Chapter 3 - Like Really, Really Smart
published: Wednesday, 29 January 2020
The bells dangling above the front door rung as they hit each other. Percy glanced up from his coffee-making to see a familiar face walk in.
It was Annabeth Chase. Her curly blonde hair was bunched up in a ponytail and she was wearing leggings, a black miniskirt, and a loose grey knit sweater over a white tank top.
After a few moments of indecision, Percy waved her over and grinned when he saw her eyes light up with recognition. It was weird seeing Annabeth and not making a point to avoid her. Percy couldn't remember the last time they'd actually spoken civilly.
"Hey," she said breathlessly. "Sorry, I thought I'd be late and ended up being five minutes early."
Percy shrugged. "It's fine. I'm almost done. Can I get you anything? On me," he assured her. She was doing him a favour by tutoring him.
Annabeth's gaze roved over the menu. She pulled a face. "It's all coffee," she said distastefully.
"Ah, we have a non-drinker," Walter announced, walking up behind Percy. Walter was the owner of the coffee shop - as named - and an old friend of Percy's mum. "Who's your date, Percy?" He extended a hand. "Walter Bruno, pleasure to meet you."
"Annabeth Chase." Annabeth looked like she was about to burst into laughter. "Yeah, I'm not his date," she snorted. "I'm not on the cheerleading team. I don't meet the requirements."
"I don't always date cheerleaders," Percy protested indignantly. "What about Reyna?"
"She's the only one," Annabeth reminded him. "Doesn't count." She chewed on her lower lip. "Do you have any tea or juice?"
Walter groaned. "Oh, come on. Let Percy make you a latte," he insisted. "I promise you'll change your mind after this."
Annabeth frowned. "Doubt it."
"I'm paying anyway, just let me choose something," Percy told her.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Fat chance." She placed a five dollar bill on the counter. "I'll have an earl grey, please. No sugar or milk." Percy took the money begrudgingly and placed in her order.
When Percy's shift ended, he hung up his apron and slid into the seat beside Annabeth. "What were you doing this morning?" he asked.
Annabeth shrugged. "Ice skating with friends."
Alarm bells started to go off in Percy's head. "You didn't-"
Her horrified expression matched his feelings. "Oh God, no. If they knew we were doing this, Jason would give me the full lecture."
"Please, Frank would go after that Valdez kid again," Percy muttered. "Hazel and I can only do so much." He pulled out a few sheets of their math homework. "Okay, so there's all this stuff that I don't get at all."
Annabeth glanced over the papers for a few seconds. "Yeah, this is pretty straightforward. It's solving algebraic quadratics. We did it in freshman year."
Percy winced. "Yeah, pretty sure I was out sick that week."
Annabeth gave him one of her looks. It was inexplicable, but Percy felt compelled to tell her the truth. "Out sick or out sick?" Her gaze flickered to where she knew the scars were on his back.
Percy shrugged. "Not sure." Oh, he remembered clearly. Gabe had come home that night drunk out of his mind from the tavern. Sally had been in a writing seminar, leaving Percy to fend for himself against Gabe's new leather belt. The old scar on his waist felt like it was opening up again.
Annabeth didn't appear convinced but, thankfully, she dropped it anyway. "Okay, so there are four ways to solve quadratics; factorising, graphs..."
Percy wondered if he could order a black coffee from Walter and how long it would take. He kind of needed the caffeine after a restless sleep last night. He'd stayed up for a bit wondering about how the whole 'Annabeth and him' dynamic. It was so complicated it made his head spin.
She seemed alright, but her friends - especially the blonde one - definitely didn't like him or his friends. The fight that erupted between them had been explosive and nearly got them suspended. If Frank or Jason Grace ever found out...
"Percy!"
Percy blinked as an exasperated voice pulled him out of his reverie. Annabeth was snapping her fingers in front of his face. "Hello?" she said. "You okay?"
Percy blushed. "Sorry, ADHD. When someone starts to talk about math, my brain kind of just switches off."
He expected her to roll her eyes, but Annabeth just rearranged the papers. "It's fine," she promised. "Not your fault."
Honestly, he was surprised. Most people got annoyed when his mind started to drift off. They didn't seem to understand that he really was trying to pay attention. His brain just didn't seem to get the message.
Annabeth started over again, and this time, Percy really tried his best to listen to what she was saying. There were graphs, factorising, and the completing of the square. Most of these terms weren't associated with anything in Percy's brain until Annabeth started to do the working out on her notepad.
Percy once again found himself distracted by the doodles in her book. There were a few scribbled drawings of flowers, probably done when class bored her, but majority of it were math equations or numbers that didn't make sense to him but probably did to her.
"You're smart," Percy said suddenly. "Like really, really smart." He pointed to the scribbles in her book. "Geez, I don't even know most of these symbols."
Her cheeks had become coloured red. "Thanks." It was kind of common knowledge that Annabeth was the smartest kid in their school, but Percy still found the things she could do pretty impressive and surreal.
Their tuition session continued like this. Occasionally, Percy would zone out, but Annabeth would pull him back in a few seconds later. She never got frustrated with him for that, which was refreshing compared to other people.
After Percy's first coffee, the caffeine started to worsen his ADHD and make him jittery, so Annabeth placed a ban on his caffeine during all hours of their tuition sessions. He'd frowned at that and tried to bargain by saying he'd fall asleep more easily.
"I doubt anyone can fall asleep more easily than you already do," Annabeth told him with a serious face, but her eyes sparkled with laughter.
