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“It's so cold,” Annabeth complained.
Percy grinned. “You’re cute.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked tartly.
He shrugged. “Well, you are. Am I not allowed to look at a pretty girl and point out how cute she is?”
“Hmph,” was all that came from Annabeth.
Her teeth clattered from the cold.
“How are you not used to the cold? You live in New York,” he pointed out.
He could see her breath.
“I still don’t like the cold. How does the cold not bother you? It’s like two degrees.”
He smirked. “The cold never bothered me anyway,” he sang.
She bit her lip to hold back her laugh but was unsuccessful. “You are so off-key.”
He stuck his tongue out.
“You’re such a child,” she accused jokingly.
“That I may be, but nonetheless I am pretty.” He enunciated the last word so it sounded like pu-uh-rih-tee.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”
“But a pretty idiot,” he reminded her.
“Unfortunately,” she agreed.
He clasped his hands to his heart. “Aw, did you just agree that I’m pretty?”
“Unfortunately,” she repeated. She stuck her hands under his gloves so they rested in the space between his hands and his gloves.
He flinched. With the long sleeves of her thick, oversized sweater that she wore underneath her coat, he hadn’t realized that she was gloveless. No wonder she was so cold.
“You’re so cold. Why didn’t you bring gloves?”
“I forgot,” she admitted.
“Here,” he said, starting to remove his gloves. “You can have mine. Sorry, I should’ve realized earlier.”
She shook her head. “Nope,” she said simply. “Keep your gloves. I like it better this way.”
“Aw,” he teased. “You like holding my hand.”
She scoffed jokingly, again biting back a laugh. “You wish.”
“Don’t deny it, Wise Girl. You know you love me.”
“Do you know that, though?”
He clicked his tongue. “Well, you might have to remind me to make sure I know.”
“Such a huge request,” she mocked. “I guess I must.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “For what it’s worth, I love you.”
“It’s worth a lot,” she told him. “I love you more, though, so there.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you, though? Do you really?”
Annabeth gave him a kiss so quickly that it could hardly be considered a kiss, bringing a large smile to his face.
“I do.”
“Hmm.” He dropped another kiss to her lips. “That’s up for debate.”
She tilted her head and gave him a teasing look. “You know you can’t win a debate against me.”
“I totally could,” he began to argue in jest but his voice trailed off as he heard Annabeth’s teeth clattering.
Her lips were quivering from the cold, and her nose was tinted red.
“You’re so cold,” he remarked.
Through shaky words, she muttered, “Well, yeah. I said that already.”
“No, seriously,” he insisted, his voice no longer teasing. “You’re freezing. Do you want to go back?”
She shook her head. “No. I like being out here with you. It’s a good date.”
He smiled softly at her calling it a date. That was what it was, and what he had intended, but it was still words he had never thought he would be able to hear from her.
“Here, take my coat,” he offered, much like the gloves moments ago. Their hands were still intertwined underneath those gloves, sharing the warmth.
She pursed her lips. “That’s okay, you keep your coat.”
Much to his dismay, she removed her hands from the gloves. As he began to protest because she was freezing and didn’t need less warmth, she put her hands in the space between his shirt and coat, much like she had with the gloves except this time there skin wasn’t technically touching.
His coat lifted slightly as she folded her arms around him. Gathering the idea, he unzipped his coat entirely while the icy cold dug through his thin sweater.
She tightened her grasp around him and rested all the way against him.
He wrapped the other shoulder of the coat around her, letting it drape across her. When he finished, he pulled it mostly closed together, and they huddled close to fit.
His coat was just enough to fit them both cozily.
“It’s so warm,” Annabeth murmured. “You’re so warm.”
“I prefer to think I’m hot,” he joked quietly.
“You are,” she agreed.
He grinned at her statement.
“I like this,” he informed her. “It’s nice having you so close to me.”
Her eyes were closed, and she looked close to falling asleep. “Yeah. It’s nice.”
He brushed his hand against her cheek, letting his thumb slowly caress it. He placed his lips against her forehead, hovering there for a moment.
This moment was the kind that he wished he could pause and hold onto forever.
“I want to marry you one day,” he told her sleeping self, closing his eyes after he said it. That was the first time he had said those words to her, although he had wanted to for so long.
She was asleep, anyway, so it didn’t matter.
“I love you,” she whispered. His eyes widened, and he was pretty sure he stopped breathing for a moment. “And I want to marry you one day, too.”
His breath caught in his throat and he attempted to put his various thoughts into words but to no prevail.
Instead, they stayed frozen in time for those precious few moments, neither saying a word. Annabeth’s breathing slowed.
“I don’t regret what I said,” he told her, leaning his forehead against hers. “I want to be with you forever.”
This time, she didn’t respond, but he would tell her that a hundred times, whispered confessions that she already knew, until she had no doubt of it in her mind.
He loved her like the sun rose in the morning, and he was sure he’d win if it was truly a contest of who loved who more.