Those two kids were now sound asleep, and I was still staring blankly at the screen. Or at the door. Okay, let’s face it. I was spending more time turning to see if Max was coming in than I was watching the screen.
This was ridiculous.
Sure, I’d been avoiding her, but she was so not the type to avoid me. Nothing said confrontational like Max. I’d wanted to give her space, but I’d assumed at some point she’d seek me out to...what?
Talk?
I scratched at the back of my head in discomfort. Was that what I wanted here? To talk about feelings?
Crap, what was happening to me?
I took a deep breath and stood up. Right. It was time to man up and face her wrath. Because she had to be pissed, right?
I’d been pissed before I’d kissed her. I would never have grabbed her like that otherwise. All I could think about was getting out of there, away from Max’s judgy, all-seeing eyes. Away from her harsh words which had hit too close to the truth.
I’d always known she’d seen me for what I was, but hearing her say it…
I weaved my way through sleeping bags and whispering tweens as I headed toward the hall.
But also, it had been something more than that. I’d had the urge to kiss her from the moment we were alone together. From the moment she took her hair down. Maybe before that.
I slowed my walk as I got closer to the doors leading to the hallway. The more I tried to figure out when exactly I’d first gotten the urge to kiss Max, the more confused I felt.
Plus, I had no idea what I was going to say when I did see her. Sorry?
That would be a lie.
I wasn’t sorry.
Sure, my approach had been more caveman than suave, but I couldn’t say that I was sorry I’d kissed her.
She hadn’t seemed offended, and she hadn’t pulled away. So did that mean…
I had no idea what that meant. For all I knew, she’d spent the past two hours stewing over all the ways she was going to rip me a new one.
By the time I swung the doors open, I was no closer to knowing what I was going to say.
I had nothing.
Which was truly unfortunate because just as I stepped into the hall, Max exited the auditorium, shutting it behind her quietly. She didn’t see me at first, and for a second I watched her.
When her guard wasn’t up, when she wasn’t ready to pounce with an insult or a snarky joke...she was a girl.
Obviously.
But now I saw it. I saw her. She wasn’t nearly as tough as she wanted people to believe. She wasn’t nearly as callous or harsh, either.
She was even kind of sweet in her own way. Not that I’d ever tell her that. She’d bite my head off.
She was kind and she was honest and she was loyal to a fault to her friends.
My chest was feeling too tight when she finally turned around and saw me. Her head jerked back a bit and her eyes widened.
Her lips parted, and I wished I hadn’t noticed that.
We stood there in silence, facing off in the hallway as sounds from the movie in the cafeteria occasionally made their way to us, muffled and muted.
When she finally moved, she surprised me by leaning back against the tiled wall behind her and sinking down to sit on the ground with a weary sigh.
She didn’t exactly invite me, but she didn’t protest either when I came over to join her, leaning back against the wall.
“I’m exhausted,” she said.
“Me too.”
Another silence descended as I tried to figure out how to approach the giant kiss-related elephant in the room. I awkwardly cleared my throat. “Max. Back in the closet, I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp, and I glanced over in surprise. But before I could ask if she was all right—if we were all right—some of the tension in her eased, and she gave me a small smile. “I mean, don’t worry about it.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I know it didn’t mean anything.” She looked away from me. “It couldn’t have.”
“Yeah. Right.” I knew she was right, and yet I still found myself asking. “Why couldn’t it mean anything?”
She turned back to me slowly with a rueful smile that I didn’t like. “Because you’re you, and I’m me, and we’re...not even friends.”
“Right,” I said again with a little nod. “We’re basically enemies.”
“You’re like, my nemesis,” she said, but we both wore a little smile.
After tonight, I wasn’t sure we would ever totally be enemies again.
“You’re my foe,” I added when the silence stretched too long.
“The villain to my hero,” she said.
Our quiet little huffs of laughter sounded loud in the quiet hallway.
This new silence that fell wasn’t awkward or tense, but I felt like there was a lot that needed to be said.
I just didn’t know how to say it.
She eventually broke the silence. “So, you never did tell me. Why did you volunteer for this?” She narrowed her eyes, but her little smile took away any real heat in her stare. “It was to get close to Madison, right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “Why does everyone think I have a thing for Madison?”
“Uh, because she’s hot,” Max said, her tone clearly conveying ‘duh’ as if she’d said it aloud.
I shifted uncomfortably. We were back to this. A big part of me wanted to laugh, grin...to go along with her assumption and play the part I’d perfected. The basketball phenom. The powerful player. The fun guy without a care in the world.
Any other night I would have.
“I did come here tonight because of a girl,” I said. “But it wasn’t for Madison.”
I felt her gaze heavy on me, waiting for me to explain. I shouldn’t. This whole night had been too weird, and starting tomorrow, we would be back to normal, but…
“I came here because of you.” I blamed the exhaustion. But deep down I suspected this burst of honesty was a result of that kiss...or maybe that kiss and everything else that had happened tonight.
She blinked. “Me,” she repeated in clear disbelief.
I took a deep breath. “Believe it or not, Max, sometimes your nasty barbs get through that giant ego you’re always mocking me for.”
Her brows drew together. “What did I say that made you sign up for this torture?”
“You said I was selfish.”
Her silence lasted too long, and I finally looked over at her to find that her expression was torn between regret and amusement. “I did say that, didn’t I?” She licked her lips. A nervous habit I was starting to recognize.
I had no idea what it said about me that I felt absurdly lucky that I knew her nervous tics.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I go too far.”
