emmm…

The restaurant Piper had chosen was perfect. It was small and more expensive than they should have really been shooting for, but it was nice and Piper had a gift certificate from work, so it was fine. Of course it was. Piper didn’t do anything by halves and planning dates was no different. She was beautiful, too. She had on her favorite emerald green dress pants and a flowy hippie-style shirt with more colors than the Photoshop color picker, and the sparkly earrings she’d made with her dad the previous summer sparkled at her cheeks. She was always quietly, effortlessly pretty, but now she was deliberately dressed to draw every eye, and she was absolutely reveling in it.

Leo was sitting across the table from her, looking just as intentional as she did. He wore his best button-up (a dark red one they knew complemented Piper’s pants perfectly) , his curls were styled in a way that framed his face nicely, and he’d made absolutely sure to scrub every spec of grease off of his skin. He wasn’t quite as pretty as Piper, but he still looked good, no question, and the two of them looked like they belonged together.

Across the table, Piper reached out and took his hand, eyes sparkling. “I’m so excited to be here,” she said almost breathlessly. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

“Me too,” Leo confessed, squeezing her fingers. “They have this tiramisu that I wanna get my hands on so bad.”

“You hate coffee,” she reminded him with a laugh. “This isn’t like the whole coffee cake situation; this has actual coffee in it. Are you sure you wanna try that?”

Leo shrugged with a grin. “Only one way to find out.”

With that he carefully got out of his seat and sank to one knee before her. Around him, people gasped and the restaurant went completely still and silent, all eyes on him. Leo didn’t look at any of them, he kept his gaze completely focused on the woman staring down at him with wide doe eyes. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a little velvet box, ignoring the sweat on his palms. He always got a little nervous about this part.

“Laila Newsom,” he started, letting his voice waver just enough. “You are my best friend. Ever since you saved me from getting pounced by that giant river otter during our summer abroad in Brazil, I knew I wanted nothing more than to live the rest of my life with you. I love the way you start your mornings by reading the funnies page from Paris, despite not actually speaking French, I love how you spend your evenings knitting socks for disabled penguins, and I love that you can recite your multiplication tables up to 81 but you get lost the second you hit 82. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, Laila. I know I’m just a simple cricket farmer, but would you make me the happiest man in the world and agree to be my wife and the mother of my crickets?”

“Oh, Angelo,” Piper gasped. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, which was unexpected, but impressive. She dropped down to the floor in front of Leo and kissed him on the mouth as she flung her arms around him. “Yes! Yes, I will marry you! I would love to be the mother of your crickets!”

Around them, the whole crowd burst into cheers and applause, but Leo didn’t look at them. Not yet. He just pulled the gaudy ring out of its box and slipped it onto her finger. “This belonged to my aunt. She left it to me in her will and her fourth husband told me she wanted you to have it.”

“I’m honored!” Piper gasped, cradling her hand to her chest. “I’ll treasure it forever.”

“Congratulations, you two.” Leo looked up to see their waitress was standing above them, holding a bucket with a bottle of champagne. “The owner asked me to give this to you. We’re honored to be a part of this pivotal moment for you.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that!” Piper cooed, already greedily eyeing the bottle. “Thank you.”

“We’re also going to bring out an order of tiramisu,” the waitress continued. “It’s the house specialty.”

“That would be amazing,” Leo smiled. “You guys are really making this the best night of my life.”

The waitress preened under the praise, then turned back to Piper. “May I see the ring? If you don’t mind?”

“Certainly!” Piper chirped, flashing the massive chunk of cubic zirconium. It was too big because they had to share it (and because a jeweler would have laughed them out of the shop if they took it in to be resized) so she had to hold her hand in a specific way to keep it from sliding around. “It’s been in Angelo’s family for generations. They smuggled it out of Venezuela, so I’m proud that I get to wear it.”

“It’s a beautiful ring,” the waitress lied politely. Then she nodded her head. “Some one will be right out with the dessert. Once again, congratulations. I’m sure you two will be happy together.”

Leo reached over and took Piper’s hand, careful not to scratch himself on the sharp edge of the stone. She grinned and squeezed his fingers. “We for sure will.”

Leo and Piper stumbled through the front door of their apartment, tipsy on free champagne and high on the thrill of a perfectly executed grift.

“A giant river otter?” Piper cackled, “Are you fucking kidding me? And knitting socks for penguins?”

“Hey, now, that’s a real thing!” Leo giggled helplessly at her. “People all over the world knit little penguin socks. It does… something. I don’t know, I’m not a penguin-ologist.”

“That’s knitting sweaters for penguins, dumbass!”

“Oh.” Leo blinked as the words slowly registered. Then he just shrugged. “Whatever. Worked tonight, didn’t it?”

“You’re so stupid, you know that?”

“I’m, like, the smartest man you know.”

“Goes to show how stupid all the men I know are.”

“Hey!” Leo yelped in mock offence before he tackled Piper onto the couch and started ruthlessly tickling her. “Take it back!”

“Never!” she wheezed between uncontrollable laughter. “You’re stupid, you’re stupid, you’re stu–”

“Can you two please tone it down?”

Leo froze and whipped his head up, unable and unwilling to even bother trying to mask his excitement at the sound of that voice. “Jason!”

Jason was standing in the hall leading down to the bedrooms, and he’d clearly been woken up by all their commotion based on the fact that he was still wearing his absurdly soft-looking pajamas and his hair was all fluffy in the wrong ways and his glasses were crooked. He squinted at them, then took his glasses off to clean them like that would help him understand the sight of Leo straddling Piper on the couch with his fingers digging into her ribs. Leo doubted that it worked, but Jason didn’t dwell. “Now, why is Leo stupid?”

“I’m not stupid!”

“I know you’re not stupid. Piper, tell me why Leo’s stupid.”

“Because when he was doing his proposal, he totally forgot how anything works and told a restaurant full of people that I knit socks for disabled penguins,” she reported. “Which doesn’t even make sense. They don’t even have feet.”

“They have flippers!” Leo argued. “What’s that if not a foot?”

Piper considered that then shrugged. “They don’t have sock-able feet.”

“I hate you.”

Jason, meanwhile, had focused on a totally different word. “Proposal?”

“Yup!” Piper chirped once again showing off her ugly fake ring. “Leo and I are gonna get married. You get to be the flower girl.”

“Again? Really?” Jason asked sharply. “I thought you two were done with this game of yours. It’s been months.”

“You gotta give the waters time to settle, Jacey baby,” Leo pointed out. “If we pulled this stunt every weekend, we’d wind up getting kicked out, not getting free stuff.”

“Though, depending on the restaurant, they might just kick us out and not bother with making us pay,” Piper pointed out.

Leo considered that for a moment and shrugged. “Fair enough, but it’s way riskier. We can try that out next time we’re out of town.”

“We’re not doing that,” Jason snapped. His scowl deepened. “What did you even get? A cupcake? Was that really worth lying to all those people?”

“I’ll have you know they brought out a Louis Roederer Brut,” Piper corrected haughtily. “That’s a ninety dollar bottle of champagne!”

“And the tiramisu we got was so good that I forgot I hate coffee,” Leo added. 

Remarkably, that did not smooth things over for Jason.

“You two are the worst,” he said sharply. “What you’re doing? It’s wrong. You’re lying and you’re taking advantage of people’s generosity and good will so you can get free stuff. Why?”

“You just said why,” Leo snapped back. “To get free stuff.”

“Plus lying is just fun sometimes. It’s like real-time creative writing,” Piper added. Then she frowned gently at Jason. “I genuinely don’t see why this is such a big deal to you. It’s not like we’re hurting anybody.”

