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"give me a second, darling"
"OH...YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE."
Her eyes opened to see daylight streaming in through the glass pane on the floor. They glanced around as Percy's arms were curled around her waist, his head on her stomach while she slowly tried to sit up without waking him.
What she was met with was Frank, who looked terrified finding the two of them passed out in the stables. Percy finally woke up at her sharp inhale.
"What...?" Percy rubbed his eyes. "Oh, we just fell asleep."
Frank swallowed. He was dressed in running shoes, dark cargo pants, and a Vancouver Winger Olympics t-shirt with his Roman centurion badge pinned to the neck. Frank averted his eyes as if the sight of them together might burn him.
"Everyone thinks you've been kidnapped," he said. "We've been scouring the ship. When Coach Hedge finds out—oh, gods, you've been here all night?"
"Frank!" Ariadne's ears went red. Percy was still holding her, his head resting on her shoulder while his eyelashes grazed her neck tiredly. Whatever was going through the younger boy's mind was definitely not what happened. "We came down here to talk. We fell asleep. Accidentally. That's it."
"Kissed a couple of times," Percy said. Although, she was the only one who could tell that he was smirking on the inside.
Ariadne whacked his arm. "Not helping!"
"We'd better..." Frank pointed to the stable doors. "Uh, we're supposed to meet for breakfast. Would you explain what you did—I mean didn't do? I mean...I really don't want that faun—I mean satyr—to kill me."
Frank ran.
When everyone finally gathered in the mess hall, it wasn't quite as bad as Frank had feared. Jason and Piper were mostly relieved. Leo couldn't stop grinning and gave Ariadne dressing winks and wiggling eyebrows. Annabeth smiled behind her hand. Only Hazel seemed scandalized, maybe because she was from the 1940s. She kept fanning her face and wouldn't meet Percy's eyes.
Naturally, Coach Hedge went ballistic; but Ariadne found it hard to take the satyr seriously since he was barely five feet tall.
"Never in my life!" Coach bellowed, waving his bat and knocking over a plate of apples. "Against the rules! Irresponsible!"
"Coach," Ariadne said, "it was an accident. We were just talking and we fell asleep, nothing to it."
"Besides," Percy said, "you're starting to sound like Terminus."
Hedge narrowed his eyes. "Is that an insult, Jackson? Cause I'll—I'll terminus you, buddy!"
Percy tried not to laugh. "It won't happen again, Coach. I promise. Now, don't we have other things to discuss?"
