𝑨𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑺 • 𝑃𝐸𝑅𝐶𝑌 𝐽𝐴𝐶𝐾𝑆𝑂𝑁 ²

THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
—dumb bridges

🗡🗡🗡

—JUDITH was not alone when she woke up not even 15 minutes later. She was not alone in the room she went to sleep alone in. She was not alone in the bed she distinctly recalled being alone in when she fell asleep.

Judith solely blamed her instincts for what happened next.

"Augh," a disgruntled groan rose up from the ground, muffled only by the carpet. "Did you just kick me out of the bed?"

Judith balked at the ceiling for only a second before scooting over and leaning up on her elbow just enough to see over the edge of the mattress. Sure enough, the target of her impulsive violence was sprawled out on the hotel room floor, looking as if he might just fall right back to sleep there.

"Did I just—yes. Yes, I kicked you out of my bed," she scoffed. "You can't just crawl into other people's beds, Jackson."

The singular eye that wasn't smushed down into the ground peaked open to peer up at her. "Technically, it isn't your bed. We haven't rented any of these rooms."

"Don't try to be all technical when you're tired, you sound dumb." She looked him over again, his legs contorted in awkward ways and back weirdly arched. "Almost as dumb as you look right now."

"Aw, Jude," he yawned, eyes squeezing shut. "You flatter me."

"Yeah, well, flatter this." She chucked one of the pristine white pillows down at his face. Instead of receiving another grunt of impact like she expected, Percy only sighed contentedly as he dragged the pillow underneath his head and cuddled in.

"Thanks. You're the best," he mumbled.

Judith grimaced, falling back to where she was laying before. With the extra body gone, she moved back to the center of the bed — her rightful spot. Unfortunately, as she shoved her own face into one of the remaining pillows, she got a big whiff of what she could only describe as Febreze Sea Spray and sweat.

There was a part of her that was tempted to hurl this pillow down over the side, as well. Instead, her traitor body clutched it closer, unrelenting.

After a while it became hard to breathe, her nose and mouth shoved so uncomfortably into the plushness. When she eventually had to come up for air, she frowned.

What was she doing?

"Get up here, Barnacle Breath."

There was a moan of exhaustion before an actual answer. "Too much work. I think I'll just stay down here."

Judith clenched her teeth. "Percy, I said, get. up. here."

There were a few more displeased grunts and groans, but he didn't reject the call. Which was smart of him, because Judith was quite close to jumping out of the bed to drag him back into it by his ear.

He got under the covers, sliding in as Judith shuffled over to give him space. At first, she gave him as large of a berth as possible, and with how little she had to work with, her body was nearly hanging off the far edge. This wasn't exactly what she had imagined, but, honestly, she couldn't say for certain what she had imagined.

With eyes still closed, he asked, "Do I really smell that bad?"

She only just barely caught her tongue before it could betray her and say that, no, it's the opposite actually.

"You smell like sweat," she said in place of lying.

He snorted faintly, both eyes cracking open just a sliver to look at her. "I wonder why. You think you're much better?"