“The waitress did have to look you in the eye and pretend like that ring on your finger isn’t the ugliest thing that’s ever existed,” Leo pointed out. “That may count as psychological warfare.”

“Women have practice doing that, we take an official class,” Piper dismissed. “Inevitably, one of your friends is gonna get married and show you the fugliest rock imaginable and you have to tell her how perfect it is.”

Leo genuinely wasn’t sure how much of that was true. “Wait, so what did you really think about Annabeth’s engagement ring?”

“Objectively? It was hideous,” Piper said casually. “The sapphire and smokey quartz was already a choice, but the fact that it’s set in a bronze ring shouldn’t make it anyone’s thing. Buuuut it works for them because she and Percy are little weirdos. Apparently, it’s all a reference to the LARPing summer camp they met at. Or something.”

“Huh,” Leo hummed to himself before he glanced at Jason. “Women are weird. I get why you swore them off.”

“This is all completely beside the point,” Jason hissed, though the flush on his cheeks made Leo think it was a little the point. 

“What is the point then?”

“The point is that your little games are hurting people,” Jason said sharply. “You’re stealing from them.”

“Are we?” Piper challenged. “The way I see it, the complementary stuff is just payment for performing a social spectacle. It’s basically busking.”

“And, baby, we put on one hell of a show,” Leo added. “We earned that champagne and coffee-soaked cookie pie.”

“It’s more of a trifle.”

“Literally whatever.”

Jason rubbed his face in obvious frustration. “You two aren’t getting it!”

“What aren’t we getting?” Leo demanded. “The champagne is literally set aside for proposals and we supplied a proposal, and the tiramisu probably would have been thrown out at the end of the night because it was a Thursday and dead as hell. You have no real moral high ground and no stake in the game. Why are you, specifically, so hung up on the idea of me proposing to Piper to get some free stuff?”

Jason’s face immediately flushed. “I– Well– Look, it’s just– I don’t like it, alright? Whatever, you guys win. Just drop it.”

Only, Leo didn’t drop it. He was physically incapable of dropping it. Instead, he just squinted harder at Jason, taking in all the little tells. The exact shade of red on his cheeks, the way he was drumming his fingers on his thigh, the way his eyes darted around the room, and the slight twitch of the faint scar on his upper lip. He’d never liked it when Piper and Leo came home from their little social heists, though he’d never been this openly frustrated with them. That didn’t mean that this was a new feeling, though. It might have just been a feeling that had been there from the start, a feeling that could start small and then slowly grow and fester until it got too big to contain and he lashed out. Something like–

Leo’s jaw dropped and he gawked at Jason. “Oh my god, dude, really?” 

Jason startled, and Piper whipped her head towards Leo. “What? What’s his deal?”

“You’re jealous!” Leo accused, pointing a finger with no small amount of vindication.

Flushed cheeks went alarmingly pale before flaring back up in sputtering indignation. “I– What? No, that’s– What are you even–”

“Oh my god, you’re totally right, he is,” Piper giggled without malice, not that she ever needed malice to make someone squirm.

“I am not jealous,” Jason seethed, which was of course the behavior of an incredibly un-jealous person. 

Leo shared a look of incredulous delight with Piper before he turned back to Jason. “You know, if you wanted in, you could have just told us; we would have included you.”

Jason looked at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “What?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t see why not,” Leo shrugged. “Like, we can’t all go out at once, it’s bad for optics. But we could bring you a doggy bag, and you and I can take turns proposing to Piper. Hell, it’s 2026, you and I can go out, big guy.”

Piper frowned curiously. “Leo, I don’t think that’s what he–”

“That’s exactly what I meant!” Jason interrupted. “I’ve just… felt left out of your petty crime ring.”

Piper and Leo shared another glance before Piper drawled, “Riiiiight. That’s what you’re jealous of.”

Leo just shrugged. Despite Piper’s obvious skepticism and Jason’s weird defensiveness, it was the only explanation that made any kind of sense. What else was there? “Well, good news! Jace, since your birthday is coming up, we can plan the next one for that day, that way if you chicken out of the proposal, you’ll still get dessert.”

Jason’s cheeks went a little pink. “So, you’re going to take me out to dinner and propose on my birthday?”

Leo’s heart leapt at the suggestion, but he quickly squashed it back down where it belonged. He grimaced slightly and shook his head. “You and I pulling that off might be a bit harder because you don’t get to bank on the heteronormativity. Piper’s a better partner for your first rodeo. She can guide you through the night, and the two of you can run lines to practice in the meantime.”

Piper gave Jason a pair of very eager thumbs up. “I’ll teach you well, young padawan.”

Jason didn’t look nearly as enthusiastic as Leo had assumed he’d be. “Yippee.”

*-*-*-*-*

When Jason was six-years-old, his teacher looked at him with a wide, gentle smile and told him what a good, well-behaved boy he was, and, quite frankly, it rewired something in Jason’s brain. From that day forward, he was obsessed with being perfect. He was polite and respectful, he never acted out, he always did his homework, and he treated every expectation (written or implied) like it was a law from religious text. He got “Is a pleasure to have in class” on so many report cards that the words lost all meaning. For twenty-three years, Jason Grace was the embodiment of a buttoned up, goody two shoes, teacher’s pet who would break a bone before he broke a rule. Then, somehow, he befriended two people who were anything but quiet, calm, or respectable, and he wound up roped into a scheme to swindle some poor restaurant owner because his heart moved faster than his brain.

Needless to say, he was not happy. 

He was supposed to be going over lines with Piper that afternoon. Apparently, Leo and Piper were experienced enough to come up with things on the fly, but they wanted all those little details ironed out ahead of time for Jason’s first go. It was a bit of an insult to Jason’s improv skills, or it would have been if he had any. Jason didn’t do improv, he needed an outline. He needed structure, he needed rules, even if those rules were about to be used to break other rules. The thought made his temple throb with annoyance, so he ignored it.

Piper had suggested they start by going out to a coffee shop for their little “session zero.” She also claimed it would be good practice to pretend to look like a couple in public. That wasn’t too bad and done easily enough, considering Jason already played the role of the large, intimidating boyfriend when the three of them went out and Piper or Leo needed someone with a perceived possession over them to duck behind when someone failed to recognize that “no” was a complete sentence. He didn’t really have to do anything during that, though, he just crossed his arms and pulled his practiced “menacing” look. 

Now though, he was pretty sure he was supposed to be doing something, so he made sure to hold doors open for Piper, he bought her a drink, as well as the scone she’d been eyeing but insisted she didn’t need. These were mostly things he already did as Piper’s friend, but now that he was trying to project romance, he did them without taking his eyes off of her any more than was strictly necessary, and he gave her a soft smile whenever she met his waiting gaze.

“Geeze, is this what Leo feels like all the time?” she grinned at him, hiding her blush behind her coffee cup. 

Jason cocked his head to the side with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, the staring and all the gentlemanly stuff,” she explained. “Like, damn boy, you’re making me reconsider the whole lesbianism thing.”

Jason flushed maroon. “I’m just trying to be a good boyfriend!”

“And your idea of being a good boyfriend is treating your date the same way you treat Leo?”

“I– No! That’s not it!”

“Ah, I see,” Piper said, sagely nodding her head. “You don’t treat dates like Leo, you treat Leo like a date.”

“Piper!”

“I’m just messing with you, Jay,” she grinned at him. “For what it’s worth, you’d be a great boyfriend and any boy, including Leo, would be lucky to date you.”

