. Percy, giggling with glee as he fiddled with the joystick attempting to run me off the road.

Grover laughed as a few of Percy's attempts found success, managing to knock me back to the 5th position. He stood up and offered to go to the nearby supermarket to pick up some snacks for all of us.

A little over three minutes after he had left, the game ended with me winning, as usual. Percy came in at a close second place, mere seconds away from taking the lead. I did a little shimmy as I rubbed the victory in his face.

After a copious amount of laughter from both of us taking turns dancing, we collapsed back onto the couch in a sweaty heap. Well, the sweat was mostly from me. Percy barely had a bead of sweat on him. I was not sure whether that was accounted for due to his incredible physique or him being able to control water.

The jubilee ebbed away as he turned to look at me with a serious expression.

"Look, I know I have some explaining to do and I think it's time," he started.

I groaned inwardly. I was hoping to avoid the topic and just enjoy myself but I knew I was simply prolonging the inevitable. It was a bittersweet feeling. Getting closure on what I had witnessed was going to be a relief, but I did not want bad memories to resurface and take ahold of me like it once did. Nevertheless, I braced myself for what I thought were going to be the worst few minutes of my life.

"Five years ago, when you..." he paused. His voice was gentle and soothing, as if consoling a crying child. "You saw me kissing Calypso, it wasn't how you thought it was."

He took a deep breath and continued. "Leo, being the complete idiot that he is sometimes, borrowed some sort of love potion from the Stoll Brothers. They stole it from Cabin 10 wanted to try it out on someone to see if it worked."

Already, I could tell where the story was going.

"Leo didn't actually do anything wrong, he just left it on the table one day and Calypso picked it up. Due to its orange colour, she dismissed it as orange juice. Unbeknownst to either of them, I thought it was orange juice and drank it earlier too..." he explained in greater detail.