꩜

"Do you like it?" Percy asks, getting up.

His skateboard is by his foot, he kitcks it straight up to rest it against the bench. He reaches his arms out for her, urging Annabeth to step into them.

She does, of course, but she says, "Um, no."

"What? Why not?"

He's fucking with her. Smart ass. Well, two can play at this game. "'Cause it makes it sounds like you're cheating on me. How many other girlfriends do you have?"

Percy's face falls. "You're an asshole."

"Why are you wearing a shirt that says you're a slut!?"

Percy makes a fact at her and turns around—the back of the shirt provides more context. It reads, FOR MY WIFE.

Throughout her sixteen difficult years, very few things have made Annabeth genuinely speechless. This is one of them.

"What—I—where did you buy that."

"Goodwill. It was two bucks."

"You paid two American dollars for that."

"Yeah."

Annabeth catches herself smiling. She's so in love with her dumb idiot boyfriend and his stupid shirt that sort of indirectly calls her his wife. It makes her smile because she's sixteen but she wants more than anything to be with him forever and ever until she's old and forgetting things, but she doesn't think she'll ever forget the look he's got on his face in this very moment.

"Oh, my gods," she says, laughing.

"Do you still hate it?" Percy pulls her in by the waist. Gods, he's so cocky.

"You're an idiot," Annabeth says, then she kisses him before he can say something else that makes her sputter. It's not fair how often he does that to her.

When she lets him go, Percy shrugs off one side of his back pack. "Good, 'cause it's actually a matching pair."

"No."

"Yes."

He hands Annabeth another t-shirt, all bunched up in his hand. She stretches it out. The back says FOR MY HUSBAND, so she turns it around to see what the front says. HORNY.