In Which the Author Projects Someone Else's Problems That Have Become Her Problems on Fictional Characters. Paris Was Nice, Thanks for Asking.

"Okay, so does everyone understand?" Will asked.

"I have a question," Leo asked. "Why are we counting our steps and what does it have to do with team bonding?"

"Also!" said Piper. "Do I have to count each step myself? And do stairs count? What happens if I lose count?"

Will stared for a moment and then gave his answer. "So you're going to use a pedometer. It's a machine you can just put in your pocket and it counts your steps for you."

Now that Percy thought about it, he could have just bought pedometers for the people who didn't have smartwatches. Now he didn't have the money for a financial advisor.

Drew looked down at her pink pocket-less dress and then back up at Will.

He seemed to notice her lack of pockets right away. "Uh, you can just guess for today if you want, or maybe you can just sit today out-"

"Oh, hell no," she said. "I am so going to win that Panda Express gift card. Maybe a belt..."

Leo squirmed in his seat as Drew eyed up his toolbelt.

Will cleared his throat and spun the whiteboard around so that everyone could see what he wrote on the other side. "To answer Leo's question about team bonding, we'll each be assigned randomly selected partners I've already paired you with. Oh, look! I got Nico."

"Nice," Nico muttered.

"I'm shocked," Percy heard Annabeth mutter to Frank and Leo.

"Anyway," Will said, brushing past the fact that he paired himself off with his boyfriend and left everyone else to the mercy of, well, him. "Frank will be with Drew, Leo will be with Piper, and Annabeth will be with Percy, so if you all want to meet with your teammates-"

"Come on, Piper!" Leo shouted. "Let's grab our pedophiles and claim the garage so we can plan our strategy in secret!"

"Pedometers," Will corrected amidst a facepalm. "They're pedometers."

Nico secured his pedometer in his pocket and immediately sat back down at the reception desk.

Frank and Drew went outside, probably to Drew's car to find a belt or something she could fasten her pedometer to.

Percy turned to his partner. "So," he said. "Are you hungry for lunch now? Or did you want to wait until noon like we usually do?"

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "I suppose we could eat lunch now. We've gotta talk strategy."

"Strategy?"

She led the way into his office. "Well, duh. I'm not losing out to Drew and Frank."

Percy pulled out a chair for her to sit in as she continued to ramble about other people's habits. He should have anticipated that her ego would turn a friendly work competition into a life-or-death mission.

"So do you know how many steps a day you average?" she asked. "Because I get a lot moving around at work, but maybe not as much as the salespeople..."

She trailed off again in a way that made Percy think perhaps she was talking more to herself than to him, but he wasn't that invested in a work bonding event that wasn't even his idea.

"Maybe," he said, "we could see how many steps we get today and make the plan from there."

"I don't know," said Annabeth. "That's probably everyone's strategy. If we start strong, we'll have an advantage."

"Soup?" Percy asked, passing her his extra thermos.

"What kind is this?"

"It's like, a tortilla soup," he said. "There's salsa and peppers and stuff in there, and I left some sour cream in the fridge if you want."

"Where's the-"

"Right here!" he said, opening a new bag of tortilla chips. They were the kind shaped like little bowls. That, Percy thought, was an impressive innovation.

He crushed some of the chips and let the pieces fall into his thermos, and then he passed the bag over so Annabeth could get some. She dipped a tortilla chip into the soup and took a bite.

"This is gas," she said. "Tell your mom she did an awesome job."

"Oh," Percy said. "I actually made it."

Her gray eyes widened. "Holy shit, you can cook!"

He stuttered, "Uh, yeah, I guess I can. I mean, these were just some ingredients I had lying around, but now that Rachel is out of the picture, I can make whatever I want for dinner."

"You mean Rachel didn't like your food?" Annabeth asked.

"She doesn't like spicy stuff," Percy said, using air quotes.

