It started at Leah’s sixteenth birthday party — one of those lowkey-but-not-really Hollywood things where half the room were teenage actors pretending they didn’t care about being teenage actors. String lights, disposable cameras, a rented house with a pool no one was actually swimming in.

She wasn’t supposed to go. She didn’t really do the whole industry-friend thing. She’d grown up with Leah — sleepovers, movie nights, braces era, all of it — but after her career took off, she kept her world small. A few co-stars she trusted, her team, her family. No drama, no fake smiles.

But Leah had begged. “Please, just come for an hour. I’m turning sixteen, you can’t bail on me.”

So she went.

And that was the night she met him.

Walker Scobell. The golden boy of the moment. She’d seen his movies, obviously — everyone had — but she hadn’t expected him to be so… real. Hoodie slightly too big, curls a little messy, smile a little shy when Leah introduced them.

“Hey,” he said, voice awkward in that way only real sixteen-year-old boys could pull off. “You’re you, right?”

She laughed. “Last time I checked.”

That broke the ice.

They ended up sitting together by the fire pit, laughing about the weirdness of child actors, trading on-set horror stories, talking about the pressure of being seen all the time. Somewhere in between, she noticed how his voice softened when he talked about his family, or how he lit up when she joked about old Nickelodeon shows.

When Leah walked by, she raised an eyebrow. “You two look cozy,” she teased, and they both pretended not to blush.

After that night, they kept in touch. Just little things — texts about random auditions, dumb memes, Instagram comments. But soon he was the first person she wanted to tell good news to, and the one she texted when she had a bad day.

And apparently, it wasn’t one-sided.

Because one night, while scrolling through DMs, Leah texted her:

“So… Walker totally likes you.”

She stared at her screen for a full minute before replying.

“What are you talking about?”

“He told me,” Leah said. “Like, told told me. Said you’re his celebrity crush. Don’t freak out.”

She did, obviously.

Because she’d told Leah the same thing two days earlier.

Suddenly, the entire Percy Jackson cast became matchmakers. They weren’t subtle about it, either — coordinated movie nights, inside jokes that didn’t stay inside, every group photo somehow having her and Walker side by side.

Then came the infamous group dinner. Walker showed up late, curls damp from the rain, wearing a hoodie that looked way too comfortable for his own good. They sat next to each other — thanks to Aryan’s not-so-discreet seat swap — and halfway through dinner, their knees brushed.

He didn’t pull away.

“You know,” he said quietly, voice almost lost under the chatter, “Leah’s terrible at keeping secrets.”

She grinned, pretending not to know what he meant. “Oh yeah?”

He leaned closer, eyes glinting with something that wasn’t just friendship. “Yeah. Like, the kind of terrible where she might’ve told me something she shouldn’t have.”

Her heart jumped. “Depends on what she said.”

He smiled — that soft, boyish, Walker kind of smile. “That you like me.”