Chapter Text
annabeth watched piper watch the boys at the lunch table nearby with disgust as one of them poured chocolate milk on the other one’s nachos. rachel covered her mouth. annabeth shook her head and returned to her calculus homework. she couldn’t stand those three guys either and she’d rather not throw up watching them play with their food.
piper turned back around, sighed, and tightened her ponytail, sliding her cheer bow back in place. “what is their deal?” she complained.
rachel kept staring at the boys’ table. “don’t you cheer for them?”
“yeah, for frank. he’s the only one on the football team. jason, i don’t know what he does, and isn’t percy on the swim team?”
“yeah,” rachel said. annabeth looked up from her paper to catch rachel’s cheeks flush red as she turned back to her food.
“i don’t know what you see in him,” annabeth sighed, watching percy eat the chocolate milk/nacho cheese covered tortilla chip. his friends were roaring with laughter and he was wearing a stupid grin on his face that made annabeth want to punch him for some reason.
“shut up, anna. he’s hot and he’s nice to me in art class. and he’s funny.”
“your standards for men are low,” piper commented, stabbing her salad with her fork.
annabeth laughed. “she’s right, rach. don’t go for a swim team guy.”
“yeah!” piper nodded. “or girl. remember brooke? she was on the girls’ swim team. she was a walking red flag.”
“set yourself to a higher standard. you deserve more,” annabeth told her.
rachel glared at both of them. “shut up you don’t even know him.”
“i think i can gather quite a bit about him from what i just watched him eat,” annabeth countered.
rachel stuck her tongue out at her.
truthfully, annabeth had known percy for years. ever since kindergarten. they’d been classmates all through elementary and middle school but thankfully, had never been close.
“annabeth, can you help me with my math?” piper asked, changing the subject.
“if you pay,” annabeth told her.
“i’m literally your best friend, i should get like a discount.”
“no.”
“annabeth, i’m going to fail.”
“i don’t tutor for free, who’s going to buy you starbucks in the morning if i work for free?”
“me, i’m the one who would be paying you in the first place,” piper pointed out.
“fine. if you pay for starbucks all month, i will help you with your math.”
“a day.”
“three weeks.”
“one week.”
“two weeks.”
“deal.”
“piper, you are so bad at bargaining,” rachel laughed.
piper rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. “oh, the bell’s about to ring. are you guys coming to the game tonight?”
annabeth nodded. friday night football games were a big deal at their school. however, annabeth and rachel only went to see piper cheer. “yeah, i’m not tutoring tonight so i was gonna pick rachel up.”
“good,” piper stuck her phone in her jacket pocket. the bell rang.
annabeth stood up, shoving her homework folder in her bag. they all dumped their lunch trays in the trash. rachel’s next class was the opposite side of campus from annabeth’s and piper’s respective classes, so annabeth and piper parted ways with rachel.
“have fun in art,” piper teased rachel as they left.
“use protection,” annabeth sang. rachel flipped them off. piper and annabeth stumbled off giggling out of the cafeteria.
-
“bye, i’m leaving!” annabeth called to no one. it was a formality, really. her parents didn’t care if she left the house.
she got in her car, connecting her bluetooth and shooting rachel a text before she backed out of the driveway. she pulled up to rachel’s, where her friend was already outside waiting for her.
rachel climbed in the front seat and immediately picked up annabeth’s phone and switched the music.
“dude,” annabeth said.
“what are you gonna do about it?” rachel taunted.
annabeth rolled her eyes.
they arrived at the stadium, and annabeth miraculously found a parking spot. they showed the lady at the ticket booth their student ids and went straight to the concessions.
“can i have a sprite and a bag of chips please? oh, and a bag of skittles?” rachel asked the guy at concessions.
annabeth recognized him from her math class. she knew his name was leo and that he was friends with piper because they had ceramics together.
leo gave rachel the snacks and annabeth paid him. they thanked him and headed to the stands, arms linked together.
“we can share the sprite,” rachel told her.
annabeth nodded. “what about the skittles and chips?”
“fine.”
“i paid for it.”