Jason felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” she said breezily before suddenly switching gears and pulling out a genuine paper map of the city. “Okay. Now, let’s get to work.”

“What’s all this for?” Jason asked hesitantly as she started fishing various board game pieces out of her pocket.

“The first step in winning a battle is knowing the environment,” she told him, setting out a few Sorry pawns in different places. “For instance, these are all the best restaurants in town that are likely to give us stuff, but are in our price range if they leave us empty-handed with the check. I’ve got it laid out so all of the red pieces are places we’ve been in the last six months, then yellow and blue and finally green to represent the places we’ve never been.”

“And why do you need to do that?”

“So we don’t hit up the same place two proposals in a row, duh.”

“Right.” Jason rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but look over the map. It looked like the centerpiece of an honest to god war council. “So, we should go to a green restaurant?”

“Not necessarily,” Piper corrected. “First trips to a restaurant can be tricky because you don’t actually know the vibe of the place yet. It requires a lot more instinct-driven choices.”

“Oh.”

“The best place to take you, difficulty-wise would be Monte Carlo’s,” Piper mused. “Unfortunately, we went there in February, and I proposed, so I might still get recognized.”

“I don’t want to go to Monte Carlo’s,” Jason said. “Isn’t that the place that just sells charcuterie boards?”

“They have other stuff, but mostly, yeah,” Piper shrugged. “They also do fondue. They brought out some free wedding cake for our chocolate pot. Enjoyed that a lot. It wasn’t anything impressive monetarily, but it was good cake that I got to dunk in chocolate.”

Jason rolled his eyes and pointed at a random blue pawn. “Okay, what about here, then?”

“That’s a Thai place.”

“Yeah? So?”

“The lady who owns it shows no mercy when she’s standing in front of the spice cabinet.” Piper laid a comforting hand over his. “Jason, my absolute favorite slice of white toast, I once saw you clear your throat and reach for the water after putting too much Taco Bell mild sauce on your quesadilla.”

“Jason flushed yet again and scowled at her. “I hate you. That happened literally once and it just went down the wrong pipe.”

“Mhm. Whatever you say, Wonderbread.”

Jason rolled his eyes and slumped into his chair. “Whatever. Just… pick a place.”

Piper cocked her head to the side, a small frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Are you okay, Jay?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

Piper didn’t really rise to the bait, she just began slowly plucking the game pieces back up off the map. “Well, that little display would have been enough to tip most people off,” she started. “But also, you just really haven’t been nearly as into this as I thought you’d be. Don’t you like making plans and all that?”

“I mean, yeah, I like that,” Jason said, a frown pulling at his mouth. “But not when I’m being asked to lie to make the plans.”

“Then why did you agree to do this?” Piper asked. She leveled him with a stare so exact that he couldn’t have squirmed out from under her thumb, even if he tried, and he’d learned the hard way when it was best to not try. “You don’t have to be here. The only reason Leo signed you up is because you insisted you were jealous. Which I still don’t believe, by the way.”

“What’s not to believe?” Jason asked, a little bitter and a lot sarcastic. “I’m definitely jealous, so obviously I’m jealous of the damn cake.”

As soon as the words left Jason’s mouth, he regretted them. “Look, Piper, you–”

“Oh, I see,” Piper said. With every syllable, her grin got wider and more cunning. “Now, this makes things a bit more interesting. You don’t want cake at all, do you?”

“Considering how much I dislike sweets, I was a little worried it was obvious,” he said, dry as a desert.

Piper didn’t reply at first, apparently content to just sit there and watch Jason squirm. Her smile slowly faded into something smaller and more thoughtful. “Do you want to tell me? Do you want to actually say it out loud?”

Piper had asked him that question, almost exactly, in high school. Unlike then, now he just forced himself to roll his eyes fondly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already come out once, Piper. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Admitting that you like guys in general is very different from admitting you like one guy in particular,” she pointed out. “Which one is harder depends on who you are and definitely who that one guy is.”

Jason considered her words for a moment. Just like it had in high school, his heart was threatening to crawl out of his throat, so he swallowed it down. “I, um, have a crush. On Leo, I mean. Have since high school. That’s why I was always so mad about the two of you going out to propose to one another.”

Piper slowly nodded like she was receiving the only answer she would have predicted, if she were the type of person to make assumptions and predictions. “Okay then. Thank you for telling me. That must have been a really heavy secret to lug around.” 

“Not really,” Jason confessed. “Or, well, it kind of was, but not in a bad way. It was heavy, but I enjoyed carrying the weight. Does that make sense?”

“It does if you remember that Jason Grace is the biggest, sappiest, most romantic dweeb to ever draw breath.” Jason threw a napkin at her, which she actually managed to dodge for once. Then she leaned forward over the table. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”

“Do about it?”

“About Leo, I mean,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Are you gonna, like, confess or something?”

Jason actually laughed so hard he choked. “God no. Look, I’ve been in love with him for over a decade, and secrecy hasn’t failed me once. No sense in breaking a system that works.”

“What? Boo. No, that sucks,” she scowled. “I wanna scheme." 

“I do not need you to scheme.”

“What about just a little one?” she pouted. “One little, very uninvolved, unobtrusive scheme. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, I’ll take that as a sign to leave well enough alone.”

Jason eyed her suspiciously, though the offer was incredibly tempting. “A little scheme?” he clarified. “Something that’s not gonna just make him bolt?”

“On my honor,” she swore, holding up three fingers for a scout pledge. “He won’t even know what’s happening.”

“If there’s one thing thieves have, it’s honor,” Jason drawled. Then he shook his head and the rapid beating of his heart made it impossible to hide his smile. “Alright, fine. You may have one scheme.”

Piper cheered, and Jason was already regretting the decision.

*-*-*-*-*

When Piper’s text came, it was met with very little surprise, but no small amount of relief. 

hey cn u come meet me? jason bailed :( hes ‘working late’

The relief was stupid. He shouldn’t have cared beyond a mild indignation on Piper’s behalf. Piper was allowed to propose to and be proposed to by anyone she damn well pleased. They’d discovered a good system for the two of them, but if she found another grifting partner, more power to her. Leo truly, genuinely didn’t mind.

Until the partner in question was Jason. Which could, of course, mean nothing, so he wasn’t under any expectation to think about that. 

So, instead, he just pulled out his phone and texted her back.

smh what a loser who works late on ther BIRTHDAY we shuda seen ths cmn i deserve better than being stood up :’( dw omw u still wanna do the proposal? ya i need to drown my sorrows in cake wear the blue shirt see u soon Mrs. Future Valdez 😘😘😘

With that Leo shoved himself to his feet and took a quick shower. Piper and Jason had planned to go to Castor and Pollux, which was a nice but not fancy place, as they figured Jason’s first time should be in a more relaxed environment. It also meant that Leo didn’t have to spend an hour primping and preening and scrubbing every inch of his real life off of his skin, which was always a bonus in his book. 

Fortunately, random Wednesdays in July weren’t super busy days, so Leo made it to the restaurant before Piper had the chance to look like the stupid, lonely woman who got totally stood up, but he was surprised to see that she wasn’t in the lobby. They always waited for each other in the lobby. He stepped up to the host’s stand and sheepishly cleared his throat. “Uh, McAvery? Party of two? I’m looking for my date. I’m, uh, a little late.”

The host blinked owlishly at him for a moment before her face lit up. “Oh, you must be Mr. Hale. Yes, your reservation was for six, but your date got here a bit early and we weren’t busy so we went ahead with seating. This way, please.”

