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The apartment is almost pitch black, which is impressive for eleven o'clock in the morning. Annabeth shuts the door behind her not quietly and turns on every light switch she walks past, casting light into the place whether it wants it or not. She marches straight across the vast open plan living room and unceremoniously barges into the bedroom.
He’s asleep, of course. The band have been practicing into the early mornings for the past month. He’s lying on his back with the sheets pooled at his waist, hair everywhere, drool on his chin. Percy Jackson, rockstar. The man she’s been dating for the past four months. He doesn’t even twitch at Annabeth’s entrance. In fact he doesn’t startle awake until Annabeth snaps the curtains open and slams his door shut. He sits up in bed, winding his arms around and looking almost adorably startled. Almost.
“Wha-”
“Calm down, Jackie Chan. It’s just me.”
Percy rubs his eyes sleepily and blinks at her. “Annabeth,” he sighs. “What’s wrong?”
She drops the item she’d had clenched in her fist in his lap. Percy stares at the glossy magazine cover for a moment before he looks up at her, confused.
“I don’t understand.”
She leans over and jabs her finger at the image in the bottom left corner of the cover. Of a tall man wearing a black leather jacket and torn jeans with his arm around the shoulders of a woman dressed casually in jeans and a vest top. He’s kissing the side of her head in an affectionate moment. A private moment.
“Oh shit,” Percy says. “I guess our secret’s out.”
“Yeah,” she says harshly. “I guess it is.”
He frowns up at her. “Wait. You’re mad.”
“Thank you for finally catching up.”
He scowls, rubbing one hand through his awfully messy hair. It’s terrible, that mess of obsidian black. Every time she sees him Annabeth tells herself she won’t wind her fingers into it but she does, every single time. Terrible.
“I just woke up. Gimme a break.”
Annabeth doesn’t want to give him a break. She doesn’t want to give anything a break. She’d walked past a newspaper stand this morning and seen an image of herself plastered across the front of one of those awful magazines. A photo of her hanging out with her boyfriend where she’d thought they’d been alone. But they hadn’t been. Privacy invaded. Under the radar relationship put in the open. Exposed. No going back.
“Hey,” Percy says in a softer voice. “Come here.”
He stretches out a hand which brushes her wrist and Annabeth wants to be mad at him, even though this is hardly his fault, she wants to direct that anger somewhere. But instead she falls for him, every time. The crease of worry between his eyebrows, the wide pleadings of his eyes and gentle touch on her skin. He destroys her self control.
Annabeth tumbled onto the bed, scootching up and leaning against the pillows as Percy faces her. He’s shirtless, she takes a moment to appreciate, leaving the black thread holding his father’s wedding ring hanging low on his chest. He watches her with concern, hand still holding onto her wrist.
“I liked our secret,” she says eventually.
“I know. I did too.”
“I threw my phone down the toilet.”
He chokes. “You did what?”
She frowns defensively. “It wouldn’t stop pinging. Suddenly everyone in New York wants to be my friend.”
“You couldn’t just turn it off?” His voice is teasing along with the arch of his eyebrow.
“It was annoying me.”
He gives her a small smile which she hopes is him thinking her irrational burst of stupidity is endearing rather than childish. Then his face falls and his gaze drops to the comforter.
“I’m sorry. This is all because of me.”
“Yes. It is.” She tips his chin up with one finger. “But I knew you were a famous rock star when I started dating you, Percy.”
He cringes. “I wouldn’t say famous.”
She has to laugh. “Right. We’re on the cover of that magazine because of my thriving florist business.”
He looks up at her through those long lashes and offers a small smile. “It’s entirely plausible.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He leans forward and kisses her neck. “And you’re amazing.” He sits up again. “And you don’t need all of this. I won’t blame you for walking away.”
She flicks his chest. “What, you’re not even going to fight for me?”
His smile is sadder than she’d wanted it to be. “I’ll fight for you with my last breath, but I don’t want to fight you.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs. “I bring a lot of baggage and I get it if it’s too much.”
She watches him a moment. With his chin ducked and his lip bitten between his teeth, he’s so far from the brooding, angry punk the label paints him to be. He thinks he’s not worthy, somehow, of all of this, of her. He’s thinks he’s not worth the trouble.
Annabeth grabs his face between her hands, pulling him up, and surges forwards to kiss him. He groans a little, probably with pain from the force of her kiss and Annabeth strokes his cheeks with her thumbs in apology. She leans into him, sighing as his arms come around her and his mouth opens to hers.
“You’re worth this,” she tells him. “I promise.”
His eyes close and he buries his face in her neck and stays there, breathing her in. Annabeth holds onto him, fingers curled into his terrible hair as he steadies himself against her.
“I love you,” he says a moment later, so quietly she can barely hear.
Her heart stills, body tenses, breathing stutters. He loves her.
She uses her grip on his hair to tug him up so that she can see his face because she needs to see his face. His stupid, ridiculous, beautiful, innocent face, full of nerves as she stares at him.
“You love me?”
Slowly, he nods. Looking scared still.
“I fall fast and hard, Chase. And you’re a very easy person to fall for.”
Her breath falls loose, almost a laugh but too shocked to be one. But her chest begins to fill up, while her mind is racing with fear because she’s Annabeth and stuff like this is a big deal, love and commitment and conversations about the future. But she pushes it down because Percy Jackson is looking at her with complete adoration and some fear that she will still reject him, and she doesn’t care about that magazine cover at the moment. She wants to go outside and shout from the rooftops because Percy Jackson loves her. He loves her.
Her hands slide to his cheeks and she holds him still as he chest fills up with hope and joy and nerves.
“I love you, too.”
A grin devours his face and he looks so happy that Annabeth wants to say it again, and again, and again. So she does.
She says it against his lips and the skin of his throat and chest, into his hair as he leaves marks on her neck, as he peels her clothes off and kisses every inch of her. As he fills her up and blinds her with that feeling. As he rests his head on her chest afterwards, sated and sleepy once again.
“I love you,” she says. And she doesn’t care who knows it.