“i know.”
they found a good spot in the stands behind piper’s box. she was standing around with the cheer team and she grinned and waved when she saw them.
“i can’t believe we’re friends with a sophomore cheerleader,” rachel joked.
“it’s a good thing we love her,” annabeth added.
rachel and annabeth were juniors. they had been best friends since the first day of sixth grade when annabeth had bled through her jeans and rachel let her tie her sweatshirt around her waist. once they got to tenth grade, an annoying freshman cheerleader somehow ended up under their wings and they let her stay. it had been a year since they had been friends with piper but it felt like they’d always been a group of three.
rachel and annabeth chatted about school and made fun of how the football players looked down on the field warming up while people filed in for the game.
“let’s sit here!” some random guy said behind them, supposedly to his friends.
“no, man, you just want to sit here because you have a crush on that cheerleader,” his friend said.
rachel and annabeth exchanged a look.
“i don’t like piper!” the first guy protested.
“you literally do,” a girl said. “you told me.”
“hazel, i can’t tell you anything.”
“wait, i swear she was just dating a girl in my chem class,” someone else said.
“bisexuality and pansexuality and whatever exist, dude,” the first guy said.
“i don’t want to discuss this random girl’s sexuality with you, jason.”
rachel let out a giggle.
‘jason grace?’ annabeth mouthed.
rachel glanced back at them and nodded. “and percy, hazel, and grover.”
“go make your move, girl,” annabeth said.
“no way.”
the game started. things happened. annabeth understood football but she didn’t understand it. she knew the rules and how the game worked but she didn’t get the appeal. sweaty teenage boys running around a field. not her thing. she appreciated the cheerleaders.
the game ended, their school won. annabeth drove them all to piper’s house. piper made popcorn and they gossiped about what they had heard from jason and his friends.
piper thought it was absolutely hilarious.
“do we all want our own bowls or separate bowls?” piper asked.
“own bowls,” annabeth decided. “i don’t want to share with a sophomore cheerleader.”
“well i don’t want to share with a virgin math tutor,” piper shot back.
“okay let’s keep it civil, ladies,” rachel’s interjected.
the three of them cuddled up on piper’s bed and turned on mean girls, queuing up clueless so they could watch it next. they spent the rest of the night reciting every line through mouthfuls of popcorn.
-
sunday evening, annabeth checked her email on her phone. she did so often, as notifications piling up stressed her out.
she had an email from a sally jackson, who explained that her son’s math grade was slipping, which meant his gpa was slipping. she said that he was scarily close to getting kicked off of the swim team if he didn’t raise his grade. apparently she and her son had met with his math teacher, annabeth’s former teacher, and he had suggested her as a tutor. sally explained that she and her husband and her son wanted to do everything they could to help him stay on the swim team, because he loved being on it.
it was pretty clear that sally’s son was percy jackson. sally had also explicitly stated that that was her son’s name. annabeth groaned, scrolling back through the email again. she tutored a lot of people she didn’t particularly like.
she really had no reason to dislike percy. like at all. he had done nothing to her. he just annoyed her. from a distance he just seemed so cocky to her and she didn’t like that.
she typed out an email reply to sally, informing her on payment and scheduling and everything. she did find it funny that percy’s mom was emailing her when percy was the exact same age as annabeth.
that was how her little tutoring business went. she tutored all the people who were far more popular than her and most of the time they didn’t even want to be there. parents paid annabeth to sit with their kid in her room and teach them math. teachers loved her and teachers recommended her and she got paid.
sally emailed her back only a few minutes after annabeth sent hers. they emailed back and forth once more, arranging a schedule of monday, wednesday, and friday evenings that didn’t interfere with his swim practice schedule. because tomorrow was monday, he was starting immediately. annabeth sent sally her address so percy would know where to go.
based on her emails annabeth figured that sally was like a soccer mom but for swimming. she was quick to reply to emails and she seemed really in to percy’s swimming career. maybe she was living vicariously through him.
annabeth shut her phone off and plugged it in on her night stand and grabbed her history textbook and notebook. she’d worry about that again in the morning. she had apush reading to do.