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Annabeth really likes the springtime.
Finally, she can retire her thick sweaters and don her favorite light jackets instead; scratchy turtlenecks traded for soft and thin cardigans.
There's a promise that comes with this season, of better, brighter, warmer days ahead. She loves that the sun sets a little bit later with every passing week, she loves seeing flowers bud and blossom, and she loves waking up to the birds chirping, a little louder every day. She loves having more time to sit outside in the sun with her favorite book and an iced coffee and a relaxing breeze.
What Annabeth doesn't like is when the bugs come out to play.
She doesn't dislike all bugs, not really. And she doesn't kill them when she sees them like many people do. She's okay with the bees that buzz loudly as they hover from flower to flower. She can tolerate the ants that parade through her picnics and the flies that circle above it. Even the annoying mosquitoes she knows how to keep away. They don't bother her much.
But spiders… That's a completely different story.
And yes, Annabeth knows that spiders aren't bugs—that they're arachnids, not insects—but look, when she's as afraid of them as she is, their technical classification doesn't matter to her at all. They're terrifying creepy crawlies and all she cares about is them staying away from her. Preferably forever.
Spring is when they seem to pop up the most around her. In her kitchen cabinets, in the rounded corner of her tub, in the back of her closet. They always seem to be nearby. At home, her cat, Hecuba, tends to take care of them. So Annabeth doesn't have to worry.
However, right now, in her work parking lot, 15 minutes away from home after an 8 hour shift, Hecuba can't take care of it. The black fuzzball of a cat is too busy napping on Annabeth's pillows instead of in her own bed, probably.
It's on top of her car, the ugly arachnid, a mess of black and gray on her silver sedan. Admittedly, it's not that big, it's body is smaller than a dime, but it terrifies her nonetheless. It's legs are too long, it's unsettling. It's not right.
Trying her best to not cause a scene (it's not on her or anything, after all), Annabeth slowly opens the door to her driver's seat. It doesn't move.
Phew.
She lowers herself into the car. "Nice spider," she whispers, as if it can hear and understand her. "Good little arachnid."
She starts to move almost robotically. Key in the ignition, she turns it and the engine rumbles to life. Annabeth rolls down the window to help herself breathe a little bit easier as she reverses out of her parking spot and starts her drive home. She hopes that driving will blow the spider off the car.
Annabeth's about two minutes down the street before she notices her mistake: she rolled down the window.
It crawls down from the edge of the window and onto her dashboard. Way, way, way too close for comfort. It could be on the other side of the country and it'd still be too close to her, honestly.
All of Annabeth's self control is working overtime at the moment, with her doing her best to not swerve into the other lane of cars to her left or into the grassy ditch on her right. She flicks on her turn signal and pulls into the next parking lot she sees: a gas station.
She all but leaps out of her car after she puts it in park. Two spots down, there's an employee in a black polo with vibrant orange lettering, sitting on a concrete parking block and staring into space while devouring the last half of a thick burrito. He could help her, right?
Annabeth would hate to bother him. He's gotta be around her age—no less than the 25 that she is—and she fully understands the importance of a peaceful 30 minutes in solitude when working any customer-facing job.
But this is a life or death situation!
She slams her door, which gets the guy's attention. He meets Annabeth's brown eyes with striking blue ones. His thick eyebrows are furrowed in concern.
"There's…" she takes a deep breath. He takes an inhumanly large bite of his food. "There's a spider in my car." She bounces back and forth on nervous feet, hoping the sentence speaks for itself and asks the question for her.
He swallows his lunch before speaking, "Do you want some help with it?"
"Please?" Her voice comes out small, like the squeak of a mouse but her genuine fear is more pressing than any embarrassment she could feel at the moment.
The guy stands up and walks over to her car. He peeks through the open window. "I see, I see," he says way too casually, as if there's not a truly horrifying, possibly deadly, incredibly ugly creature resting on her steering wheel. Her hands are supposed to go there!
"Can you…" he reaches his burrito out towards her and she grabs it from him. Some grains of rice tumble from the tortilla. Maybe they hate spiders too.
It takes maybe two seconds for him to grab the spider, gently coaxing it into his palm and cupping his other hand over it. He calmly walks over to a grassy area by the entrance and crouches in the green. Annabeth follows him, standing behind and watching as he lets the creature walk free. She can only stare in horrified awe.
"All good!" He turns and beams a bright smile up at Annabeth and her heart speeds up, for a second. At the general proximity and at the sight of him up close. He's cute with his boyish grin and charming dimples and light smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, dusting his cheeks too.
"Thank you," she says as he stands. She hands him back his lunch and they walk back to her car. "Seriously. Thank you so much. I don't know how some people aren't scared of those things," she shudders as she sits in the driver's seat.
"Oh, don't get me wrong," he shakes his head, blond curls fluttering about as he does, "I absolutely hate spiders." He places a hand atop her car and leans down to speak with her through her open window. "Can't stand those freaks of nature."
