December 22nd
Leo was finally going shopping. He had been working on his project for the last week and now he had to get his gift. The exchange was tomorrow.
He entered the magical place of Target and decided to walk around the store just to see what was all there. He walked past the woman's clothes and the jewelry section, past the work out clothes and the men clothes, turned the corner and walked by the baby stuff and towards the Nintendo games, cause he really wanted to watch Nico struggle through that, when he saw someone familiar playing Mario Odyssey on the testing controllers.
Leo stared accusingly at the brown headed girl playing the game. If she saw him shopping, she might figure out his Secret Santa was, and that was not allowed.
"Fancy seeing you here, McLean," Leo said in a smug tone, like he had caught her in a lie.
Piper whirled around and dropped the controllers she was using. They dangled a foot off the ground by the security strings and Piper tried to fix the confused and guilty look on her face.
"I could say the same for you, Valdez."
At first Leo was being accusatory as a joke but with Piper's look, maybe she was hiding something. Something important.
"Why so secretive, McLean?" Leo asked with a smirk.
Piper gave him a hard stare, "Why are you?"
Leo suddenly knew the secret. He knew what she was hiding, she was his Secret Santa! She was shopping in the Nintendo section because he's a tec guy. Wait, if he could figure out her Secret Santa by the aisle she was in, could she figure out his? He needed to get away from her before she realized who he had and spoil the secret.
"Well, I'll see you around," Leo said passingly, taking a step away.
Piper just looked at him for a moment, surveying him like she was trying to solve a puzzle. Then she got a look like she knew something, like everything had clicked into place. She had figured it out.
"Bye!"
Leo bolted down the aisle and ran for the food section. Piper wasn't following but he had to go somewhere she wouldn't expect Leo to be shopping for stuff for Nico. He slowed to a walk as he passed the shelves of food and got an idea.
Nico didn't to eat a lot, but that was just because he had never had food like this. Maybe giving him a taste of real food would help his appetite.
Leo grabbed some Fruit Loops, Oreos, Prime, and Talkies (he grabbed an extra of the last two for himself) and then when he peeked his head into the aisles and saw the Piper was no where to be seen, he ran across the open stretch of concrete and into the toy aisle.
Nico had never played games now-a-days because he was born centuries ago and almost never leaves camp except for missions from his dad, so he decided that he'd get him one. He walked through the aisle and a bunch of Monopoly bords caught his eye. He ran over to that aisle but did a quick back track as Piper and him made eye contact . She had been holding a Monopoly bord and they looked at each other for only a second before Piper drop the game and dashed away while Leo backtracked to a previous aisle.
He tried to turn and run down the aisle but he bumped into a shelf and something fell to the ground. Leo turned and pick it up, it was a bumble bee squish-mellow. The back and yellow stripes reminded Leo of two people he knew, so he grabbed the creature and ran towards the check out, ready to leave before Piper found out who his Secret Santa was.
***
That was a close one, Piper thought. Leo was her Secret Santa and he probably thought hers was Annabeth but not being in the book section could throw him off.
She had bolted away from the games aisle but now she returned to grab her second gift. The first was Mario Kart and an Nintendo, and now she would grab the Monopoly she had been looking at.
Piper picked up the game and check the price. Ooooooh, she did not have enough money to buy everything.
"Can I help you?"
Piper spun around and saw a worker talking to her.
"Um, yes actually," Piper said, realizing what she could do. "Can you check out these at the tec counter?"
"Of course," the man nodded and rushed to the counter.
Piper didn't like to use her Charmspeak a lot, it felt wrong to trick people like that, but she needed these gifts and who prices things so high anyway?
The worker rung up her things, "The total is one-twenty."
Piper laid down the fifty she brought and then looked into her bag like she was searching fro something before looking up innocently at the man.
"Oh no," she said, lacing Charmspeak into her voice. "I have forgotten my wallet, I'll go grab it and give you the rest."
"That's okay," the worker said, "I'll be here, waiting."
Piper wanted to gag at how disgusting this man was. He looked like thirty and she wasn't even twenty. Piper gave a little wave and walked to the front of the store. She walked through the detectors and then someone yelled at her.
"Hey, you!" It was the worker, now out of his trance and probably realizing he would get fired for letting her go.
Piper gave a quick smile and then dashed out the door. She ran to her car and chucked her gifts in the back seats before turning on the ignition and driving into the city.
Wow, she thought. At this rate, I'll be as much of a criminal as Percy