Leo followed her with a frown. They didn’t really do reservations, unless it was strictly necessary, which it definitely wasn’t at Castor and Pollux’s, and Piper certainly didn’t get to their dates early. They both arrived either buzzer-beatingly right on time or late, there were no other options. He supposed the reservation, at the very least, could have just been for Jason’s benefit, but that didn’t explain why she showed up early. 

“Here we are, sir!” the host chirped, pulling Leo out of his train of thought and dropping him right into a stupor. “We’ll bring those menus right on out. Enjoy your date!”

Jason managed to recover first, gawking obviously. “L– Taylor?”

“Uh, hey, Liam,” Leo replied, sliding into the opposite booth seat. He was suddenly very glad that Piper’s fake identity had been a gender-neutral name. “Sorry I’m late. I, uh, got caught up at the shop, you know?”

“I– Um, yeah, no, it’s fine,” Jason stammered. “I just– Wow, you look amazing.”

Leo flushed all the way to the roots of his hair and bashfully dropped his gaze. “I– Yeah. Thanks.” He tried very hard to convince himself that all this was just acting, but that was very hard to believe when Jason was staring at him with wide eyes and slightly pinked cheeks like he was really speechless at the sight of Leo in a button-up with his hair combed. He cleared his throat. “So, um, I got a really weird message from, uh, Penny today.”

Jason’s brow furrowed in confusion before his eyes widened. “Right! Penny! Our friend Penny!”

Leo felt a massive wave of fondness wash over him and he couldn’t help but subtly roll his eyes with a grin. “Yes, our friend Penny. Anyway she told me that she was supposed to be going to a meeting, but her boss never showed.”

“That’s weird because I got the opposite story,” Jason said. “She told me that she was supposed to have a meeting with her boss and just never showed up.”

Leo frowned. “That’s super weird. I guess she just wound up sending the intern to the meeting instead.”

“Well, if it makes any difference, the intern probably handled the meeting better than she would have,” Jason concluded. Then he gave Leo one of those stupid soft smiles. “I bet the boss enjoyed it more at any rate.”

Leo immediately flushed again, which wasn’t fair. “Well, you seem to be in a really chipper mood.”

Jason shrugged and his eyes sparkled. “Good day at work. I got to have a surprise meeting with one of the interns.”

“Shut up, oh my god,” Leo giggled helplessly and he hated himself for it. “You’re such a dork.”

Jason beamed at him like the sun had finally decided to come out and play. “Maybe, but I’m a dork who’s on a date with you, so I think that’s okay.”

Leo’s heart practically squealed at that and he frantically searched for a response. He was never, ever this easily flustered when he and Piper were playing, and Jason hadn’t even really done anything. It wasn’t fair. Fortunately, their waiter came by with menus and a basket of garlic knots Jason had apparently ordered, so Leo just stuffed his mouth to keep from saying anything. Across the table, Jason just laughed like Leo was the single most charming man in existence. 

After that, things were, surprisingly, a lot more manageable. Leo had been almost nervous that Jason would go into boyfriend mode, which probably would have killed Leo, based on the first few minutes of their little “date.” For some reason, though, he never flipped that switch. He just treated Leo like he always did, gentle smiles and undivided attention and all. 

Of course, that didn’t mean that they didn’t have fun playing pretend in other ways, though. They laughed and flirted with one another like they’d been doing it for years. Leo stole toppings off of Jason’s pizza, despite the fact that they got pretty much the exact same thing, and Jason leaned across the table with borderline comical precision to feed Leo a bite of pizza crust dipped in the really good sauce he’d ordered. They managed to giggle and sip their way through nearly two bottles of wine, and Leo had apparently abandoned his side of the booth to cozy on up to Jason, though he couldn’t really remember when that happened. 

“I’m having a lot of fun,” Leo announced heavily, dropping his head on Jason’s shoulder. “Are you having fun?”

“I always have fun with you,” Jason confessed, and Leo knew that Jason was a shit liar when he got tipsy, so this must be true. His heart squealed again and he ignored it again.

“Do you, um, still wanna do the thing?”

“The thi–? Oh. Right the thing,” Jason said, his tone suddenly a lot more flat than it had been all night. “Yeah, we can do the thing.”

“We don’t have to,” Leo insisted. “I mean, it’s your birthday. We seriously don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jason said, shaking his head. “You came out here to do one thing, it would be stupid not to do it.”

“Okay,” Leo said softly, though it was pretty much the last word he actually wanted to say. He wanted to argue, to tell Jason that he’d rather skip out on cake a thousand times if it meant that he’d keep smiling like he’d been before. He didn’t do that though. An argument like that would have drawn the wrong kind of attention at the wrong time. Besides, the words scared him and he refused to analyze why. “So, um, what kinda plan did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” Jason shrugged. “Pi–Penny suggested I take point, but I kinda got overwhelmed, so she said she’d take over. Do you have anything prepared?”

Leo shook his head. “Nah, I work best on improv. You just remember that we met in a shop class in high school and you’ve been in love with me ever since.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “We did meet in a high school shop class.”

Leo grinned, then tilted his head up to brush a kiss over Jason’s cheek. “I know. You’re a shitty liar when you’re tipsy, so we’re putting this on easy mode for you.”

Jason snorted and before he could say anything, Leo all but slunk out of the booth seat and dropped to one knee on the carpet floor. As expected, the restaurant’s few patrons fell silent immediately and stared. Leo felt their stares, but he couldn’t have looked back, even if he wanted to. His attention was completely and utterly fixated on Jason who was staring at him with wide eyes.

Leo sucked in a deep breath and began to speak. “Liam McAvery, you have been my best friend for better than a decade. You’ve stuck with me through my worst cryptocurrency obsessions, and held me when I heard that rumor that BTS broke up and I thought the world was ending. You’re patient enough to put up with screaming toddlers at the daycare and fierce enough to legitimately try and fist fight a grizzly bear to keep me safe. Jury’s out on which one is scarier.” There was some scattered laughter, proving that Leo had a very captive audience, but the one and only thing he cared about was the way Jason held up a hand in front of his mouth to cover a smile. Leo’s hand went to where he should have had a ring box, but he’d been expecting Piper to propose to him, so his pocket was totally empty. He almost panicked for a moment before suddenly remembering that he wasn’t ringless.

With shaking hands, Leo reached behind his neck and unlatched the gold chain he always wore, and the ring slid off into his palm, heavy and gold. It was his dad’s wedding ring, the same ring his mamá wore every day after his death until Leo was eighteen and she carefully hung it around his neck. Leo gulped heavily and held it up in offering. “I-I know it’s not much, but this is what I have. Do you think you could– I mean– Would you maybe marry me?”

Jason smiled down at him with such blatant fondness that it made Leo’s head spin. “May I see the ring?” he asked gently. Leo nodded furiously, so Jason reached down and picked up the ring with exactly as much reverence as it deserved and slipped it onto his left finger. “It’s the exact right size,” he announced and the smile he leveled Leo with would have powered several suns. “Just like you.”

Tears stung in Leo’s eyes. “Really?”

“Really.” Jason’s face was absolutely perfect in that moment and Leo never wanted to look at anything else. “You walked into that shop class and from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re the one who took your time.”

With that Jason opened his arms, and Leo practically launched himself into them. This was much, much easier than kneeling and spilling his fake guts for a man who didn’t exist. He was familiar with this, at least. Jason’s arms were real, his chest was real, the way his chest rumbled with laughter when Leo started pressing close like a cat was real. Jason, every stupid, wonderful part of him was real. For a while, it was just them. The restaurant faded away, the people faded away. All that mattered was Jason’s soft humming and the way he kept stroking his hands down Leo’s spine. Just them in their perfect little bubble.

