Percy POV

We didn't meet up for the rest of the week, but we constantly texted each other.

I had asked him about whether he would be ok with meeting mom and he agreed, so my mom was excited about that. The plan was for him to come over for dinner on Saturday, and we could watch a movie in the living room afterward.

It was 6:30 ish when there was a knock on the front door to put apartment.

"Percy, can you get the door?" Yelled my mom from the kitchen.

"Yeah, I got it," I responded back. 

I opened the front door only to see Nico looking as though he were about to knock again. 

"Oh, hey," he said nervously. 

"Hi." 

I just stood there taking his appearance in. He wore a blue short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of dark blue jeans. His shaggy black hair was tied back in a short pony-tail. 

Probably noticing me looking at him, he shifted uncomfortably and glanced down. "I-uh thought all black wouldn't make a great first impression," he looked up with wide eyes. "Does it not look good on me?" 

"N-no, it suits you. You look nice," I stuttered out with a slight blush. Although he was my friend, it didn't stop me from noticing his attractiveness. 

"Oh, um, come on in," I stepped aside and he stepped inside, his shoulder brushing against mine. 

"You must be Nico!" exclaimed my mom. She was wearing a floral printed yellow knee-length dress. She set down the last of the dinner plates and rushed over, wrapping a helpless Nico in a tight hug. 

"H-hi Mrs. Jackson," he said nervously. 

"Please call me Sally," said my mother with a warm smile. 

"Thank you." 

A bell went off in the kitchen. 

"I better go get the dinner out of the oven,"' said my mom already making her way towards the kitchen. "Make yourself at home," she called out. 

Nico looked around until his stare fell on me. "Well, she seems nice," he said cracking a smile. 

"Yeah, she is," I said smiling softly. "Well, wanna sit down? Mom's bout to serve dinner."

He nodded and sat down in one of the chairs; I sat next to him just as my mom stepped out of the kitchen with a platter of roast beef in her hands. She set it in the center of the table and sat down since the rest of the side dishes were already on the table. 

We all filled our plates and started eating.

"This is delicious Mrs. Jacks- I mean Sally," said Nico. 

"Why thank you. Percy helped out a bit too; he's not so bad in the kitchen." 

He glanced at me, obviously amused. "He can cook?" 

I glared at my mom before answering. "I can cook the basics. Enough to live, but I don't cook fancy stuff like this," I motioned towards the food in front of us. 

"What about you, Nico?" asked my mom. 

Nico set down his fork. "My mother, she met my father in Italy where my sister and I were born. She used to always have us in the kitchen with her, so we both picked up some skills from her," he smiled softly at the memory. "Most of the dishes I can cook are traditional Italian ones." 

"Your mother seems wonderful. You should bring her over some time," 

Nico's smiled disappeared and was replaced by a small frown. "My mother is dead, along with my sister. I live with my stepmom."

Mom's face read of 'surprised' and 'shocked.'

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Nico. I didn't know."

"It's fine, Sally. A lot of people don't know."

She gave him a smile as we all continued eating with a question every now and then.

"So, Nico, Percy's told me a bit about you, but I just want to make sure he's not lying to me. Do you go to school?"

"I go to this private school that's near an academy that specializes in medical studies." 

"Where did you meet Percy?"

"At the park last weekend on Valentine's day; and not to be rude or anything, but Percy sure doesn't know the term 'don't talk to strangers.'" 

She grinned, "No matter how many times I tell him that, it always from through one ear, and out the other." 

She paused before adding, "Do you have any addictions?" 

"Do pop-tarts count? If so, I'm pretty guilty of that." 

She gave me a smile, "I think you two know each other pretty well already." 

We finished our dinner and my mom brought out a batch of blue chocolate chip cookies she had made. We took some before heading over to the couch to watch a movie. 

"I  just got a call from Paul," she said grabbing her purse and the car keys. "I'm going to have to pick him up since his car broke down." 

We nodded as she closed the door behind her. 

"So whaddya wanna watch?" I asked Nico as he took a bite from his third cookie. 

"What type of movies do you have?" 

"Ummm," I sat down in front of the cabinet thing where we kept all of our movies. "We have Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, Moana-"

"Are all the movies you own ocean-themed?" He asked with a mixture of shock and amusement. 

"Uh, nooo," I nervously answered as I rummaged more through the back of the cabinet. "Um, here we have..." I pulled out a few CD cases and place it beside me, where he now was. 

"There's Fireproof, The Best of Me, Real Steel, Titanic.." I cringed realizing Titanic was still Ocean-themed. 

"You watch these?" 

"Me? No. When I was litterler-" 

"-Littler is not a word." 

"whatever let me finish. When I was younger," he nodded in satisfaction of my proper grammar, but I just rolled my eyes. "Anyways, my mom got into this phase of movie watching. She used to buy some religious, spirit wakening or something, life problem movies and made me watch them with her. Most of them were boring but others were pretty ok," I shrugged and started taking out more CD cases. 

"Seems nice," he said.

