Chapter Text
Percy Jackson knew when he dumped Annabeth Chase that he would never see her again. Like a rocket from the lowly Earth, she was destined for the stars and he was destined to clean pools for rich assholes.
So imagine his surprise when the summer after high school, Percy sees his ex-girlfriend spread out on the pool deck of the millionaire Luke Castellan in a bikini and a frown.
He can only gape. Even through her big black sunglasses, he can tell she’s glaring.
“An… what are you doing here?”
She props herself up on her elbows, braids streaming over her bare shoulders and sweat dripping between the valley of her chest. Percy tracks its journey down to her bellybutton and when he looks up again, her eyebrow is high on her incredulous forehead.
In lieu of words, she holds out her lithe arm to flash a shiny rock on her finger and Percy feels his heart plummet to his feet.
“You…” Words elude him. “You were supposed to go to college.”
Her lips curl with the same disdain she’d had when he dumped her. “I am going to college.”
“So what-“
“It was this or loans,” she says, tilting her chin up to the sun like she’s unaffected.
“So… you’re, what? Selling your body to get through university?”
Her head snaps to him and she sits up abruptly, bare feet swinging to the deck he’s supposed to be cleaning. She has a pedicure. Annabeth never gets pedicures.
She never wears bikinis either, especially not covered with impractical dangling charms and a tiny sheer sarong. Percy can’t figure out where to let his eyes settle.
“First of all, if I was, that wouldn’t be any of your business,” she says, holding up a finger, and he wants to protest that she’ll be his business for the rest of his life, but she’s talking too quickly. “And second of all, I found a partner who would actually support my career.”
Now it’s Percy’s turn to glare. “I do support your career.”
“Is that why you broke up with me because I wanted to go to college?”
“That is not what happened.”
“Whatever, Percy. We’re both exactly where we wanted to be.”
He really can only gape. “You’re engaged.”
“And you’re alone,” she snaps, standing suddenly. It’s not an easy argument to win when your much smarter opponent is almost completely naked.
“Annie?”
Both their heads snap to the man in the double French doorway, staring between the two in confusion. He’s old, in Percy’s opinion, too old for Annabeth. He only kind of remembers him from high school.
Luke Castellan, rising star of Kronos Inc. and apparently the new fiancée of Annabeth Chase.
Some people really do have it all.
Percy realizes then that they are probably standing way too close together.
Good. Screw him.
Annabeth grins wide and fake like she’s sucking up to a teacher, a face Percy has laughed at more times than he can count. Now it makes him sick. She practically flounces over to Luke, pressing her body to his side.
He hands her some sort of colorful drink with leaves and lemons in it and kisses the top of her head.
Percy can feel his blood boiling.
Yeah, he knew when he broke up with her that a million different men would swoop in to try their hand at deserving her and she would probably maybe settle for one, but it had always been such a distant hypothetical and it had never been some ancient rich loser who cupped her ass in front of the pool boy.
“You didn’t tell me you hired Percy,” she says, resting her chin on his heart to look up at him like she’d done to Percy a hundred times before.
It’s disgusting.
Luke’s eyes slide to him, trying to place him, and Percy has to stand there with the leaf net like an idiot, getting sized up by the twenty-something fondling his underage ex-girlfriend.
It’s actually disgusting.
“Percy… he went to the same school as us, right?” Luke asks and Percy wants to shout that no, he had gone to the same school as them. By some miracle, he manages to bite his tongue.
Annabeth nods. “Yeah, he was my best friend.”
That stings.
“That’s so cool,” Luke says and something about his tone tells Percy that he’s been dismissed. He turns to Annabeth, slinging his arm around her naked hips and Percy sees red. “Did you register for orientation?”
Annabeth bites her grin as she nods up at him. Percy is going to vomit.
“Awesome. What time is it? I need to schedule the company dinner.”
Annabeth pouts up at him, adorable and fake as hell. “Do we have to?”
“You have to,” Luke emphasizes, “as my wife.”
He boops her nose and Annabeth’s next smile is even less convincing, but Luke accepts it easily. His narrow eyes leer down at the expanse of brown skin Annabeth has on display.
With nimble fingers, he reaches into her drink and pulls out an ice cube that he presses into her shoulder. Even from the deck, Percy can see her shiver, can see the cube melting and dribbling water down her chest, curving a path he’d tread with his mouth a million times before. He can even see Luke lick his lips.
And, like Percy isn’t even there anymore, he asks, “Wanna head upstairs?”
Annabeth pulls back, laughing nervously. “Not ‘til the wedding.”
Luke deflates. Percy sighs with relief.
The mini-mogul presses a kiss to Annabeth’s curled edges before he heads back into his McMansion.
When Annabeth turns back to face Percy, she lifts her shades, eyes flicking down to his white-knuckle grip on the net handle.
“He’s, like, thirty.”
Annabeth glares. “He’s twenty-four.”
Percy grimaces and Annabeth rolls her eyes.
“You don’t get to be mad about it, Percy. You-“
“I do to get to be mad-“
“-aren’t my boyfriend.”
“-when you’re whoring yourself out-“
“How dare-“
“-to a middle-aged pervert-“
“You’re such an asshole!”
“-for a full ride you could’ve gotten all by yourself.”
She’s fuming, narrow chest rising and falling with every heaving breath. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know you,” he says, taking the step forward now and her eyes dart towards the McMansion, but he couldn’t give less of a shit. He keeps walking forward, keeps his eyes on her, even as he walks her into the French doors. “And I know what you’re capable of.”
“It was May,” she argues. “How could I have gotten a scholarship in a month?”
“You got a whole fiancée in only two.”
Her voice is quiet and frustrated, like they were just hissing about homework in the library. “That was a lot easier, Percy.”
Now it’s his turn to leer down the length of her body, just as much of a pervert as her geriatric boyfriend.
“I’m sure it was.”
If they were still dating, this is the part where she would blush and smack his shoulder and kiss him. But they aren’t still dating.
The look in her eyes is dark regardless.
“You would know.”
Historically, Percy has never much stood a chance against her blown-out pupils or that pitch of her voice. Now is no exception.
It’s like he can feel all his decision-making faculties shutting down one at a time until all that’s left is the absolute worst of him.
None of the simpering trophy wife is left on her face either, just the same teenager he’s loved since middle school. She looks ashamed of herself when she admits, “I miss you.”
It does not matter who is inside that McMansion.
“I miss you too,” he breathes.
“Why’d you go?” she asks.
“You can do better,” he says, even though it kills him now like it had then.
Her hand finds his chest, scalding him through his t-shirt with the heat of their shared history. She’s looking at her fingers splayed out above his heart when she asks, “And is this better?”
Percy frowns. “That old man?”
She laughs, a sound he hadn’t realized he’d missed until the withdrawal hit. “He’s in his twenties.”
“And we’re seventeen,” Percy says with a shudder. “You can definitely do better.”
Her pretty face sobers. “Shouldn’t I get to make that choice?”
When she looks up at him again, it’s with a wave of longing that crashes over him and leaves him completely adrift. Percy does a cost benefit analysis in less than a second.
He’d rather lose her twice than only love her once.
Later, he’ll claim not to know who kissed who first, but that’s a lie. It was him. It is always him.