Shake it off

Chapter 19

It took quite a bit of convincing, but his mom let him use the van. Leo nearly tackled her in a hug when she said yes. "Thank you so so much, Sally. I swear, you're a life saver."

Nico had a bit of a hard time convincing Hazel, but his adoptive mom couldn't seem to care less.

"Here, put this in the trunk." he shoved an army green bag into Percy's arms hard enough to show he still wasn't friendly with him. It honestly kind of hurt because he knew that Nico and Leo were good friends.

Leo just laughed at it and told Percy that it was okay. In private, he had already explained that Nico had some anger management problems and hardcore clinical depression. Well, Percy knew Nico was pretty hardcore. He wasn't sure that he understood depression all that well, but he knew that it made people unhappy.

"So I'm the only one here who has a license and actually knows how to drive, right?" Percy said as he shut the trunk.

Leo drummed his fingers against the hood of the van. "Well, I know how to drive but I'm not legal."

Percy let his eyes travel to Nico who sneered at him. "Unimportant. There's a million subways in New York."

"True." Leo giggled a little. It almost made Percy jealous that they were so comfortable with each other. "Your mom definitely told him we were coming, right?"

Percy opened the front door and got in. "Yeah, and he definitely said it was cool."

Nico scoffed. "From here to Florida. Why does he live in fucking Florida?" he got in one of the back seats.

"I told you he's an asshole. Where else would he live?" Leo got in the passenger seat and shut the door. He gripped the dashboard. He was so obviously nervous that it made Percy want to lean across the seat and kiss his brains out.

"Hey," Percy took his hand. His heart beat a little bit faster when Leo with his big beautiful eyes stared back at him. "You don't have to do this, okay? If you're not ready or something then that's completely okay."

Leo smiled and looked away onto the ground. "I have to. I want to because I need to ask him face to face about everything. I need information." Percy smiled, proud as hell of his boyfriend.

"You're certain?"

"Absolutely." Leo squeezed his hand back.

Percy made a motion to kiss him, and Leo pulled away silently shaking his head. He glanced over at Nico, who was in a black coat, with his sleeves rolled up so his forearms were visible with a smudge of something on them and his hood was on his head. His hair was in his face, and he seemed to be giving the outside window the dirtiest look. With his brooding demeanor and angry attitude, he sort of wondered how he and Leo became friends in the first place.

Leo had a more or less happy personality and snarky jokes. Meanwhile, Nico was an emo rocker looking kind of guy who seemed like he could throw you off a building, no second thoughts, no regrets.

Maybe Leo just wasn't comfortable with this kind of public display of affection.

"Okay." Percy sighed, unhappy that he didn't get to kiss Leo.

He looked back at the latino again and instead saw a black converse shoe. Nico decided to elevate his leg onto Percy's seat. The green eyed boy just started the stupid car and started down the road.

--

It was freezing. It was around noon, concluding they'd been driving for about three hours and Percy was not happy. He despised being on the road this long, it was a miracle that it hadn't started snowing yet.