"Huh," she said. "Well, you don't have to worry about that with me." Just for show, she dipped another tortilla chip in the soup.

No, Percy didn't have to worry about Annabeth not liking what he cooked. He learned to cook from his mom, so while his cooking wasn't as good as hers, it was damn near close. Actually, Rachel was the only girl Percy cooked for who didn't like his mom's recipes. How did he think he could sustain a long-term relationship with someone like that when plenty of people like Annabeth would probably give up a kidney for this food—not that Percy would ask Annabeth for a kidney. That might overstep a professional boundary.

"WALK, FRANK! WALK FASTER! TAKE SMALLER STEPS, DAMMIT!"

Percy cleared his throat. "So Drew's torturing Frank."

Annabeth nodded. "Sounds like it."

"Anyway-"

"We should talk strategy," she said. "Good call. I don't always get a ton of like, actual steps in 'cause I've been working on small parts lately, but I have this habit of bouncing my leg, so if I wear the pedometer in this pocket, maybe..." She clipped the little blue step counter onto the front pocket of her jeans and bounced her foot.

"There ya go," Percy said.

She pursed her lips. "I don't know how well that's going to work, but I do a lot of moving around as it is. You'll see. What about you?"

For some reason, he was thrown off by this question. Of course, she would ask what he was going to do to help them win the competition. It was a team activity, after all, and Annabeth's love for Panda Express rivaled her love for Percy's mom's food.

"Shoot," Percy said. "I'll be honest, I kind of sit at the desk and take calls most of the day."

"On your cellphone?" Annabeth asked. "You could walk around the building and take your calls."

Percy picked up his phone to show Annabeth the tangled coiled cord that tied him to his office. "Say hello to the ol' ball and chain."

"Yikes," she winced. "What else do you do?"

"I go out onto the floor when the salespeople need me," he said.

"So we can assume they won't tell you they need you this week," Annabeth said. "You'll get fewer steps that way."

Percy dropped his spoon into his thermos. Shit. "I don't think they'll compromise their work just so they can beat me at a silly competition." He honestly didn't think anyone would care about the competition when Will proposed the idea last week. He'd underestimated Annabeth's competitive edge.

"Uh, yes they will," she said. "Did you not just hear Drew yelling at Frank?"

Yes, he did hear Drew. Maybe matching headstrong Drew with soft-spoken Frank was a bad idea. "They'll probably forget about it after today. You know how things wear out."

She raised an eyebrow. "No offense, but your breakup with Rachel was gossip all last week, and Piper still looks at you like you have two weeks to live."

"Point taken," he conceded. He stirred his spoon around in his soup, hoping to spread what was left of the heat in his shitty worn-out thermos.

"So you'll move around a little more?" Annabeth asked. "We have to win."

It seemed like everyone else wanted to win too. Well, Will wanted everyone to have a good time, Percy thought, but his point still stood. "I mean, I'll do my best but my job kind of comes first..."

"For real?" she asked. "Can you at least try?"

"I guess, but I'm not sure what there is for me to do..."

She finished her soup and stood up. "I'm sure you'll figure something out!"

Percy looked down at the sad soggy tortilla chips in his soup. "I'll try." Seeing as Annabeth had all but declared their lunch finished, he screwed the lid back onto his thermos and gathered the spoons so he could wash them in the breakroom sink.

But not even time to perform basic chores was granted to a man outside of his lunch break, so Percy sat back down in his chair as the phone rang.

"This is Percy Jackson, Olympus Automotive general manager, speaking," he said, running a hand through his hair.

Some guy who dropped his Mustang off last Friday was confused as to why it wasn't ready on Monday. It wouldn't be that hard for Percy to explain that the employees no longer came in on the weekends and that since there was nobody in the building, the Mustang would not be ready. The mechanics probably explained that to him when he dropped the car off.

Of course, Percy couldn't find an opening for his completely reasonable explanation because he had to listen to the story of how the muffler broke including all the twisted drama in this man's dysfunctional family.