The world, however, didn’t like bubbles, so theirs was popped with the slight clearing of a throat. Leo looked up, expecting to see their waiter, maybe carrying some canolis, maybe just their check, Leo didn’t care, but he was instead met with the sight of a fellow patron sporting alarmingly purple hair and bright green eyes. Leo blinked. “Uh, hi?”

“Hi there, I’m Luce,” they said, somewhat forcibly offering a hand, which Jason instinctively shook. “My partner and I saw your performance. Very moving.”

“Um, thanks?” Leo said, feeling remarkably awkward about it now that someone had brought it up. 

“Look, obviously it’s way too early in the wedding planning for this, hell you might elope and not even have a wedding, but we had a last-minute cancellation and this just felt like fate. So I came over.”

Leo shared a glance with Jason, who seemed equally baffled. “What felt like fate?”

“My partner and I run a bakery down the street, ForSnax, gluten-free, been in the family for generations,” Luce rattled off. “One of the things we specialize in is wedding cakes. We had a tasting booked for Saturday morning, so we have everything baked and ready to go, but literally minutes before you proposed, we got an email saying they needed to reschedule.”

“So, you… want us to come to your bakery for a wedding cake tasting?” Jason asked slowly. 

“If you want to; no pressure if you don’t,” Luce shrugged. “We’ve just got everything ready and it seems a shame to let it go to waste. We’d do everything free of charge, seeing as I’m accosting you in a restaurant and you didn’t get to pick the menu. What do you say?”

Leo should have refused. It was a bad idea and he knew it, but he couldn’t really say why it was such a bad idea. Besides, he was a little drunk on wine and the feeling of being in Jason’s arms. Plus, the point of the fake confession was to get free cake, and this person was offering them so much free cake. “Yeah. That sounds fun. You in, big guy?”

Jason startled like he hadn’t expected to get a vote. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Perfect!” Luce said brightly. They slid a flour-dusted business card out of their pocket and laid it on the table. “We’ll see you Saturday at ten. Oh, also!” They beamed at Leo and Jason. “Congratulations, you two. I hope you have a long, happy life together.”

“Can’t imagine anything else, so long as I have him,” Jason said casually.

Leo smiled helplessly up at Jason and couldn’t help but remember that a tipsy Jason was supposed to be bad at lying. 

*-*-*-*-*

Jason was in the middle of grading summer midterms when his TA, Lacy, stuck her head through his office door, looking more than a little confused. “Uh, Dr. Grace? There’s a lady out here to see you for a, um, personal matter?”

Jason tore his attention from what was already shaping up to be a very interesting paper on the impact of the Toba supereruption on early populations and frowned. “Excuse me? Did she say who she was at least?”

“Uh, no, sir,” Lacy said, shaking her head. “Well, she kinda did, technically, but she didn’t give a name. She claimed to be your sister in law. I tried to tell her she was mistaken, that you aren’t married, but she insisted. She gave me your full legal name and birthday and told me you’d understand.”

Jason did not, in fact, understand. Quite frankly, it was more baffling than ever. There was only a handful of people who knew that information, and of those people only a couple who would–

Jason froze, then rolled his eyes so hard it made him dizzy. “Go ahead and send her in, Lacy. I know who she is.”

“Oh.” Lacy just blinked at him for a moment before slowly backing out of the room. “Riiiiight. I’ll, um, go get her then, I guess?”

“Thank you, Lacy.”

Less than a minute after Lacy made her hesitant retreat, Piper made her entrance, which was anything but hesitant. She burst through the door in her neon yellow jean shorts and a grin far, far too wide to be anything remotely trustworthy. “Well, howdy-do, future husband to my baby brother.”

“You know, considering how many times you’ve gotten engaged to him, it’s a little weird to call Leo your baby brother,” Jason said dryly. “And that’s not even getting started on the time you got drunk at a New Year’s party and had a sloppy makeout session in front of god and everybody until you suddenly stood up and declared yourself a lesbian.”

Piper flapped her hands around in total dismissal. “Literally whatever. Platonic, familial and sexual are words incapable of describing the bond Leo and I share. We can do whatever the hell we want,” she sniffed. Then her eyes zeroed in on Jason’s left hand, which was still glinting slightly. “I’m way more interested in how last night went. Give me details, I want them all.”

“What details do you want?”

“Well, let’s start with the fact that you’re currently bedazzled with Leo’s most coveted possession, eighteen hours after the proposal,” she fired back instantly. “And don’t try to play coy with me, we both know exactly what that is.”

Jason’s hand dropped and he gently stroked the smooth, skin-warm gold with his thumb. “Yeah, it’s his dad’s. He didn’t actually come prepared with a fake ring, so he wound up using a real one.” He gulped heavily, heat rising to his cheeks. “I, uh, offered to give it back when we left, obviously, but he told me to wear it as practice.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say practice?” Piper screeched, eyes bugging. “Oh my god, I didn’t think the trap would spring that easily! Holy shit, he’s gonna actually propose! With his dad’s ring! He wants you ready to–”

“Piper!” Jason interrupted loudly. He almost never raised his voice, so the volume alone was enough to make Piper’s teeth click shut and eyes go wide. Jason quietly arched an eyebrow at her until she sat down across from him before he began. “Leo and I are not getting engaged, we’re going on a date. Kinda.”

“A date?” Piper squealed, immediately abandoning the silence requested of her. Then Jason gave her his best Teacher Face and she folded her hands in her lap. “Sorry, Professor Grace.”

“It’s Doctor Grace, actually.”

“Literally choke on your own spit and die.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I said it was a date kinda. It’s not official or anything, but we’re going out again Saturday morning. After Leo’s proposal, this bakery owner came up and invited us to a wedding cake tasting at their bakery, free of charge. We’re obviously going to have to pretend to still be engaged, so Leo suggested I practice wearing the ring.” Jason frowned and narrowed his eyes. “I would have assumed you knew that, that it was part of your plan.”

“You think far too highly of my schemes,” Piper said, eyes wide with far too much innocence to trust. 

“Speaking of, you promised unobtrusive and uninvolved,” Jason said hotly. “Jump scaring us both like that with your setup wasn’t either of those things.”

“I wasn’t even there, so I was the definition of unobtrusive,” Piper countered, holding up a finger. “And literally all I had to do was text Leo and then go hang out with Annabeth. Literally the least involved scheme of all time.”

“What about the bakery?”

“Who says that had anything to do with me?” Piper asked breezily. “Maybe the Fates just think you two belong together.”

Yeah, and maybe the Fates are 5’3 and have the fashion sense of a magpie in a Goodwill, Jason thought sarcastically. He dismissed the thought with a quick shake of the head. “Anyway, I’m supposed to be going out with Leo on Saturday and I don’t know what to do.”

Piper hummed thoughtfully and cocked her head at him. “Are you excited? Do you want to do it? If you wanna bail, Leo will understand.”

Jason sat with that thought for a long while. “Yeah, I wanna go.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Jason trailed off, trying to get his thoughts in order. “I don’t know, really. It just feels right. This feels like something I’m meant to do with him. Way more than any fake proposal, at least.”

“Why?”

Again, Jason thought long and hard before he finally spoke, the realization dawning on him like the sun. “Because it would just be us. Like, we’d still be playing pretend if someone talks to us, but there won’t be some big performance  we’re leading up to. I mean, most of the time it’s just gonna be me and him sitting next to each other and eating gluten-free cake. I don’t even like cake, but that sounds amazing.”

“Then that’s what you do,” Piper said like everything was simple if you just said it with a casual enough shrug. Maybe it was. “You want to go with him, he wants to go with you. You just go.”

