Bruises | Solangelo | Mortal AU

Chapter 5

"WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?" I yelled at myself in my mirror.

"YOU LOOK GOOD IN ANYTHING!" Nico yelled from the living room.

I immediately blushed and felt embarrassed because I didn't mean for him to hear my frustrations. It has been 20 minutes since I came into my bedroom to get ready for our date. Our date. Oh, my gods. That felt awesome to say. I smiled to myself and took another look at the pile of failed outfits on my bed. I texted Piper. She could help with this stuff, she was practically Aphrodite's kid.

Piper

Me: I need help! 911!

Piper: Did your dick break? Because I can't help with that again.

Me: Again?? What? Piper, no. First, my dick never broke?? Second, I'm going on a date and I need help picking an outfit.

Piper: Ohhh, okay. That I can help with. Who's the lucky guy?

Me: Um... Not telling?

Piper: Then I'm not helping.

Me: Fine... It's Nico.

Piper: Ohmygods, Jason is going to be so happy that his OTP got together!

Me: What does OTP even mean?

Piper: Tell you later. What are your options?

;;;

After about 10 minutes of Piper harshly judging everything I own and declaring that we needed to go shopping sometime, she finally picked out an outfit for me. A yellow and white striped t-shirt with a collar, my favourite blue jeans, and my yellow Converse. She told me to put on a little blush but I ignored that part because I knew I would already be blushing way too much.

I walked out of my bedroom and Nico was waiting by the front door. He was wearing a black leather jacket, with a white shirt (I didn't even know he owned white), black skinny jeans, and black high tops with his skull ring on his middle finger. He had black eyeliner outlining his eyes. "Woah," I started. "You look hot."

He tried to hide his smile and I turned pink realising what I had just said. "You don't look so bad yourself, la mia luce. Shall we go?"

"Yeah, I'm driving."

I held open the front door for Nico and we walked out to the car. When we got to the car, I opened Nico's door for him and he looked at me weird like I was planning a prank and he knew about it as he sat in the passenger seat.

We didn't talk for most of the way there, but that was okay because this was a comfortable silence. I was smiling to myself again and Nico slapped my chest. "Ow! What was that for?" I said glancing at him.

"For smiling like a doofus and making me blush." This only made me smile bigger. "Stop it!" he half-yelled while laughing.

"I can't help it!" I defended, shrugging.

He slumped back in his seat staring out the window. I could tell he was trying to practice not smiling... And he was failing.

;;;

"I thought you were kidding." We pulled into the restaurant parking lot about five minutes ago. Nico realised where we were once we were inside.

"I did it just to annoy you." We were seated and the restaurant was only lit by candles and soft lights.

He rolled his eyes and picked up his menu. After a few minutes, the waitress came by. "What can I get you, you two beautiful gentlemen?"

"I will have the vegetarian lasagna with a Diet Coke," I said.

Nico looked up from his menu. "I will have a water and the shrimp pasta. Thank you." The waitress jotted down our orders and took our menus.

"I thought water wasn't your type?" I said mimicking Percy.

Nico buried his face in his hands. "Not you too! I swear, you get one crush on of the captain of the swim team and you people just blow it out of proportion."

I laughed and he stuck his tongue out at me.

;;;

We were halfway through our meal when someone walked over to our table. "What do we have here?" He was blonde and looked like a Californian. He was decently attractive... He had a huge scar that stretched across his face and rippled when he spoke.

"Oh... Hey," Nico said quietly. He looked like he wanted to shrink away from the universe. The blonde smiled at Nico and cleared his throat. Nico shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "...Sir," he whispered. The blonde looked satisfied.

"Well, you guys are certainly an adorable couple." He winked at me and clapped his hand on Nico's shoulder.

Nico grimaced and winced. Like he trying to hide a lot of pain. The blonde smiled at us and strolled away. I raised my eyebrows and Nico asking for an explanation. "That's Luke. He works at the shelter. He has this weird thing where everyone has to call him 'sir', it's stupid really."

"What happened to his face?" I asked.

"Gangs. He turned his back on his leader and they gutted him like a fish."

"Ew."

"Yeah, ew. Anyway, let's not let him ruin our dinner. This is our night." Nico reached across the table and took my hand in his freezing cold one.

I forced a smile and nodded. We had a good time but something in the back of my mind was whispering that something was off about Luke.

;;;

I paid and we left. The drive home was pretty much the same but with less hitting. When 'Here Comes the Sun' came onto the radio I turned it up and smirked at Nico because I knew he disliked the happy-go-lucky songs that I liked. I think he secretly loved them because he just glared at me but left the radio alone which was a very un-Nico thing to do.

We got home and I opened Nico's door for him. "I can open my own damn door, Solace," he said and swatted my shoulder.

I just stupidly grinned and locked arms with him. When we got inside he called that he was going to take a shower and left me standing alone.

I got dressed in my pyjamas and went to brush my teeth. I knocked and walked in. "Hey, Neeks. Sorry I just have to..." I voice trailed off as I saw Nico in front of me. "...What the fuck?" 

Nico turned around with tears in his eyes. "Will..."