Percy Jackson One Shots and Short Stories

#41 - She's With Me

Chapter 41 - She's With Me
published: Monday, 9 September 2019

Time Frame: after 'Blood of Olympus'; in Camp Half-Blood

Synopsis: Drew Tanaka may have a notorious reputation for being a heartbreaker, but when some new campers take things too far, Piper steps in to set the record straight.

Warning(s): slut-shaming, verbal abuse

Dedicated to: All my wonderful readers for hitting 10K reads! Thank you so much, and you have no idea how much this means to me. Happy reading!

—*—

Today there were three new campers; the most Piper had seen in a while. Jenny, Lara, and Olivia, a trio of best friends from a high school in Queens. Having only met Jenny, Piper couldn't judge them all, but Jenny was the sweetest child of Demeter.

Lara was a daughter of Hephaestus, and according to Leo, was amazing at doing intricate projects. She was also an experienced member of the robotics club and hence brought some modern technology to their designs.

Olivia — "Livvy" by her friends — was still unclaimed, but she was chatty and bubbly and brought a certain liveliness to the camp.

Piper hadn't noticed them much, other than wishing she'd had such close friends when she'd first come to camp. All she'd had was Leo and a very confused Jason.

No, she only began to take more notice of them after something that happened two weeks later.

"...he's staring at you."

Piper glanced up to see that Lacey was speaking, directed at Drew.

Immediately, the Asian girl's features broke into an expression of interest. "Who?" she asked almost conspiratorially.

Piper didn't usually get in on her siblings' gossip, but now and then she did listen in to catch up on camp events.

"Brady Morris," Lacey whispered back.

Feeling her eyebrows shoot upwards, Piper decided it was time to join the conversation. "Isn't he dating the new camper?"

Lacey nodded excitedly. "Olivia. Makes this all the more exciting."

Drew frowned. "He needs to learn to be faithful." She kept her head turned.

Piper nearly snorted. "Sorry, what?"

Drew glanced at her. "I'm not a cheater," she told Piper with an eye-roll. "I might flirt with guys and break their hearts, but I'm not a cheater."

"He doesn't seem to have the same morals," Lacey murmured. Her head snapped down as she looked down at her food. "He's coming, he's coming."

Piper cleared her throat as she pointedly glanced away, catching Annabeth's gaze. The daughter of Athena was going over new blueprints for one of Jason's new temples with her siblings, but Annabeth did look over at their table.

Olivia? Annabeth mouthed questioningly.

Piper shrugged helplessly to display her own confusion.

"Hey, Drew, right?" Brady asked nervously. Piper caught a glimpse of him wiping his hands on the back of his trousers.

Drew glanced up warily. "Hi. Don't you have someone else you should be with?" she tried in her sickly sweet voice that made Piper's stomach churn. After spending more time with her half-sister, Piper quickly realised that she only used jay voice when she wanted to mask her true feelings.