Had he steered clear of Avery because he knew he wasn’t good enough? Had he realized that he was undeserving?
If so, he’d ignored her blatant interest for...well, for her own good. So she wouldn’t get hurt like Lottie had.
Ugh, what was this? I pressed a hand to my chest where a weird science experiment was apparently underway. My chest felt warm and fuzzy, and my heart was racing too fast.
Get ahold of yourself, Max. Jeez.
One sign of humanity from the egomaniac and I was in danger of falling for his act just like everyone else.
Pathetic.
I gave my head a shake and pushed myself away from the door, heading back to the cafeteria to see if the little demons were playing nicely or had taken my brief absence as an opportunity to light the school on fire.
I sighed as I shoved the door open and stepped inside.
If we made it through this night without any casualties, I’d call it a win.
Six
Alex
Max was being a spoilsport.
Again.
“What’s the harm in Truth or Dare?” I asked. One of the girls in the cafeteria had suggested it, and Max had been quick to shoot the idea down.
I hadn’t instantly taken her side, and now she was bent out of shape over it.
“I mean, Spin the Bottle could lead to trouble, but Truth or Dare isn’t so terrible,” I said.
She gaped at me as she tore the pizza boxes from my hands. The pizza had been my idea, and she’d fought me on it, saying it wasn’t in the budget and it wasn’t sanctioned and blah blah blah.
I’d finally won when I’d reminded her that carb overload usually ended with sleep.
I’d caught the flicker of hope in her exhausted eyes before she’d caved with an oh-so gracious, “Fine.”
We’d both gone to meet the delivery driver at the door—me because I figured the pizzas would be heavy and it had been my credit card that paid for it. I suspected she came because she feared I’d see the open doors and flee, leaving her alone in the midst of her worst nightmare. I caught the flare of longing in her eyes as the driver walked back out the way he’d come in. Back to freedom.
“Come on, champ,” I said, nudging her elbow as we headed back to the fray. “We’re almost there.”
She gave me the side-eye. “We have four hours to go.”
“Exactly,” I said with forced chipperness just to annoy her. “Almost there.”
She gave a scoff of amusement and exasperation. It was a noise I was starting to know well after spending the last two hours as a team.
In a weird sort of way, I was starting to like the noise. It didn’t hold the same judgemental snark that she normally threw in my direction like confetti.
The giggling coming from the auditorium was reaching epic proportions as we passed. Max and I exchanged a look and, by some unspoken communication, kept walking. One of us would go in there soon to make sure all hell wasn’t breaking loose, but for now…
For now, I for one needed pizza if I was going to make it through the night. These kids were exhausting.
By some miracle, the kids we’d left in the cafeteria to watch a movie were actually...watching a movie.
Max and I paused just inside the doorway and exchanged a wide-eyed look of disbelief.
“Is this some kind of trick?” she whispered.
I shook my head, my gaze captured by the horror movie they were watching. “You put Scream on for these kids?”
“What?” she asked defensively. “They wanted to watch something spooky.”
“This isn’t spooky. It’s terrifying,” I said.
Her lips twitched up in amusement. “You think so?”
“Don’t you?”
She lifted a shoulder. “It’s campy.”
I leaned in toward her, keeping my voice low so as not to alert the kids to our presence. “This is the stuff of nightmares.”
I took in the stricken face of the sweet blonde who’d finally stopped crying. She no longer looked so weepy. Now she looked like she might pee her pants from fear. She and her redheaded friend were clutching each other.
“They’re never going to fall asleep watching this,” I added.
Max laughed and shifted the pizza boxes in her arms. “But it’s buying us some silence right now, so let’s take advantage of it.”
I followed her to an empty table, and we both dug in. The happy silence that followed was one of two people who’d earned a feast. It was the silence of two comrades after a battle. It was the silence of—
“Well?” the redhead from earlier said. “Can we play Truth or Dare?”
Silence over. I glanced up to see that the tense scene had ended and more than a few kids were looking our way, eyeing the pizza with hungry eyes.
Another few girls joined the redhead. “Can we play? Please?” one of them asked.
I looked to Max, who rolled her eyes, her mouth too full to answer.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Max held up a finger and talked with her mouth full. “There are rules!”
Another small group was already breaking away from the movie and coming to join us, gathering around to snag a piece of pizza and partake in some fun and games.
“Rules,” I repeated with a scoff. “Lame.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, but her glares were far less intimidating when she was tired. This was just one of the many fun facts I’d come to learn about Max tonight. Some others were that she smelled nice—weird to notice, but true, nonetheless. Also, she could be nice when she wanted to be—in her own unique, not-terribly-obvious way.
No one would ever call this girl a sweetheart, but I’d noticed the way she made sure the less popular kids were included.
The other thing I’d realized tonight was she was really fun to tease.
Okay, fine. I already knew that. But without her harsh judgy glares, trading barbs with Max was more entertaining than infuriating.
I leaned forward. “What kind of rules?”