“We just go,” Jason mumbled softly. He wished he had a window in his office to stare contemplatively out of, but he didn’t so he just settled on Piper. “Got any tips on what my gameplan should be?”

“Just one,” she said, grinning like she’d been waiting for that question her whole life. “Make him fall in love.”

*-*-*-*-*

Leo was nervous, and he hated that he was nervous more than just about anything before. This was going to be easy. They’d already secured the free cake, now all they had to do was not completely blow their cover. That was easy enough. If a couple said they were engaged, everyone automatically assumed they were happy unless there was something very obviously wrong. So long as Jason and Leo weren’t openly hostile to one another, they could just be normal and not garner any suspicion. 

Only, Jason apparently hadn’t gotten the message about being normal because he was doing everything in his power to simply give Leo a heart attack. It wasn’t anything big, exactly, just tiny little moments that screamed “I see you and I care about you!” louder than any declaration ever could. It started before Leo even woke up. Every Saturday, Jason went to this one stupidly expensive coffee shop on his dawn run and got himself a vanilla latte as his end of the week treat. Leo had always found that habit stupidly endearing, but this morning he was woken up by the smell of an egg-white muffin sandwich being pressed into his hands, along with an icy cup of juice.

But it wasn’t just any juice, was it? It was the stupid citrus-ginger-agave-beet juice that Leo had mentioned loving exactly once four years ago and Jason never ever forgot. He always remembered when it came up, and this morning he’d run an extra three blocks to swing by the cafe and grab one for him, along with a breakfast sandwich because “sweets on an empty stomach is asking for trouble.” Leo tried to tell himself it was for the act, but it wasn’t, and he knew it. There wasn’t even an audience, just Leo and that stupidly earnest smile.

From there, it was just even more little nothing things. Jason held doors open, he paid Leo’s subway fare, he offered a less-awkward spot for Leo to hang onto for balance so he didn’t have to put his arm at that one stupid angle to hang on to the upper rail. He kept his eyes fixed on Leo and laughed softly at all of his jokes, even the dumb one about zebras and paint. He was perfect, but he was always perfect, so Leo thought that maybe, just maybe he could survive this. 

And then they got off at their stop and Jason took his hand.

Leo’s head whipped up to stare at Jason with wide eyes, and Jason had the audacity to look confused. “What?”

“What’s all this?” Leo demanded, trying to sound playful rather than panicked when he squeezed Jason’s fingers.

Jason gave him a look of completely false innocence, slow blinking and all. “What? Am I not allowed to hold my future husband’s hand?”

Leo felt his cheeks go hot, which wasn’t fair because he was supposed to be the flirty one between the two of them. He always had been, at least. “Shut up.”

Jason just chuckled and leaned down to share his words with Leo alone. “I figured it would probably be best if we showed up holding hands. I’m pretty sure Percy and Annabeth started holding hands in their sleep after they got engaged.”

“Yeah, well, Percy and Annabeth probably would have held hands in the womb if they’d been capable of it. I wouldn’t exactly call them a good benchmark for standardized behavior patterns.”

Jason did that loud, stupid laugh he used when Leo really got him. The one where his eyes squinted and he threw his head back and put a hand to his chest, the one that always made Leo feel like the single most important person in the world because he could make Jason laugh like that more than anyone else could. 

When he was done laughing, Jason just smiled at Leo, mirth still sparkling in his features. “Fair point, but I think this may be the one time where they’re actually being normal.”

“Yeah, well, I think you just want to hold my hand,” Leo accused teasingly. 

He expected a flush, maybe a sputter. Instead he just got a raised eyebrow and his fingers squeeze. “People can have multiple motivations.”

Leo felt his brain full-on blue screen of death at that, but, fortunately, Jason just tugged him through a door that proudly sported a purple and green logo reading ForSnax: Gluten Free since 1993 along with the business hours in a friendly font.

“Oh, we’re here,” Leo said, feeling a little stupid. He suddenly realized he hadn’t checked his phone once since they left the apartment. “Are we late?”

“Not late at all,” an unfamiliar voice said, and Leo looked up to see a man, about as tall as Jason, walking towards them with a smile on his face. He had short cropped hair and a sturdy boxer’s build, and a nametag with Caden he/him written on it in smudged Sharpie. “Hi, you must be Tyler and Liam, right?”

For a split second, Leo’s brain froze, but fortunately Jason was able to take point for him. “That’s us,” he said smoothly. “Luce told us to be here around 10, so I know we’re a little early.”

“Getting places early is a compulsion of his,” Leo supplied without thinking. “He was actually born three weeks premature because of it.”

Jason flushed absolutely maroon. “L– Sweetheart, I don’t think it’s necessary to tell everyone that story.”

“I don’t tell it to everyone, just the people who might benefit from it,” Leo countered, trying to immediately forget the rush of warmth that washed over him when Jason called him sweetheart. It didn’t mean anything. In fact it meant less than nothing. It was just a flustered attempt to cover Jason’s near slip of the tongue. It didn’t mean anything, none of it did, and Leo had to remember that. 

Caden didn’t seem to notice Leo’s little mini-crisis, he just led them through the quietly bustling dining area and into one of the private rooms off to the side. “Luce said they want to be the one to bring out your cake,” he explained, sitting them at the cutesy little table. “They’ll go over all the flavors and dietary restrictions and everything before you start eating, then, when you’re done, they’ll discuss prices and what kind of decorations would and wouldn’t work on what cakes. Sound good?”

“Sounds good to me,” Leo agreed easily, getting comfy in his new spot before patting the seat next to him. “Come on, Wonderbread.”

Caden snorted in amusement as Jason sidled into his assigned position. “So, how long have the two of you been together?”

Leo opened his mouth to give his usual ridiculous answer of two years, two hundred eighty-six days, and nineteen hours, but Jason beat him to it.

“Not long enough,” he said, sounding playfully annoyed. “I’ve been in love with this guy since we were sixteen and spent years dropping hints like crazy before he finally picked it up.”

That was not in the script. That wasn’t in any script Leo had access to, which was crazy because he was pretty sure he’d written all the scripts himself. He just blinked at Jason like an owl with stage fright. “Really?”

Jason smiled so very gently down at him. “Of course. I’ve been head over heels for you since day one. The way you laugh, the way you make me laugh, is the most wonderful thing in my life. You’re so clever it hurts my brain to keep up with you sometimes, and you don’t even seem to notice. You’re obsessed with cats, despite insisting you don’t want one, and I don’t think I’ve ever, in all our time together, seen you walk past a stray animal without at least trying to help. You’re beautiful when I wake up at five in the morning and you suddenly realize you never went to bed, you’re beautiful when you’re putting on a show for anyone who will watch you, and you’re beautiful when it’s just you and me and you let yourself take off your costume so I can hold you until we fall asleep.” Jason laughed almost helplessly like he really was a man in love rather than a man actively ruining Leo’s life. Then, because he was cruel in the most innocent ways possible, he cupped both of Leo’s cheeks in his hands. “Sweetheart, how could I not be madly in love with you?”

He doesn’t mean any of that, a sharp voice in Leo’s voice hissed. This is all pretend, remember? A stupid little game you made up, and now you’re dealing with the consequences. 

As much as he hated it, the voice was right. Jason didn’t mean what he was saying. Everything he said, every last bit of it, was a lie to convince a stranger that they were a couple of recently engaged men who were obnoxiously in love. But, far, far more painfully, it wasn’t a lie. Not really. Everything he said, every last bit of it, was the god’s honest truth. 

