that summer |percabeth au| ✔︎

"cheating is totally fine here"

c h a p t e r | 12
❝We were so beautiful. We were so tragic.❞

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"Normally when I see a woman on all fours, I don't interrupt." Percy said as he tossed his keys in the air, caught them right as I looked up from my crawl across the aqua-blue deck of the Queen of. 

I fixed him with a glare. 

"But, summer of firsts," he said quickly. "Up for a hardware store run? Maybe get lunch from someplace other than Artemis's picnic basket? That's not a euphemism. Seriously. There's only so much flavored water and finger sandwiches a guy can take."

I stripped off my yellow gloves and protective mask, offering a relieved smile. We'd been scrubbing grime and barnacles for a week straight; close quarters with Percy on this dirty little vessel had given new meaning to the phrase "cabin fever."

There was a decent hardware store on Main Street, but Percy said that the owner of Nutz-n-Boltz, a small shop tucked among the pines in the northeast part of town, was an old friend.

Right. Jessica Boltz was older than Percy by half a decade, but that didn't stop her from eyeing him with the same look I'd seen on the younger tourists at the Cove - battle weary, but always up for another fight.

"Captain Jackson." She didn't set down her magazine as we approached the counter, but the glint in her eyes told me she was watching our every move. "Been a while, sailor."

"Miss me, Jess?" Percy winked at her.

"Eh," she said with a shrug. "I could take you or leave you." She finally dropped the magazine, and her grin widened. "Enough with the mushy reunion, Jackson. What can I do you for?"

Percy opened his mouth to say something crass, but Jessica cut him off.

"No, that wasn't an offer." Her words were for him, but her eyes were on me, assessing. "Hear you two are the team to beat this summer."

"Heard right. This is Annabeth, first mate."

"Did you say first date?" she teased. "Because I'm pretty sure the Cove's never seen a lady pirate at the helm."

"Don't start, Jess," Percy said. "We're taking enough sh*t from Stoll."

"Lighten up, sailor." She gave me a polite smile, her eyes flicking briefly over the scar behind my seashell necklace before turning back to Percy. "You're not actually putting the Vega in the water this year?"

Percy nodded.

"Don't get me wrong, Jackson. You know that the girl holds a special place in my heart." She waited a beat too long before continuing. "But maybe you should put her out of her misery. Let Travis do his thing."

Percy leaned across the counter, tapped it twice. "If I let Travis do his thing, you may as well put up the For Sale sign here. Stoll has his way, you won't even recognize the Cove next summer."

"You're right," she said. "I might actually get more than three customers a week. Imagine?"

Percy's jaw clenched again, but whatever was bothering him, he stowed it. It wasn't the first time we'd encountered a proponent of the mayor's initiative. Whether it was snippets of conversation drifting from the other boats at the marina or full-blown arguments at the Black Pearl, we'd heard it all. Yea or nay, no one was on the fence. The town really was, as Katie and Candy had told me, divided. 

It seemed Jessica thought the changes - however they'd resurface the face of the Cove - would be good for business.

"Anyway." Percy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a list, slid it across the counter. "Here's what you can do me for."