A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers
Annabeth, Grover, and Ariel glance at each other with concern upon hearing the title.
"Haha! Which idiot bought you food?" Ares asks with a smirk.
"You'll see," Annabeth says.
Clarisse has to stifle her laughter because she knows full well that her father is the "idiot" in question.
The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dinning car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.
"Oh, poor children," Hestia says sadly.
- Let's try to contact Chiron. - Annabeth said. - I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit.
Chiron looks at the screen in confusion because no one is speaking to him.
- We can't use phones, right?
- I'm not talking about phones.
We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, thought I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be starting at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the sky.
Finally we found an empty do-it.yourself car wash. We veered towards the stall furthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for the patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without cars, any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.
"Looking back, we really must have seemed pretty idiotic," Ariel says awkwardly.
Apollo chuckles softly at his soulmate's behavior.
"Honestly, when do you guys not look like that?" Thalia asks, raising an eyebrow.
"It's Ariel's fault," Annabeth says accusingly.
"How could it possibly be my fault?" Ariel asks angrily.
"That last situation was your fault too, at least that's how I saw it," Hermes says, feeling a sudden urge to defend Ariel.
Annabeth opens her mouth to respond, but she stays silent when she meets Athena's sharp gaze.
- What exactly are we going? - I asked as Grover took out the spray gun.
- It's sevent-five cents, - he grumbled. - I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?
- Don't look at me. - she said. - The dining car wiped me out.
I fished out my last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter, which left me two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.
"Ariel is the savior," Connor says dramatically, placing his hand over his heart.
"Your heart is on the other side," Ariel says with a chuckle.
- Excellent, - Grover said. - We could do it with a spray bottle, of course but the connection isn't good, and my arm gets tired of pumping.
- What are you talking about? - I asked.
He fed in the quarters and set the knob to fine mist. -I-M ing.
- Instant Messaging?
- Iris- messaging, - Annabeth corrected. - The rainbow godness Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for the half-bloods.
