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Annabeth stretched her shoulders and groaned when the left gave a satisfying pop. The snacks and sodas had all been laid out. Now she just had to wait for her friends to trickle in.
“Hey.”
She jolted a little, but then lowered her hackles, turning to flash Nico a smile. “Hey! Glad you could make it. I didn’t know if you were coming. No one’s seen you in two weeks.”
“I finished Persephone’s chore list early and figured I might as well pop back to the surface world before I get assigned bath duty for Cerberus again,” he replied, brushing his curls out of his face, almost tangling one of his rings in the windswept, black locks. “I read the book a few weeks ago, though, so I might be rusty on the details.”
“All good,” Annabeth promised. She knew that Nico was a voracious reader like she was. Anytime they could get their hands on a Greek translation or a graphic novel, they devoured them. Dyslexia was still a pain for any sort of English print, but it was easier to get through graphic novels than most other books. Apollo’s kids in New York and California had recently teamed up to start releasing more translations of new fiction in Ancient Greek and Latin, and she was thrilled. Annabeth, herself, preferred literary fiction and Nico was a secret romcom reader. “Percy was cramming the last fifty or so pages when I left him to finish setup.”
Nico grinned, flashing his teeth impishly as he dropped into one of the hard plastic chairs, folding one leg under himself. “Typical.”
Annabeth nodded sagely, her own mouth twitching into a matching grin. Percy was more into action manga, but they could get him to read western graphic novels for bookclub. Him starting them at a reasonable time, though, that was a different story.
“Ah,” Annabeth remembered as Lavinia and Lou Ellen wandered in and headed for the snack bar, “Frank and Hazel can’t make it. They had an emergency with the unicorns—something about fake imperial gold being used in the nails.”
Nico grimaced as they both imagined the implication of impure metal there.
A few more regulars started to filter in. Leila and Gwen were chatting as they scooped up packs of Goldfish crackers. They waved to Annabeth and took their seats without stopping their discussion of the colors in the book.
Lucas, a son of Mercury, rolled up his black, button down sleeves and took a seat, fresh off a shift at the coffee shop in town.
Vanessa, a legacy of Ceres, ducked into the room a minute later, out of breath and apologizing for being late, but Annabeth was a pro now. She knew not to start bookclub on time. She always left a ten-minute buffer for demigods and legacies to trickle in and chat. Time-blindness got the best of all of them at times.
Half the seats were still empty, but they wouldn’t stay that way.
“Hello, my peeps!” Leo swaggered in with his arms wide. As per usual, he was covered in grease and grinning. “Your lord and savior who died for your sins has arrived.”
Nico snorted, planting his boots on the tile floor and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Did you actually do the reading this month?” he asked pointedly.
“I skimmed with purpose,” Leo said with unwarranted confidence.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Sure you did. When we begin, I’d love to hear your summary of the book based on that purposeful skim.”
“Hey! At least I opened the book!” Leo complained. “Piper was too busy making out with her girlfriend in Telluride all month to bother reading.”
“Hell yeah I was,” Piper agreed, high-fiving Annabeth and grinning shamelessly as she entered the rec room and straddled one of the chairs, resting her folded arms across the back. “But, I did actually read on the plane trip back today.”
“Betrayal!” Leo wailed.
“We appreciate you taking valuable girlfriend-kissing time out of your schedule to skim the book,” Nico snarked at Leo, making Annabeth choke on a laugh while Leo stamped his foot.
“You’re freaking welcome, di Angelo! I could have been kissing Cal or upgrading Festus, y’know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Are we ragging on Leo again?” Percy asked, striding in, his dark hair messy, showing that he had probably jogged across campus to make it from the NRU library to the rec center. He dropped his beat-up blue bag next to the chair he dropped himself into. He still held the graphic novel in his hand, a takeout menu in-use as a haphazard bookmark.
“Always,” Annabeth agreed.
Percy snickered at Leo’s outraged squawk.
Ella and Tyson brought up the rear.
“Sorry, Annabeth,” Tyson panted. “We had to wait for coverage at the book store.”
“Not a problem, Tyson. Go ahead and get your peanut butter crackers and take a seat.” She patted him on the shoulder.
Ella chirped, “Harpies love book club. Yes. Time for friends and books.”
“Happy you could both make it.”
Once everyone had grabbed snacks and settled in the ring of chairs, Annabeth held up her packet of questions and began the session.
“Alright, everybody!” Annabeth announced, projecting her voice. Side conversations trickled out as several sets of eyes turned towards her. “Thank you for joining us for Graphic Novel Book Club this month. Today, we are going to be discussing Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries.” She adopted a beatific smile and turned to Leo. “Our favorite tinkerer has volunteered to give us a brief summary of the book, isn’t that right, Leo?”
Leo crossed his arms and let out a long-suffering groan directed at the ceiling. “Oh, fuck you.”
“We love you, too,” she said, blowing a kiss. “Now, up and at ‘em.”
Leo sighed and sat up. “Alright, so our story begins on the solarpunk world of Meridian, where we meet our man Oberon. Now Obie has these messed up dreams—including dreams about Kon—his missing high school crush.”
“Relatable,” Nico muttered, making Percy bark a laugh.
Leo grinned and continued on with his haphazard summary while Annabeth kicked back in her chair, enjoying the show.