She huffed. She didn’t have any off the top of her head, and we both knew it. Still, she held up her hand and ticked off a list. “Nothing illegal. Nothing sexual. And nothing…” Her pursed lips were kind of adorable as she tried to think of a third. “Nothing immoral.”
I laughed. “Yes, Sister Max. We’ll keep it nice and moral.”
She rolled her eyes, but I caught the curve of her lips. Some more boys joined the group, and soon, most of the room was daring each other to do stupid things like add a ton of hot pepper to their pizza slice or tell the truth about who they had a crush on. Harmless, overall.
Even Max looked like she was enjoying herself as she watched that Ellison kid cough over the heap of hot pepper flakes.
“Your turn,” I said to her.
She widened her eyes. “What? No.”
“Why not?” I leaned in teasingly. “Is that one of your rules?”
“Yes,” she said pertly. But it was too late. The girls around her were egging her on, and there was no way she would get out of this.
She set down her slice of pizza. We were both on our third or fourth slice by this point. “Okay, fine.” She brushed her hands off and looked around, but everyone was looking at me expectantly.
“Truth or dare?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and sighed like this was the lamest thing in the world. “Truth.”
I racked my brain, coming up instantly with a ton of questions that would no doubt mortify her. And fun as it might be to watch her squirm, I couldn't’ bring myself to do it. “Why are you really here tonight?”
Her eyes flared wide.
By her expression, one would have thought I’d just asked her to relive her most mortifying moment. Honestly, I’d probably gone too easy on the girl.
But, to be honest, I’d been curious for the last couple hours. “I don’t believe for a second that you’re just here to get extra credit in phys ed. We’re in the same class, remember? I know you�
�re doing just fine in that class. And I know for a fact that Madison was supposed to be here.”
A flicker of something so startlingly raw made her brown eyes flash with color. For a second, she looked scared and vulnerable and...sweet.
Ah crap. It was supposed to be an easy question. I grinned at the gathered crowd when her silence lasted a little too long. “Looks like I stumped her right out of the gate. Fine,” I waved a hand like a magnanimous king. “Let’s try this again. Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” she said quickly.
This one was surprisingly easy. I didn’t even have to think. There was one thing I’d been wondering for months now, ever since Max had been thrust into my life as Avery’s best friend. “Take your hair out of its braid.”
A few of the kids groaned at the admittedly anticlimactic dare, but I didn’t miss the way her eyes widened in horror. “Why?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t even explain it myself. I’d never once seen her hair down, and I was curious. I might have tried to imagine it once or twice or...maybe a few hundred times. I arched a brow and leaned in close. “Want me to come up with something else? I thought that was too tame, too, but I figured—”
“Yeah, okay fine,” she said, already pulling her braid over her shoulder. “But this is so silly.”
“Noted,” I said.
We all sat there and watched in silence, like this was some kind of religious ritual or something. Slowly but surely, the hair eased out of its confines, and then it was loose around her shoulders and...whoa.
Whoa.
I didn’t even realize I’d said it aloud until Max drew her brows together and crossed her arms. “What does ‘whoa’ mean?” Her eyes narrowed. “If that’s some sort of joke about how it’s like a horse’s mane or something, just—”
“No. What? Why would I—” I cut myself off with a shake of my head. “Why would you even think that?”
She opened her mouth, and I just knew a biting comeback was on its way to her lips, but she caught herself in time. Or maybe she was just interrupted before she got the chance.
“Um, Max?” A girl I didn’t recognize was hovering in the doorway, biting her lip.
Max and I both stiffened. The girl had most likely come from the auditorium where the other group had been hanging out and laughing and…
Oh please, dear Lord, don’t let anyone have broken a leg.
“What’s wrong, Edith?” Max asked, dropping her pizza and heading toward the door.
“I think there’s something you’d better see,” the girl said. She glanced at me, and the kid’s cheeks turned pink when she addressed me. “You too.”
Max and I hurried out of there, following the girl into the hallway and through the auditorium doors. She pointed to the open doors of a storage closet of some sort. “In there.”
Alarm bells were ringing in my head, but I followed Max in there anyways. Those alarm bells became a fully formed thought the same moment that the doors clicked shut behind us.
This is a trap.
“Edith, let us out of here,” Max shouted as a key turned in the lock.
Crap. We were trapped.
I took in a deep breath and fought the instant surge of claustrophobia. I heard Max’s breathing quicken and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Relax.”
She shrugged me off. “How can I relax? Our demon wards just locked us in a closet!”
I looked around the dimly lit space, noting the sound equipment and set pieces. There was an overhead light with a low-watt bulb that cast most of the room in shadows, but at least it was something. “On the bright side, we’re not in the dark.”
She whipped around to face me. “That’s the bright side? Who are you, Pollyanna?”
For some reason, that made me laugh, and then she let out a choked laugh too. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence the noise, and then she widened her eyes as her gaze met mine.
“Right,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. “We need a new plan.”
