Finding Home

Chapter 24 - A Date?

Percy POV

I laid on my bed a month after the party, groaning in frustration. Silena sat beside me, having a one-time pass into my room.

"Percy, you need to let yourself love again," she was saying. "It's the only way to heal."

"I swore off love, Lena," I argued.

"Not with a binding oath. Come on, you know you love Loki. Just say something to him."

I turned onto my side to face her. "He would never love me, Silena. I'm broken. He deserves better than me."

"Percy! You are not broken! Just because you are hurt and still healing, does not make you broken. You'll never know if he loves you or not unless you talk to him about it! Just ask him out!"

"What if he just says yes because of who I am, Lena? You know how he is around me. He always acts like I'm going to smite him if he says something wrong! Ugh! I hate Odin!" I flipped back down onto my bed.

Her voice softened. "He wouldn't do that."

"It happened with Lockner. I don't want to do the same thing to him."

Her eyes blazed. "Who is this Lockner and what did they do to Loki?"

I winced, forgetting that we hadn't told the team. I told her what happened in as little detail as possible.

She growled in anger. "I'm going to kill him!"

I shrugged. "Fine by me. He's in cell 985."

She took a deep breath. "Percy, you aren't anything like Lockner. You aren't forcing him to do anything, you're just asking him out on a date."

"No, I'm not," I denied. "He deserves better than me. Play matchmaker with someone else, Lena. I'm not going to do it."

She sighed heavily and stood. "Fine. Be self-destructive and push him away. Just know that when you finally come to your senses, it might be too late."

She left the room and, once she was gone, I turned and screamed into my pillow. I knew I wanted him. I wanted him so much that it hurt. I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss him. I wanted to know love again. But I couldn't. It would only end in heartbreak for both of us, and I don't think I could take that again. Loki didn't deserve that.

Once I had let out all my emotion, I pressed my communicator to call Jamison. "Bambi? How are things going?" I asked.

"The male caretaker is a jerk. Anyways, could we have some money? We need to buy proper food, and Nolan can't keep paying all the time. He paid last time before I realized he was doing all the shopping. We told him we had jobs in a kitchen downtown. He was looking rundown and we wanted to help, so we offered to do the cooking. We had to come up with a cover story for that too."

"Has that man hurt you?" I demanded.

"No! No, he just doesn't take care of the kids."

I took a deep breath. "I'll send you the money through your pouch. You do have that, right?"

"Yeah, thanks James. Tell the boss thanks too. Charlie and I appreciate it."

I assumed that someone had walked in and he had to use his cover. I changed my voice and said, "Will do. We just want what's best for our two top chefs."

"Are you sure you have the right set of twins?" he joked.

"Wow," I heard someone whisper in the background. "I didn't know Michael could talk so much."

I chuckled. "Listen, Mikey, I've got to go. Dorris messed up the soup again. I'll call you again soon, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks James."