"Then why did you…" Annabeth tilts her head, gestures to her steering wheel and then the grass and his burrito for some reason too.
He shrugs with one shoulder. "You asked me for help so I helped." Even with his own fear, nothing could stop him from helping her out. It's an easy equation to him it seems. As simple as 2 + 2 = 4.
Something about him tells Annabeth that he's not a stranger to selflessness. She can't help but be drawn in for that alone.
"Well, thank you, again," she gets a look at his name tag, "Percy. Sorry to take time away from your lunch break."
"Don't sweat it," Percy smiles at her again. Golden and bright, he is. "You made my day a tiny bit more interesting…" he trails off, raising an eyebrow in question at her.
Oh. He wants her name too.
"Annabeth," she gives him, smiling wide and genuine in a way she hadn't fully intended to. Her face moved before she realized it did.
"Annabeth," he repeats it softly to himself, like he's trying the name out. Practicing it. "Thanks for the little adventure, Annabeth."
Why does she already love the way he says her name; gentle falling off his lips but heavy with intention, as if it already means something to him?
Percy jerks his head towards the store. "I gotta go before my time's up." As if on cue, a phone alarm goes off. He groans. "Shortest 30 minutes ever," he pats the top of her car twice. "See ya," he says, "Take care."
Percy walks inside the dingy convenience store and brings Annabeth's heart with him.
Three days later, she has to go back to the small gas station, trying and failing to ignore the little part of her that hopes Percy would be sitting outside again.
She's doesn't go here much; she usually gets her gas and snacks from the gas station closer to her apartment, so she doesn't exactly know if he usually works the afternoons or mornings or late nights or what.
When she pulls in, he's there leaning against the side of the quaint building, digging into a bowl of nachos this time.
Convenience store nachos and cheese: a hero's feast, truly.
When he looks up and waves at her with a lazy, closed mouth smile on his lips, her heart does about ten front flips in a row, rivaling even the most accomplished gymnasts.
He approaches her as she fills her tank. "No spiders today, Annabeth?"
She shakes her head, "Thankfully not." She then worries her bottom lip between her teeth as an unusual, but not entirely unwelcome, boldness takes over. "Is it weird that I was hoping you'd be out here today?"
"As long as you don't think it's weird that I was hoping you'd stop by today." His face is growing pink. Very cute. "And yesterday...and the day before that."
Annabeth giggles at his admission. "I'm glad that we're on the same page then."
"That we are," he responds, nodding and clearly nervous. Annabeth is so, so endeared. "My break just started," he says. "Would you want to sit with me?"
And she does, gladly, after parking her car in an actual spot and not at the pump— she's not a monster.
They occupy another concrete parking block, chatting about nothing and everything and anything they can in the time they have. He shares his nachos with her. She helps clean the cheese off of his shirt collar with napkins and an old water bottle from the backseat of her car. He almost falls off their seating place. Annabeth laughs at him.
Percy's alarm shocks them both mid-laughter and he groans the way he did a few days before.
"Shortest 30 minutes ever," she says for him, echoing his words from days before because she feels the same way now.
He smirks, a knowing and charming thing that adds to the ever-growing list of things about him that's already drawn Annabeth in deeper.
"Exactly," he stands, extending a hand to help Annabeth up. "Thanks for keeping me company."
She accepts it and her skin tingles at the contact. "Thanks for inviting me," she dusts her hands off on her jeans and silently hopes his touch didn't fly off with the dirt and gravel and salt from the chips.
"Let's do this again?" Percy has his hands in his pockets, shoulders raised while he's shyly rocking forward and back on his feet.
"Will we have more than 30 minutes next time?"
"Well, I am off tomorrow."
"I'm not," Annabeth starts and Percy looks like a sad puppy at that news. "But," she continues, "It's a very early shift that ends at noon."
"So… you'd have the whole day after?" There's now hope glinting in his sky blue eyes. Annabeth nods in confirmation.
"Wanna meet me at The Hearth?" she asks, getting into her car. "That's where I work."
"That's the little café down the street, right?" He leans down to speak through her open window again.
Annabeth nods. "The very one! We can hang out in there when my shift is up."
"Sounds good to me," he pats the roof of her car twice again, the way he did days before. "I'm gonna go back in before my manager writes me up. I'll see you tomorrow, Annabeth."
"I'll see you, Percy," she starts her car.
When he goes back inside, he waves through the glass door, and she waves in return.
A light breeze flows through Annabeth's open windows as she drives home and she's reminded of the wind that tousled Percy's cute and already unruly curls when they sat together. The sunset sky is blushing the same shade of pink that Percy's cheeks were earlier and the weather is as warm as her own cheeks are at the thought of him. Bugs and birds alike continue to chirp and fill the air with their songs.
Annabeth really likes the springtime. And she loves the promises that come with it.