"It was eh." 

He started reading the back and sorting the movies in two different piles as I kept setting them in front of him; my curiosity got the best of me and I asked.

 "What're you doing?" 

"I'm sorting them into maybe and definitely no piles," he gave me a 'duh' look and got back to work. 

"You do you, boo," I said sighing. 

After about twenty minutes of movie piling, he sat upright. "Ok so here's the maybe pile," he motioned towards the decent-sized stack. The other pile was full of disks that didn't catch his attention. 

"So here are the options and from there, we'll slowly eliminate some until we get to the chosen one." 

I deadpanned, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of." 

He rolled his eyes, "Then you wit over there, and I'll choose." 

"Nuuuu I wanna choose," I whined. 

"Then shut up and help me."

Another half-hour passed, and it came down to the last two options. 

"Ok," said Nico holding up the last two. "It's either Titanic or Real Steel." 

"So how do we choose now?" 

He grinned, "Now we draw a name of the movie." 

He ran towards a notebook that was sitting on the kitchen counter and glanced back at me. "Can I?"

I shrugged, "Knock yourself out." 

He gave me another grin and ripped out a piece of paper, created strips out of it, and placed it in a jar. 

He then brought it back to where I was sitting. "Whichever movie title you pick out of here, that's the movie we'll watch." 

"This is what I spent almost an hour on?!" 

His grin slipped, turning into a small frown. "Well, yeah, I guess."

"Are you OCD or something?" I asked kind of curiously. "Because that was hella lot of work for only this," I motioned towards the small jar. 

I think he took it in the wrong way because he set down the jar and stood up. 

"Where's your bathroom?" 

"Second door to the right." 

He gave a stiff nod and walked away. The only sound was the one from the door clicking shut. 

I sat there in silence staring at the jar. 

"Might as well," I muttered as I stuck my hand in the jar and fished out a slip of paper. "Guess we're watching Real Steel," I decided, folding the slip of paper back up. 

Placing the movie in the DVR, I skipped past all the commercials at the beginning and paused it at the start of the actual movie. 

I waited five minutes but he still didn't reemerge from the bathroom. 

Another five minutes passed and still nothing. 

I approached the bathroom door and just as I was about to knock, he opened the door and stepped outside making his way back to the living room. 

I followed him back and as I sat down, he pressed play and set the control in between us on the couch. 

There was an uncomfortable silence lingering in the room.

"You ok, Nico?" I asked quietly, not wanting him to leave again. 

He didn't take his eyes off the screen. "'m fine." His head was propped up against his arm while he ran a hand through his shaggy hair with the other.  No longer in its ponytail, his bangs danced loosely against his forehead and touched the top of his eyes. 

I couldn't concentrate on the movie for longer than five minutes at a time, having to find the need to glance over at the dark-haired boy. Every once in a while he would shift around, no doubt trying to get comfortable. 

Halfway through the movie, I mustered up the courage to speak to him again. 

"Look, Nico, I'm s-uh, I mean do you want something to drink?" I flinched at my own cowardness. 

He finally glanced over at me, "uh, yeah. That'd be nice." 

"Are you ok with Coke?"

"Yeah." 

I got up and stumbled towards the kitchen, pulling out to cokes from the fridge. 

"Goddamn, Jackson," I muttered to myself. "Can't even apologize. I'm such a coward." I leaned back against the now-closed fridge and closed my eyes. 

I tried taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it didn't help at all. 

'What the fuck,' I thought. 'It's not like I'm asking his out or something. Why am I so nervous?' 

My heart skipped a beat at that thought. 'Why am I even comparing it to asking him out?? It's not like I like him. He's my friend.' 

I tried calming my breathing. 'A friend.'  I walked back towards the living room where he was. 'A friend who happens to be here, watching a movie with me.' 

"Hey, are you ok in there?" Called out Nico. 

"Yeah," I called back. Grabbing both cans I walked back into the living room and handed him his. 

"Thanks," he said popping it open and taking a sip. 

I mirrored his actions and drank a bit from mine too. 

After a few seconds of weighing my options,  I set down my can and turned to face him. 

"Hey look. I'm sorry if I insulted you in any way. I didn't mean to; I just-" 

"-Hey, it's ok," he ran his fingers through his hair and I wondered whether it was really soft, or just the lighting. "I'm at fault too. I shouldn't have gotten too excited over picking a movie and shit. I should've considered maybe you're not like me in all ways. I'll try to dial it back a bit-" 

I cut him off with a sort of awkward hug. Since he was noticeably shorter than me, I easily rested my chin on top of his head and stayed there for a few moments. 

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "Wanna start over?" 

He gave a slight nod and I pulled back, only to find a new wave of coldness rush in. 

"Hi, my name is Percy Jackson and I'm sort of oblivious when I hurt someone emotionally." 

He grinned and played along. "Hey, my name's Nico di Angelo and I'm sort of sensitive and a neat freak." 

We shook hands and finished watching the movie in newfound comfortable silence.