𝟎𝟏𝟖.𝟒
Snow pelted down all around her as Juliet rushed to the cafe she was supposed to meet her fellow study group members in. Sophomore year of high school had just begun and life was already starting to look weary, as much Juliet loved science, she wished she was instead back at camp learning how to blow a monster's head up.
"Juliet, Here!" Samantha held her arm as Juliet entered the cafe and looked around before finding them.
Samantha was from her AP chem class, as well as Mike who for some reason thought he had a superior gene than them just because he came from a family full of Yale alums. The dude was irritating as hell and needed to get therapy. He scowled as Juliet took a seat infront of him and Sam, giving her the stink eye before turning up his nose at her and speaking in his nasally voice, "You're late."
"I'm never late," It was true, while usually Juliet was never to late to anything, sometimes in winter she lagged behind, she knew it had to do with her dad being lazy but Juliet had a messed up schedule in winter.
It was one day before Christmas and she wanted to be anywhere but at the cafe, but their winter chemistry project wasn't going to finish itself, and Juliet was not a slacker. She pulled her jacket away, deciding to just sit in her turtleneck and t-shirt.
Mike glanced at the graphic tee of Jeff Buckley and snickered before asking, "You like Jeff Buckley? Name five songs,"
"Name five bitches you pulled, this is gonna be hard." Juliet gave the guy an unimpressed look as he blushed embarrassment, Sam tried to conceal her laughter by a cough.
Samantha quickly intervened, trying to steer the conversation away from potential conflict, "Alright, let's focus on our project, guys. Juliet, did you bring the research notes?"
Juliet nodded, pulling out a notebook from her bag, "Yeah, got it all right here. Now, let's figure out how to tackle this project. I've got some ideas on how we can experiment with different reaction rates."
They were just about to look at the notes whenJuliet's phone on the table started ringing, it was rare case for her to get calls and even rarer when they were from Percy. She immediately picked the call up without any hesitation, "Hey, babe?"
"Uhhh are you free right now?"
She frowned at that, they talked often usually through iris messages whenever they were free, but Juliet was sure Percy wasn't supposed to be free right now, she pulled the phone away checking the time, before returning to the call ignoring Mike's meeting look, "Aren't you supposed to be going to work now? You said you had work after your English exam."
Percy had taken up a part time job, he was apparently saving up for something but kept it all hush hush not wanting to tell her. He worked his free hours at the surf station, and the pay for the job was extremely good, meaning he could help Sally out too.
"Work got cancelled, I'm actually outside the cafe right now with Mrs. O'Leary." Her eyes widened as she looked outside frantically, spotting her boyfriend standing outside and waving his hand awkwardly.
"What are you doing out there?!"
"I'll come in first,"
Juliet cut the call then, turning to her study group buddies with a slight apologetic look, "I'm sorry guys, something came up, here are my notes. Sam, you can message me my share of work right? I swear I'm sorry for this."
Mike scoffed, "Of course, I should've told Miss Kelly to not partner me up with a freeloader like you! You are such a b-"
"Everything alright?" Mike stopped himself when Percy stepped to Juliet's side, his arm coming to her waist as he gave Mike a 'try me bitch' look.
Mike was scared, and anyone would be, Percy wasn't completely jacked out but his arms were buffed up due to all the sword fighting he did with riptide, Juliet had tried to lift his sword up one time and nearly sprained her wrist, it was heavy as hell, and Percy was also a tall dude, who somehow despite his goofy ass personality had a permanent resting bitch face that nearly scared everyone, Juliet thought it. was probably Achilles's mean look that had been passed up.
"Everything's good," Juliet patted his chest while rushing for her jacket, "Mike was just telling me about how he's going to divide the work for our group project."
"Right," Percy drawled out, his no nonsense look still stuck on Mike who now had his mouth clamped shut.
"Sam, you have my number right?" Juliet questioned as Percy helped her with the sleeves of her jacket, Samantha nodded, giving a plastic file to Juliet, "Yeah, I'll text you, here's the cover page I've written, you can go over it and then we'll proceed."
"Cool, If you both are free, I'll talk to Miss Kelly, we can use the lab during the vacation then." Juliet spoke while Percy gathered all her stuff into his arms.
He was being awfully sweet today.
He'd probably fucked up big time.
"Okay, we'll let you know."
"Bye," Juliet waved them off while following Percy outside, once they were out of the cafe her eyes slid to her boyfriend who walked in extreme silence while holding her stuff, "Okay, what did you do?"
Percy's body visually stiffened as he gave out a nervous laugh not helping his case, "Well it's not that bad...."
Juliet gave him an amused look, if he said it wasn't that bad, then that probably meant nobody had died but there was still the possibility of him colossal fucking up. "Did you get expelled again?"
"Why do you always expect me to get expelled!"
"Gee, I don't know Perce, maybe it's the fact you get expelled literally every summer." He gave her the 'I'm mad at you look' but Juliet didn't care she wanted to hear what he had done, "What did you do?"
"So I met Thalia,"
"Cool, and?"
"And Nico,"
"And Presphone,"
"huh," Percy stared at Juliet as she gave him a blank look, using her hands to urge him on to tell the entire story.
"So I ended up in Presphone's garden with Nico and Thalia, and she gave us this quest to save Hade's secret sword that nobody knows about and was apparently stolen, and you know I had to help cause like we owe him for the whole reincarnation thing, man that sounded so weird saying out loud, anyways so I was trying to find the theif and it just so happened to be your bff Ethan! Had to fight him and this crazy ass titan, fucking psycho I swear, and I think some other crazy shit happened too, nearly blew something up, not sure what, but something, and then yeah, I came here to see you cause it's Christmas Eve." Juliet gave Percy a blank look as he finished his little talk.
Percy tried grinning at her, as if his smile was going to make up for the bullshit he spouted all the time.
"Perce, why the fuck are you so batshit crazy?"
Percy scratched his head, looking slightly guilty, "I mean, it's not my fault that crazy shit keeps happening around me."
Juliet rolled her eyes, "That's not an excuse, hon. You have this uncanny ability to attract trouble."
"But it's part of my charm, right?" he said with a sheepish grin.
She sighed, shaking her head, "Your charm is going to get you killed one day, Blue."
Percy chuckled, "Fucking missed that nickname,"
Juliet smiled at him then, before reaching out to hold his hand, "Come on, It's Christmas Eve and we should be celebrating,"
Percy grinned, squeezing her hand, "Celebrating sounds like a plan. What do you want to do?"
Juliet thought for a moment, "How about we grab some hot chocolate and take a stroll through the city? Enjoy the Christmas lights and festivities."
Percy nodded, pulling her to his side as they continued strolling around, the city blissfully. Trying to block out the thoughts about doomsday that usually surrounded their lives everywhere.
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬! A little fluff chapter before we dive into the last book and ultimately The Titan war. Let's enjoy the cutesy shit while we can😃😃, cause Percy about to do a 180 real soon.