So Percy simply tuned out and checked his email. The Girl Scouts would not be coming back for their biannual carwash, so there's a couple hundred dollars down the drain. He was even going to buy them one of those cupcake cakes. They wouldn't have even had to cut the cake because it would be just a bunch of cupcakes pushed together! Parents love that shit!

He wrote REPLY TO GIRL SCOUTS on a sticky note and stuck it to the bottom of his computer monitor. Maybe there was another group that would want to have a carwash fundraiser.

Idea time... Later.

"And then my mother told me that I couldn't get back in the house if I went out to the bar, so I just grabbed a lawn chair and drank in the backyard!" the angry customer continued.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Percy said to show he was listening even though he was not, in fact, listening.

Maybe he could post an ad on Olympus Auto's website to make it easy for any groups who want to do carwashes. They could just fill out a form and Percy would contact them. That would be nice and easy, especially for the groups led by kids at the high school downtown.

But again, that would be a task for Future Percy because Present Percy had a mountain of emails that piled up while he was eating with Annabeth. It was worth it though. Quality time with Annabeth was always worth it, even if Percy had no idea what it was that made time with her so special.

He wrote MAKE AD on another sticky note and stuck that to the bottom of his monitor.

He scrolled to the next email, which once again, was from Mr. D. He was harmless. He was just doing that thing where he sent an email 'checking up' on things when really he meant to set up a call and tell Percy all about his personal life because he was bored in his retirement.

CALL MR. D, he wrote on yet another sticky note, which he stuck to the bottom of his monitor.

The next email was from a client, and so were the next three. Another sticky note was added to the collection. He could bang those out in twenty minutes, so it could be a later problem.

Estelle was texting him asking if he'd like to order from her field hockey fundraiser packet, so he put that on his to-do list as well.

He turned his attention back to his email. The next couple were spam. Spam. Spam. Spam.

Once all his emails were marked 'read,' he sat back in his seat and looked at the accumulation of sticky notes on his monitor. They were piled so high that some of them were overlapping. That was a lot of work, and he was in no state of mind to confront it at the moment. In fact, he was tired. He had been up late the night before because he realized that he had forgotten to lock the back door in the breakroom. At least Annabeth was in the area and could lock it up for him, but he still had to walk her through how to do it. He owed her for that one.

Maybe he deserved a nap. It wouldn't be for long. He wouldn't be comfortable sleeping upright at his desk if he just pushed the keyboard out of the way and laid his head down in his arms...

***

Something violently shook Percy awake.

"Jesus, man," Leo said. "We've been looking for you everywhere. Will wants to go over the step counting competition thingy before we leave."

"What?" Percy asked.

"I said that Will wants to report the step counting thingy."

"I heard that," Percy said. "How long was I out?"

Leo shrugged. "I don't know. I don't work in your office."

He must have been out for a long time if the day was almost over, and he hadn't checked anything off his to-do list. He was in for a long night at the office. In his head, Percy started a mental list of places he could order takeout from.

"I'll be out in a minute, Leo," he said finally.

"We're all waiting on you," said Leo, "but no pressure."

For a reason Percy couldn't place, he felt a lot of pressure. This was the guy Annabeth told him to talk to about his Rachel problem?

Everyone was assembled in the lobby again, and Will had that stupid broken whiteboard he stole out of the break room. Percy was pretty sure that was a hazard, but admitting so would require adding another sticky note to the bottom of his computer monitor, so that would be a problem for a much later Percy.

"Nice of you to join us," Will said. Where did he get the pointer from? Percy didn't remember giving him the money for that.

Someone elbowed his side. "Where have you been all day?" Drew hissed. "Piper almost got into it with a Karen!"

Shit, that was Piper's biggest weakness.

"Is everything okay?" Percy asked.

"Will and Nico took care of it," she said.