She dropped her hand from her mouth so she could dig for her phone in her back pocket. “I can call the police. They can—”
“You’re not calling the police,” I said with another laugh. By this point, my shock had faded enough that I could take in more than just our immediate surroundings. I could hear laughter. Lots of it. And it was coming from the other side of the door.
“We want to play a new game,” one of the girls shouted to us. Max and I both dropped our gaze to see her looking at us through a slot near the door. A broken air vent.
“Seven minutes in heaven!” another girl shouted. “And you’re up first.”
This was followed by an excessive amount of giggling. When I turned to face Max, she met my gaze evenly, and we shared a pained look.
“Seven minutes, huh?” I asked.
She shook her head and found a seat for herself on a crate. “Fine. No police. We can wait for seven minutes.”
“You have to kiss,” one of the girls whined.
“Yeah, haven’t you ever played the game before?” the first voice asked.
“No.” Max’s voice was prim and proper. I didn’t doubt for a second that she’d never played seven minutes in heaven. “And I don’t plan on starting now.”
The girls seemed to lose interest when it was clear they wouldn’t get a show, and they started talking amongst themselves.
Max pulled out her phone. “I’ll give them seven minutes. If they don’t let us out by then, I’m calling the cops.”
“Fine.” I caught her frown as she read something on her phone. “Everything okay?”
She nodded, but it was stiff. A lie.
“So…” I said.
“So…” she repeated.
She kicked her legs against the crate she was sitting on, and I sat beside her. When the lightbulb flickered, I looked up in alarm. But seriously, who wouldn’t be creeped out by this situation?
“Are you, like...scared of the dark or something?” she asked.
“No!” I said it too quickly and cleared my throat. “No,” I tried again. “I’m not. I just…” I arched my brows. “Don’t you think all of this is just a little creepy? The whole staying in an abandoned school overnight? And now we’re in a dark closet. It’s like the start of a horror movie.”
She was eyeing me oddly. “First of all, it’s not abandoned. Second, this closet has a light. And third, the scariest thing out there is a bunch of hormonal tweens.” She leaned over, and her nudge against my shoulder was slightly comforting and took away the sting of her words. “Besides, I’ll protect you from any big bad boogeymen.”
I stared at her. “I know you’re making fun of me right now, but I actually think you would.”
She blinked.
“You’re like the heroine of a horror movie.”
Her lips started to twitch, and I found myself holding my breath in anticipation. I was weirdly desperate to see her smile. To make her laugh.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t do desperate. But tonight was a night for firsts.
She arched a brow. “So does that make you the pretty blonde who dies in the first scene?”
I burst out in a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Then I was finally rewarded with that smile. The grin I’d seen her wear before, but never aimed in my direction. It was the smile I’d always sort of been hoping for when we sparred, but instead, I’d gotten more glares and glowers than any one basketball star could handle.
Our laughter faded into awkward silence that was only broken by the sound of giggles and whispers coming from the other side of the door.
“Well,” Max said abruptly, swinging her legs to make a banging sound on the wooden crate below her again. “At least now I know what your dare is going to be. I’m sending you down to the boiler room. On your own.” She turned to flash me a mischievous grin, and I held my breath again because...whoa.
That smile. Those crazy curls falling around her shoulders and into her fa
ce. It almost made her look…
Well, not beautiful. But softer. Still no sweetheart to be found, but her sharp features looked different in this shadowy light. She looked…
Sexy.
The errant thought made my mouth grow dry and my palms feel clammy. It was insane to think it, but it was the truth. Peering at me through a lock of curls that had fallen forward, she looked like an old-timey femme fatale or something.
And then her words registered, and I looked away with a huff of a laugh. “Boiler room, huh? Is that really fair? All you had to do was take your hair down.”
Her shrug was noncommittal. “I don’t make the rules.”
A silence passed before I pointed out, “You do, actually. You set the rules for Truth or Dare.”
She snickered in the shadows beside me. I found myself grinning like an idiot at nothing in particular. And all because I’d made her laugh.
I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. Something was definitely wrong with me. Not only was I not hating Max, I was actually kind of...enjoying this. I glanced over at her. Aside from the hair down thing, she looked different tonight, but I knew without a doubt it wasn’t that she was different. I’d just had never seen this side of her before.
At least, not up close.
The question that had been nagging at me all night came back in full force. “So, why are you here tonight?”
She turned her head to face me and widened her eyes. “You’re back to that again? I went with dare, remember?” She tugged at one of her curls, and I itched to reach out and do the same.
“Yeah, but…” I shrugged. “It’s just us. We have nothing else to do for the next…” I consulted an imaginary watch on my arm. “Six minutes? Unless of course you want to end this now and make out with me…”
She rolled her eyes like I’d known she would. A long silence followed. Just as I started to resign myself to the fact that she wasn’t going to open up to me...she did. “My dad’s in town.”
I tensed, unsure of how I was supposed to respond to that and more than a little nervous that if I said the wrong thing, she’d shut down on me again with another glare or a roll of her eyes.
Sleepover with the Enemy (How to Catch a Crush Book 5) Page 6