It took them till 6pm to finish Percy's Math and English homework. That was a whole three hours. And those were just two of his many subjects. "I'm never going to pass high school," Percy declared as he slumped further into his chair.
Annabeth glared at him. "No negativity," she insisted, stacking and organising his papers. "Come on, you're doing really well. I mean, you've got quadratics down and nearly finished the paper on Romeo and Juliet's Act 1." She elbowed him in the side. "You should be proud of yourself. That's pretty damn good."
Percy slid her a begrudging smile. "Thank you." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "What time do you have to be home for dinner?"
She thought for a moment. "Seven."
Percy shrugged. "There's a great ice cream place in the park. Do you want to get something?"
Annabeth raised an eyebrow.
"Not a date," Percy added hurriedly. "A thank you."
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Fine. We're still splitting the cost."
When they'd hiked their rucksacks on and started making their way out of Walter's, Percy led the way to the park on the next street. He used to go to the playground there all the time when he was a kid, but ever since Gabe had come into their lives, he hadn't really had much time other than to grab a quick ice cream with Hazel and Frank.
Speaking of them...Percy's phone promptly buzzed. He pulled it out and checked the notification. "It's from Hazel," he informed Annabeth. "Asking to come over tonight."
Annabeth looked stricken. "Isn't she dating Frank?"
Percy wrinkled his nose. "Oh, gross. No, not like that. For a game night. Hazel's old-fashioned that way; she insists on playing board games at least once a week. We're all pretty bad so it's mostly a contest of who's the least worst."
Annabeth grinned. "Oh, you're lucky I'm not friends with them. I'd absolutely destroy you all at Monopoly."
"See, I know we have this rivalry of who's better at stuff, but this time, yeah, you probably would," Percy admitted, earning a laugh. When he looked up, he realised that they'd come up to the ice cream stand outside the park's main cafe.
"Oh, hey, Bonnie," Annabeth said cheerily as she approached the older woman at the cashier. She had a friendly appearance and grey streaks in her loose bun.
"Ah, Annabeth, how are you?" Bonnie returned with a smile.
"Good, good," Annabeth assured her. "I've got someone else with me today." She gestured to Percy, who chuckled in return.
Percy grinned at her. "Yeah, I know Bonnie. How's Layla?" he asked. Layla was Bonnie's dog; a beautiful border collie.
Bonnie shrugged. "She's doing okay. The old leg's been a problem, but she's been better recently." She eyed the two of them. "I didn't know you two were friends."
Percy didn't really know what to say to that. Were they even friends?
"We're in the same school," Annabeth said vaguely. "Just helping him with some work."
"It's been great chatting," Bonnie said happily, peering around Annabeth's shoulder. "But I think a line's building up."
"Oh, of course, the usual for me please," Annabeth requested politely.
Percy nodded. "Me too."
Bonnie handed them a scoop of mango sorbet and one of blueberry swirl. Percy paid for the ice cream, dragging Annabeth away before she could protest.
"You can get my coffee next time," he promised her.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I guess that makes sense." She frowned. "You'd better let me. I don't like owing people things. Makes me feel weird."
"I get that," Percy started. He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Annabeth's face. She had started eating the ice cream and had the most hilarious spot of mango ice cream on the top of her nose.
She seemed to catch on to his strange look, because she furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"
"Uh," Percy disguised a laugh under a cough. "Nothing." He rapidly whipped out his phone and snapped a picture of her, the flash going off and catching her surprised expression.
"Hey!" Annabeth said indignantly. "What-" She grabbed his phone and her mouth fell open in horror when she saw the picture. "Percy, no!" Almost instantly, she drew up her sleeve and wiped the spot off her nose, blush coating her cheeks.
Percy snatched the phone back, stumbling away between peals of laughter as he typed away at the screen.
"No! Delete that!" Annabeth protested as she sprinted after him. "I look so stupid in it!"
Unable to stop laughing, Percy showed her his screen; the photograph had been set as the picture for her contact on his phone. "You look nice," he lied insistently. In the picture, eyes were wide from the flash and her cheeks were flushed pink from the nipping icy wind.
She glowered as he pocketed his phone. "You're such a seaweed brain," Annabeth complained.
"A-a what?" Percy spluttered.
"A seaweed brain," Annabeth repeated with a glare. "Because you swim and your head has been filled with so much seaweed that you just annoy me to death."
Percy stared at her. "That made no sense whatsoever."
"Shut up," she whined, shoving him in the side.
Percy tripped over a rock, and what happened next was in terrifying slow motion. His jaw dropped in horror as the scoop of blueberry ice cream slid straight off his cone and fell onto the grass with a splat!
"No!" Percy let out a strangled cry. "Why would you do that?" He whirled around to see Annabeth doubling over with guffaws.
"Serves - you - right -" she managed, laughing uncontrollably. Then Annabeth glanced up and saw his sad puppy eyes. Except they were more like sad seal eyes.
Finally, she let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. "Oh my God, stop it, you can some of mine," she said reluctantly, holding out her cone.
Percy smirked as he ran up and grabbed a spoon from Bonnie's stall. They took their seats on a bench further out and shared the ice cream. It was like a war zone, with Annabeth flicked his hand every now and then to protect her share of the ice cream.
"Hey, you've had, like, five spoonfuls," Percy protested, his hand flinching back as she hit it away.
"It's my ice cream!"
"You killed mine!"