But it still didn’t mean anything, and that, more than anything, was the problem.

Suddenly, tears sprang to his eyes as Leo realized what he’d refused to let himself realize for so, so many years. He wanted it to be real. He wanted Jason to go on his stupid runs and bring home too-fancy juice just because he thought Leo might want it with his breakfast. He wanted to hold hands in the street and on the subway. He wanted to whisper jokes in Jason’s ear in quiet places just to watch him sputter. He wanted Jason to tell total strangers about how wonderful and kind he was. He wanted to hold Jason close and to kiss him whenever he wanted and he wanted to love Jason and, more than just about anything, he wanted Jason to love him back. 

Jason noticed his heartbreak because of course he did and he brushed his thumb over Leo’s cheek with vile kindness. “Sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

Without a word, without waiting for a single second to pass, Leo leapt to his feet and bolted out the door. 

*-*-*-*-*

Leo had learned at a very young age that sometimes the world was too damn big and loud. Paradoxically, the best way to deal with that was to get as small and quiet as possible. It started when he was little and his mamá would search the house high and low for him, then she’d find him curled up in a tiny little ball under the winter coats they hardly ever needed in Texas. She’d try to coax him out if she could, but if he refused, if the world was too much for him, she’d just get on her hands and knees and crawl into the closet with him, offering him kind words and whatever sweet treat they had in the kitchen that week. Then, she’d just sit there with him until the world felt small enough to fit in his hands, and she’d lead him back out into the light of the living room.  

Unfortunately, his mamá wasn't there. She was all the way out in Texas, more than a thousand miles away, and Leo was hiding under a bush in Central Park, silently crying into his knees because he’d set up a bear trap to dance around and wound up stepping right into the center of it. He was alone in a crowded city and he’d ruined everything, he knew he did and–

“There you are.”

For a split second, Leo thought that his mamá had really managed to find him, because who else in the world would ever speak to him like that? But then he blinked through his tears and curled into a tighter ball when blond hair and blue eyes came into focus. “Go away.”

“Not yet,” Jason said easily. “Not without you.”

“I’m not coming out.”

Jason was quiet for a moment before he let out a soft hum. “Alright then.”

Then, because he was insane, Jason dropped to his hands and knees and crawled under the bush. It was a ridiculous sight, considering the bush was hardly big enough for Leo, but he somehow managed to fold his gigantor body up like a contortionist and squeezed his way inside. He had dirt on the knees of his jeans and a leaf stuck in his hair, but he was still wonderful and looked at Leo with equal parts patience and concern before he smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Leo breathed, a little worried the world might shatter if he spoke too loud. 

Jason just smiled wider before he perked up. “Oh, right! I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cookie wrapped up in a purple and green napkin. “I apologized to Luce and Caden, told them we probably wouldn’t make it back and they were fine with it. But I did buy you a cookie, seeing as you missed out on the free dessert.”

Leo just blinked at him for a moment, then down at the slightly crushed cookie in his hand, then back at him. Seconds later, he started sobbing, big ugly, wet sounds that anybody even approaching the bush probably heard, but Leo didn’t care. He couldn’t care. Not when Jason was covered in dirt and offering him a cookie under a bush. That was just too much.

Jason’s face paled and he abandoned his cookie to cup Leo’s cheeks, trying fruitlessly to brush away the tears as quickly as they fell. “Hey, hey. What’s wrong? Sweetheart, you–”

“Don’t,” Leo interrupted sharply before his voice broke again. “Please, don’t call me that. You just– I can’t–”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Jason soothed, stroking Leo’s hair. “I won’t call you anything you don’t like.”

That wasn’t the problem. Leo didn’t not like it, he just didn’t like that Jason wasn’t really saying it. Hearing it in the bakery had been bad enough but here? Where there was no audience but Leo’s own tears and ragged heart? Wearing that name like a joke felt crueler than should ever be allowed. He tried to explain himself, but the words stuck in his throat so he was just left shaking his head in Jason’s palms.

“No? No what?” Jason asked. When Leo just shook his head harder, Jason sighed and dropped his hands to sit back. Leo nearly panicked, but then Jason gave him that sweet, shy smile and opened his arms. “Come here?”

Leo immediately flung himself across the tiny distance separating them, just like he had at the restaurant. He pressed as close to Jason as possible, thinking that maybe if he tried hard enough he could find a space to live behind Jason’s ribs where the world would finally be small enough. 

“Take your time,” Jason soothed, gently tracing every bump on Leo’s spine. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here to talk, okay?”

Leo still couldn’t speak, but he was able to nod furiously. Jason just wanted him to talk. He could do that. It would probably be the last thing he ever did while carrying the title of Jason’s best friend, but he’d do it. Jason deserved that much.

Eventually, after far too long but not quite long enough, Leo swallowed thickly. “Sorry I ran off.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Jason told him. “Caden assured me that you were not the first groom to panic and run out of a cake tasting. You were one of the fastest, though.” Leo snorted in surprised amusement, and he felt Jason smile into his hair. “Can you tell me what happened? Did it have to do with the whole… pet name thing?”

“Kind of,” Leo murmured, fiddling with Jason’s hoodie string. “But it wasn’t just the name. The name’s fine. I don’t care if people call me that, I just don’t want you to call me that.”

Jason stiffened, and there was no hiding the hurt in his voice when he said, “Oh. Um. Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Can you… tell me why? Did I do something?”

Leo squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to answer that question. The thought made him sick. It was going to ruin everything. He was going to lose this perfect man who consistently treated him better than he could ever deserve. But he couldn’t just leave Jason in the dark, thinking he’d done something wrong. That was so, so much worse. So he hid his face in the crook of Jason’s neck and whispered the truth he’d been avoiding for a decade. “I can’t hear that from you unless I know you mean it.” Suffoucating silence fell over the bush, and Leo listened intently as his world shattered beneath his feet. And then, Jason did something unexpected. 

He started laughing.

It wasn’t mean or mocking, it was a slow, quiet incredulous laughter from the depths of his chest that made Leo feel like he was going to vibrate into atoms. “Leo? I think you forgot something very, very important.”

Leo frowned and pulled back just enough to see Jason smiling down at him like an angel, but that didn’t explain much. “What did I forget?”

“I’m a terrible actor, sweetheart.”

For a second nothing made sense but then the words and the world clicked into place and Leo blinked stars out of his eyes. “Really?”

Jason’s hands cupped his cheeks again. “Really.”

Within three months of their relationship, Hazel knew, without a doubt, that Frank Zhang was the single best man she had ever dated. She didn’t say he was the best she would ever date because that implied there might be other people down the line, and she already knew that either he’d put a ring on her finger or she’d put a ring on his. In her opinion, this was a loss for every other woman on the planet, but she didn’t care in the slightest because Frank was hers, and she had no intentions to change that, other than marrying him harder than anyone had ever married someone. Frank was the single sweetest man Hazel had ever met – he co-founded a non-profit sanctuary for elderly dogs, for Christ’s sake – he was far more clever than he’d ever let anyone believe, and he was a 6’4 guy who could bench 250 while still being fat enough to give her the squishiest, best hugs of her life. Quite frankly, Hazel had hit the jackpot and she’d have to be a fool to give him up and her mama didn’t raise a fool. 

That wasn’t to say that Frank didn’t have his flaws. He was human, delightfully, infuriatingly so. Frank cared way too much about soccer and was one of those guys who shouted at the TV and needed a bit of coddling when his team lost. He was hopeless in a kitchen, both because he thought that adding a hard-boiled egg to his Cup Noodles counted as cooking and because he could not, for the life of him, remember to close the goddamn cabinets. He insisted that he liked sudoku, and picked up a puzzle every time he came across one, but Hazel had never once seen him actually sit down and finish one. 

