The Violin That Started it Again

Part 3) Chapter Seventeen

Percy Jackson

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

I wanted to faint from what would happen once we told Nico what we were talking about. I also wanted to faint from how beautiful he was, but that wasn't the point at the moment.

He stared at us with the most blank expression I had ever seen. Although, I saw a lot of empty expressions from Nico, but that wasn't the point at the moment either.

"Well?" Nico asked impatiently, glancing between the both of us.

"Nico, Percy has something to say, right?" Annabeth eyed me, and I blinked blankly.

"Woah, woah, woah, excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow at Annabeth in a sassy manner. "What am I doing?"

She rolled her eyes. She came up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. Annabeth whispered, "Just talk to him, alright?"

"Can I?" My shoulders immediately became tense from the thought of saying one word wrong.

"You can Percy. Stop being such a pussy." She walked out of the aisle before winking at me in a teasing manner.

"I am not a pussy!" I yelled at her, and then I realized there were probably five million kids with their parents at the grocery store. Oh well; they would have to hear the word sooner or later.

I turned my head back to Nico, who had an eyebrow raised in confusion, but his eyes sparkled in amusement.

"What are you doing?" Nico asked bluntly.

I chuckled nervously, flashing him a sheepish smile. "Nothing."

He narrowed his eyes. "It's like you were born and then dropped in a span of ten seconds. No wait, make that five seconds."

"My mom would never drop me!" I retorted.

He shrugged. "Then maybe you were just born like a freak."

I sighed heavily. "Well thanks for that, sexy."

And, oh look! The one word that I said to mess everything up.

I didn't mean for that nickname to go running out of my mouth like that. I swear, it was an accident! I thought I got rid of the habit of calling him that. I mean, I called him "Nico" in previous conversations right? Why did I call him that? Why?

Nico scoffed. "Still haven't gotten rid of that nickname?"

I gulped. Was he just pretending to not be mad? God, I couldn't tell. He really was the king of all liars. Was he acting? Was he actually not angry? What did I say next?

I gulped again. Maybe I was just overreacting. I've never been so worked up over anyone before. Damn, it was pretty stressful.

Just act like you would normally do, I told myself over and over again in a chronic fashion. I seemed to be getting more nervous as each second passed though, but I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart against my chest. Really, I honestly tried.

I shrugged, putting up one of my famous smiles. "I guess not huh? I thought I did, but I thought wrong."

Nico frowned, narrowing his eyes at me as if he could just sense that something was up. Instead of asking me if there was something wrong, to my relief, he just replied, "Yeah, guess not. What are you doing here anyway?"

"My mom told me to get some stuff for her since she was tired from just having--"

In a blur of black, Nico slammed his hand against my mouth. Before I could ask as best as I could why he was doing such a thing, I heard two children loudly talk about something their parent (or whoever was watching them) got. I mean, I wasn't complaing; Nico was pretty close to me, and it was very nice.

"I get it," Nico hissed. "Do you not realize how many kids are here and you're just blurting out this shit?"

"Look who's talking, shit," I snapped back as best as I could with his hand covering my mouth.

"Oh, so I'm shit now?" Nico glared venomous daggers at me, and I did the same.

Someone cleared their throat behind us, and we both whirled around to find the parent of the two children. Well, I hope it was their parent because they all looked extremely related.

Nico ripped his hand from my mouth and I rushed to say an apology.

"Sorry about that!" I smiled courteously. "We're really sorry about that. We didn't mean to do that in fron of you and your kids."

The parent smiled and nodded right before Nico grabbed my wrist and dragged me away.

Once we were in another empty aisle, I remarked, "You really don't care about people huh?"

Nico shrugged. "I've never really cared for people is all."

"If you didn't care, then why did you cover my mouth for the kids right before I said the word 'sex?'" I raised an eyebrow as Nico frowned.

"Because I thought that maybe you would've cared," Nico snapped.

I chuckled. "I guess that's true."

Nico only rolled his eyes, sighing exasperatedly.

A moment of silence came, and it was then that I realized something.

"Hey Nico?"

"What?"

"If you didn't care about anyone," I began to say, "then why did you cover my mouth for the kids? Didn't you say because you thought I would care?"

Nico's frown deepened. "What of it?"

"If you covered my mouth because I would care, then doesn't that mean you care about me?"

Even if it was the lightest tint I had ever seen, I could still see Nico's blush. It made me just a bit happy that he would still turn red at somethinf I would say, even if it aas just something that I pointed out. For the first time in a long time, I actually felt pretty smart.

Nico gritted his teeth. "Why did you suddenly get smart?"

I chuckled, shrugging. "Who knows?"

He rolled his eyes at me once again. "So," he started, "are you planning on dating anyone else now that Caly's gone?"

I smirked. "You know I'm still trying to win you heart back."

Nico shrugged. "You know you've already won it back right? You've just got to try a little harder to make my grudge against you in the back of my mind disappear."

I frowned. "When will that be?"

"When you figure out a way where I can trust you again," Nico stated before he walked away and out of the aisle.