Calypso sputtered.
"L-Leo!" She tried to get up, and Leo clumsily backed away. Heat
flooded his face with embarrassment. Oh man,whatjust happened?

Hazel was still
sitting on the bed, her eyes wide and her mouth hung open. Calypso gaped at Leo
and said, "Were you…? Did…"

Leo looked
guiltily at her. "Um… no?" He tried.

Calypso turned her
head down, her long hair shielding her face. "You heard, didn't you?"

It was no use
pretending he didn't. He was caught red-handed. Even Frank had come to see what
the racket was about.

"Maybe."

A silence filled
the room. The tension in the air was unbearable. Hazel leaped off the bed and
dragged a confused Frank out through the door of the house. Leo and Calypso sat
in front of each other on the floor.

The silence
consumed a few more minutes until Calypso cursed in ancient Greek and said,
"So. I guess you know that… I… like you. Um, a lot."

"And I like
you a lot too." He replied sheepishly.

Calypso's head
sprang up. "What?"

Leo cleared his
throat. "I like you a lot too."

"Oh,"

And the next thing
he knew, they were kissing for the second time. The kiss was short and abrupt
like before. They stared at each other in a new light, like there might be a
chance they would be together for, hopefully, forever.

"Oh."

"Um,"
They said at the same time.

Leo and Calypso
hastily got up. Leo walked in a daze back to the couch and Calypso shut the
door behind him.

He plopped down on
the cushion and looked at the wall. Wow. There was nothing else to say. Wow.

Calypso liked Leo.
She liked him the same way he liked her. And they kissed again, for the first
time since Ogygia.

Feeling
lightheaded, he laid back down. Maybe they would get together, be a couple like
Frank and Hazel, Jason and Piper, and Percy and Annabeth. But it seemed weird
to be called someone's boyfriend. Dating was all new to Leo. Sure, he had
plenty of examples, but he never had this kind of… connection before. He wasn't
sure if they would become "official", if anything happened anyways.

But,Calypso liked Leo. A spark of
hope erupted inside him, a flame to be kindled, to grow and expand. Maybe he
would officially ask her out. But that seems too rushed. I mean, did Jason
officially ask out Piper? No, not really. They just blended together, like
slowly stirring chocolate powder and milk.

Leo sighed. Things
were getting a little weird. If it didn't work out, if the scene was just too
much, their friendship—or whatever they had before—would crumble and poof! No
more Leo and Calypso's Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters, and definitely no
more Leo and Calypso. Period. End of story.

He decided to ask
Jason, Frank, and Percy about girl advice. They were the experts, weren't they?
Other than the whole Piper/Jason fight thing this morning, they made a good,
compatible couple.

With a drachma in
his pocket, Leo walked to a quiet, lonely place somewhere on the Little Tiber
that flowed through and around Camp
Jupiter. Using the water
spray and the sunlight, he offered his coin to the rainbow goddess.

"Hey, Iris.
Is it possible to get a four-way message?" He asked, not sure if he would
even get a reply.

A female voice
came from the rainbow.Hi! My
name's Fleecy! I guess it would be okay, but only if you say, "O Fleecy,
do me a solid. Show…" so and so. Now say it. Go on…

Leo was a little
weirded out, but if he could make a four-way call, that was fine with him. He
cleared his throat. "O Fleecy, do me a solid. Show Jason Grace, Percy
Jackson, and Frank Zhang."

From the one
rainbow, two more sprouted out like leaves on a branch. The left had Jason, the
middle and original, Percy, and the right, Frank. From the surprised look on
all of their faces, they must have seen three different rainbow messages too.

"Um,"
Percy raised an eyebrow. "Can I take a dump in private?"

"Oh, that's
great, Percy." Jason glared. "Tell us all about it."

"Hey! Can't a
guy have a little privacy?"

"Calm down
you two," Frank interrupted. "Just how is this four-way call
working?"

Leo sighed.
"A person named Fleecy I guess."

Percy and Frank
both said, "Oh.Fleecy."
like they knew her before.

"Who is this
person?" Jason asked.

"A
nebulae," Percy explained. "She helps Iris run the Iris-messages and
she makes a really bad wheat germ."

I heard that!Said Fleccy's voice.

"Sorry,"
Percy said. Frank and Jason snorted. Leo just rolled his eyes.

"Can we
please just get to what I need to ask?" He said in frustration. He didn't
have all day, and the clouds in the sky might come their way. "I need some
girl help."

"Girl
help?" Frank asked. "Like with Calypso? What happened after Hazel
dragged me out?"

Leo didn't feel
like telling them about the kiss. It was too personal. Instead, he said,
"How do you get a girl to be your girlfriend?"

Jason grinned.
"Ooo, my man Leo's in looove!Isit Calypso?"

Leo blushed.
"Yeah. So, all of you dating men, how do you get a girl to be your
girlfriend without directly telling her?"

"Oh
man," Percy said. "With Annabeth, I guess I just had to be me. Dumb
Sea-Weed Brain. I don't really know, but kissing is a good sign."

Leo nodded. Share
a kiss, check.

Frank shrugged.
"I just be the awesome Frank Zhang, master shape-shifter, black-out
preventing Chinese kid who used to be very clumsy and 'adorable.' I don't
really know either. Especially when you think someone else was after your
girl." He looked pointedly at Leo.

Leo put his hands
up. "Hey, I was not after Hazel and you know that."

"Just trying
to make a point in relationship no-no's."

Jason fidgeted
uncomfortably. "It's a little bit hard for me. I woke up apparently dating
a girl I didn't know, and find out that was all a false memory caused by the
mist. Then when we do get together, I have to try and be a good hero for Piper.
And it doesn't help to have an old colleague who likes you a lot. Sometimes, I
think I'm being a bad boyfriend or something, like when I had to be saved by
Piper. Remember Medea, that evil princess? I almost—wealmost…"

Leo nodded.

Percy said,
"Why not be yourself? It's a little hard, but at least you don't have to
worry so much."

Jason shook his
head. "I still don't really know who I really am, Roman or Greek? Am I a
leader or just another part of a group of leaders?"

"Both,"
Frank said. "You gave me your rank as Praetor even though it's a really
big deal. We all respect you, man."

Jason opened his
mouth to speak again when a banging sound came from Percy's rainbow.

"Percy! Hurry
up! We need you to hose down some flaming demigods!" It was Annabeth, and
she sounded irritated.

Percy groaned.
"Just a minute! Having an Iris-message here!"

"What?"

"Nothing,
just get someone else right now please!"

"But-! Ugh,
I'll get some buckets."

Percy coughed.
"Where were we? Girlfriend advice?"

"Yeah,"
Leo said. "So, just be myself?"

The other demigods
nodded.

They swished their
hands through all the rainbows and the images disappeared, leaving Leo alone on
the bank of the Little Tiber.

"Just be
myself," he muttered. "Right."

He brushed himself
off and headed back to New Rome.