All that paled in comparison to what Hazel deemed his greatest sin, though, and it was a sin she wasn’t entirely sure she could forgive. 

Like so many men in the world, Frank’s hair was soft and silky and healthy and he didn’t deserve it in the slightest. He kept it cropped fairly short, simply because anything longer than two inches was “a bit much” and he liked to save money on shampoo. That last bit hurt Hazel’s soul because Frank was very much a 23-in-1 person, and had even mentioned that he used Dawn on more than one occasion when he forgot he was out of shampoo because “if it’s good enough for baby ducks, it’s good enough for me.” Meanwhile, Hazel hadn’t run out of shampoo since the day she actually started caring about her hair because her preferred products were expensive so she stocked up each and every time there was a sale. In fact, she had three unopened bottles in her bathroom at that very second.

To be fair, Hazel also had soft, healthy hair, just like Frank, but she had earned every single strand. It had taken years of practice, of trial and error, of unlearning bad habits, and of so god damn many YouTube videos that all seemed to say something different, but eventually she’d found her rhythm. It wasn’t a perfect natural hair routine, but it was her perfect routine and she wasn’t inclined to give it up. 

Frank didn’t understand a bit of it, bless him, but he did listen. Yes, every word she said about hydration and protein levels went straight over his head and made his eyes glaze a bit, but he still stayed with her on FaceTime during wash days and kept her company. He also asked so many questions, even if they were a little dumb, but it proved that he was listening.

“How come none of your hair stuff is scented?”

“Does wearing your hair in twists like that hurt when you sleep?”

“Why do you have to use a bonnet and a fancy pillowcase?”

“Wait, you change your sheets how often?”

“So, does the oil you put in your hair have to be a specific kind or can it be the regular vegetable stuff?”

“This is really important to you, huh?”

That last one had landed heavier than Frank had probably meant it to. Hazel had just sat there in her fluffy bathrobe, finger detangling her hair for several moments before she spoke. Then she explained herself. She explained the cultural significance, and the community aspect of it, and how so much of a Black girl’s self image could wind up tangled in her hair, and why every minute of effort, every dollar spent was entirely worth it to her, and always would be. Frank had thought about that for a moment, really let the words soak in, then said she inspired him to maybe consider buying conditioner. Hazel had laughed at that so hard she had to put down her hairdryer, and Frank looked very pleased with himself.

Really, Hazel had figured that was the end of it. She liked that Frank acted so interested in her haircare routine, but, at the end of the day, her hair was her own responsibility, and she wouldn’t blame him for getting bored of it, just like everyone who didn’t get it always did. And yet, Frank just kept listening. Even on non-wash days, when Hazel hadn’t even brought up her hair, Frank would ask his questions, would check in when the weather turned humid, and would send her pictures of various products on sale and ask her opinion on them. Each and every time he listened like he was worried Hazel might quiz him later, and then he just went about his day. Hazel thought it was a bit weird, yes, but it was a harmless, good-natured weird that was probably just his way of showing that he was listening to her and wanted to get a good grade in boyfriend. 

Hazel found out in month eight that she was wrong. Well, she wasn’t wrong, Frank had been listening, and he definitely deserved a good grade in boyfriend, but she had completely miscalculated the scale.

They’d been coming home from a concert – Percy and Annabeth’s girlfriend was in a band and they wanted everyone to come see her – and it was super late, way later than Hazel liked riding the subway, so Frank had offered to let her stay the night. It wasn’t a big deal in theory, seeing as they’d spent the night at Hazel’s apartment on more than one occasion, but it was her first time stepping foot into Frank’s. That was sort of deliberate, simply because Hazel’s apartment was nicer even without factoring in the whole “bachelor pad” thing, but that just made her choice to break that rule all the more breathtaking. 

Frank’s apartment was actually surprisingly tidy, much better than Piper and Leo’s place, and even had real furniture, which Hazel was admittedly impressed with.

“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess,” Frank apologized, sheepishly picking up a coffee cup that had been abandoned that morning. “I usually try to keep everything clean, but I got distracted this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “Though I do really need to try and scrub some of this glitter off. Do you mind if I shower?”

“First door on the right<” Frank said. “Do you want PJs?”

And that was how Hazel found herself standing in an unfamiliar bathroom, wearing a t-shirt and boxers about six sizes too big, and staring at a very familiar fuchsia bottle. Her hands shook and she couldn’t stop it when she reached out and picked it up. Still heavy. Unopened. She flipped the cap and inhaled. Unscented. She put the bottle down and then her eyes traveled to the green glass bottle right next to it. She grabbed that next and went to the bedroom where she knew Frank was waiting. Once there, she felt her breath hitch again. 

“Why do you have satin pillowcases?”

Frank looked up at her from his phone and then frowned down at the pillows. “Is satin not the right thing? I could have sworn you said–”

“The satin’s fine,” she cut in. “I just want to know why they’re on your bed. Why do you even own them?”

Frank just shrugged. “I bought them a few months ago, just in case you ever spent the night. I have a purple one and a red one, so I can make sure I only use one. The purple one is yours.”

“You have jojoba oil on your bathroom counter,” she accused, bottle clenched in her fist as she tried not to cry. “You have Hecate Mist shampoo and conditioner. Why?”

“In case you ever spent the night,” Frank repeated, looking no less confused. 

“I– I’m not exactly planning to do a wash-day here.”

“I know that,” Frank insisted earnestly. “But if something happens, I wanted you to be able to.”

Hazel stared at the bedsheets, which looked like they’d been changed recently, but not performatively. “Thank you.”

Frank didn’t accept her thanks with anything more than a nod before he produced a brand new bonnet with a smile. “I also found this. I bought it with the sheets. I don’t think it’s the exact same as the one you use at home, but it’s as close as I could find.”

“It’s– Whatever you got is fine,” she stuttered, suddenly feeling like she was on their first date all over again.

Frank just looked even more proud at her. Then he noticed that her hair was still loose because she hadn’t expected to have access to anything, so she hadn’t bothered to do her usual nightly routine and just accepted that it would be a problem for Future Hazel. “Do you want help with your bedtime twists?”

“Yeah,” Hazel said softly. “That would be great.”

Hazel wound up sitting on pillow between Frank’s knees while he sat on a desk chair, meticulously following every direction Hazel gave him. Just like he was with everything he cared about, Frank was gentle and kind and incredibly thorough when it came to Hazel’s hair. She coached him through separating her hair out into sections, applying the detangler he’d also bought at some point, and carefully twisting her hair around itself so it wouldn’t get tangled in the night. It was slow going because Frank’s only braiding experience was with dog leads and he twisted one in the completely wrong direction, and Hazel probably could have done it in a third of the time but it didn’t matter. What did matter was that there were fingers in her hair, fingers that spoke of love well before a mouth had courage, and she was content to soak it up forever. 

Forever was always destined to end, though, so Frank eventually wheeled away from his work to give Hazel room to breathe, and handed over the bonnet. Then she showed him how to actually use the jojoba oil he’d bought, and they went to bed pretty soon after that because there was nothing to stay awake for. At least, that’s what Frank did. As far as he was concerned, he’d behaved in a perfectly rational, non Earth-tilting way, so he was snoring within seven minutes because that was just a skill he had. Hazel did not have that skill, not even a little, and as such she just laid there and stared at him. As she watched his lungs rise and fall with every breath, Hazel felt a soft, helpless smile curve over her mouth.