"Okay!" Will said, whacking the whiteboard with his fancy teacher pointer that Percy most certainly would not have given him company funding for. He was really committed to the exercise bit; his tie was decorated with little winged sneakers. "So I hope everyone's having a good first day of step-counting!"

Frank, who was red in the face for some reason, groaned.

"What happened to him?" Percy asked.

Drew smirked. "We're in it to win it, hon."

That didn't exactly look like winning to him, but he chose to ignore the potential teammate abuse; his to-do list couldn't handle that.

"And now, for the grand reveal!" Will said, attempting to spin the whiteboard around. It got stuck because it was broken and should never have been taken out of the breakroom. "Hang on. Uh, just remember everyone, today's results aren't indicative of the entire competition, so there's plenty of time to catch up—Ouch! Nico! A little help, please!"

Nico left his spot behind the reception desk and helped Will pick up the entire whiteboard off the ground. "Okay. Allora, caro-"

"We can fix it!" Will insisted. "Put it back on its hinges!"

"We can't," he said. "Just spin it around and prop it against the desk."

"I refuse to believe that we cannot fix this," said Will.

"No, babe-"

The whiteboard crashed to the ground again, effectively waking Frank up. He started clapping. "Yeah, good job, everyone!"

Annabeth facepalmed.

Thud!

"Good enough," said Nico.

"What? No! We have to put it back on the hinges," Will said. "Nico, come back!"

But it was too late. Nico was already settled in his seat behind the desk.

"Fine then." Will propped the whiteboard up against his legs. "So here's our Day One results!"

"What the actual hell, Percy?" Annabeth asked.

As Will Solace launched into a generic speech about how steps at home count for the contest and how there's still time to improve, Percy scanned the results, looking for the source of Annabeth's frustration.

Oh.

He wasn't exactly surprised to see that Drew and Frank were winning, and Piper and Leo in second place made sense, but Will and Nico were in third place and he and Annabeth were dead last. That didn't check out. Sure, Percy wasn't a car salesperson, but he moved around plenty at work. He thought he did at least.

And then he remembered the accidental four-hour nap he took because he didn't feel like doing any of his desk work.

"Woo!" Drew shouted. She dragged Frank to his feet and gave him a two-handed high-five. "Good job, buddy! Now, keep walking! Walk for your life!"

Frank raised his fist in the air weakly. To say he pumped his fist would be an exaggeration.

The small assembly began to dissipate; Percy imagined the employees were ready to go home after a long day of actually working and not taking naps.

Speaking of, he had work to do. He had a mountain of sticky notes on his monitor waiting for him to dive in. Hopefully, he wouldn't drown.

"Percy." Annabeth stood in his way with her arms crossed.

"Oh, hey, Annabeth," Percy said. "Great job today." He meant it. They may have come in last, but she got a lot of steps in without him. That was certainly impressive.

"Wish I could say the same to you," she said.

Shit, she was serious about wanting to win. Percy always knew she had a bit of an ego, but he didn't think it was that bad. Then again, coming in dead last probably wasn't a good feeling.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said. "I sort of kind of accidentally... fell asleep."

She raised an eyebrow. "You fell asleep."

"Yeah," Percy explained. "I just have a lot of work piling up, and sometimes... Sometimes, I fall asleep instead of facing my problems." That's a reasonable thing to do. Normal people use sleep as a way of avoiding their problems.

"Percy, that's concerning," she said.

"Okay, well, I can't walk a million steps a day like you can," he snapped.

"And you can't be bothered to try," Annabeth snapped back.

He stopped in his tracks. It seemed like he wouldn't be getting a head start on his overtime work. "Look, it's not even fair. All the others got paired up with the salespeople. They get more steps!"

"Oh, so you'd rather have someone else carrying your dead weight?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I just-"

Annabeth threw her hands up in surrender. "Fine, I'll just do all the work. Don't expect me to share the Panda Express card with you."

He couldn't deal with this right now. "Fine. Do that."