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “That’s the thing. You were right. I do have a tendency to be…” I waved a hand as I looked for the word. “Self-absorbed.”
She gave a little snort of amusement. “How much did it kill you to admit that?”
I returned her knowing smile. “What I’m trying to say is... You were right, and it hit a nerve because…” I had to clear my throat before I could get the next part out. I guess I had a nervous tic too. Huh. Who knew? “I don’t want to be like that,” I said on a rush of air. “My father is like that—the whole world revolves around him, and the way he treated my mom, my brother…” I ran another hand through my hair, unable to face her. “And me, I guess. But with me it’s different.”
“How so?”
I didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that my smile was bitter. “Because I’m a chip off the old block,” I said, imitating my dad’s bravado—the cocky arrogance that I’d inherited and embraced. “I’m just like him.”
Her silence seemed to echo off the tiled walls. “No. You’re not.”
My head whipped to the side to face her. To see if she was serious.
&nb
sp; She was.
“You don’t have to be, at least,” she added with a shrug. “And the fact that you don’t want to be, that means you won’t be.”
I arched my brows in surprise and also...I don’t know. Gratitude, maybe? Whatever it was, it had my chest tightening and my muscles relaxing. “You think?”
She nodded. “It’s the people who aren’t aware of their bad habits or the pitfalls in front of them...those are the people to worry about.”
I tilted my head to get a better view of her. Even exhausted, she was...appealing. It wasn’t just the hair or the fact that she wasn’t scowling. There was something about her that tugged at me. That wanted to make her smile and was almost desperate to be let into her private little world that she kept gated and locked. Only the lucky few were allowed in, and I wanted to be in that circle. I wanted it badly. More than I could remember wanting anything in recent memory.
“What about you?” I asked. “What are your bad habits?”
Her jaw worked, and her lips did this cute little pursing thing as she stewed over her response. With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and stared at it. “This,” she said. “This is my problem.”
“Your phone?” I teased.
“My dad,” she said, her voice quiet and more gentle than I’d ever heard it. “Did you know my parents and Avery’s got divorced at right around the same time?”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. My voice was quiet too because I was so afraid that if she remembered who she was talking to, if I made one wrong move, she’d clam up and go back to shutting me out.
“Yeah, well, she somehow managed to come out of that whole situation still believing in love and romance and all that crap.”
I winced a bit at the bitterness in her voice, but I couldn’t blame her. I had a feeling I was more bitter about my parents’ split than I’d ever realized. “I take it you didn’t.”
She gave a little snort of a laugh as she glanced at me. “Not quite.”
“So...what?” I prompted. “You want to be sweeter, kinder, and watch more Disney movies like Avery?”
She started laughing for real. “No, definitely not. I love that girl to death, but I’m not in the market for a total personality transplant.”
I grinned. “Good. Because I’d miss having someone calling me out on my crap.”
She arched a brow. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “You’re the only person aside from Cristian who does that, and it’s...nice.” I winced a bit at my lame ending. Nice? It was refreshing, and it was heartening to have someone who expected more from me.
Much as I’d never wanted to admit it, my little run-ins with Max had somehow become the brightest moments of my week. I wasn’t sure when I’d started to look forward to seeing her, but I did. And I had no idea why her words tended to haunt me for days, but there was no denying it.
“I like that you’re honest with me,” I added. “I like that you don’t find me...charming, or whatever.”
“You’re weird,” she said with another laugh.
I shrugged, my grin unrepentant. “Maybe. Is that so bad?”
“No, that’s good,” she said quickly. “Weird is good. It’s a nice surprise, that’s all. You’re not nearly as boring, bland, and predictable as I once thought.”
I stared at her for a long moment. “I love how you managed to so thoroughly insult me while also complimenting me.” I pointed a finger at her. “You, my friend, have a real gift.”
She scoffed as she brushed my hand aside. “Friend, huh? Is that what we are now?”
I shrugged again, totally weirded out by how fast my heart was suddenly pounding in my chest. Friends. Was that what we were? Was that what I wanted?
No. Some part of me was disappointed at the thought. Friendship wasn’t what I wanted. Or at least, it wasn’t all I wanted.
She tilted her head to the side as she answered for me. “Maybe we could start by not not being friends.”
A surprised laugh was startled out of me. “Not not friends, huh? No wonder you’re a journalist. You truly have a way with words.”
I was rewarded with a grin that made my heart skip a beat. She had dimples when she grinned like that, and I knew two things without a doubt. One, I’d never once seen those dimples before. And two, I wanted to see them again. Every day.
The dimples faded along with her smile as her attention was snagged once more by her phone.
I stretched out my legs out in front of me. “So...you decided to spend a night in middle school hell rather than face your father. That’s some hard core avoidance technique you’ve got going on there.”
She chuckled under her breath. “It is a bit extreme, huh?”
“It also doesn’t seem like you.”
She shot me a sidelong look. “How would you know? You barely know me.”
But I’d like to. I swallowed down the words because this wasn’t about me and what I wanted. It was about her.
See? Progress.
“I just meant that you don’t strike me as the type to avoid problems. You don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid of conflict or…” I shifted so I could eye her. “Actually, you don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid. Period.”
She gave another little snort of amusement. “Everyone’s afraid of something. Just because I’m not afraid of scary movies or abandoned school buildings…” She shot me a teasing grin that made me laugh.
“So what are you afraid of?”
Her voice was so quiet when she finally spoke, I almost didn’t hear her. “Things changing, I guess.” She shrugged. “I mean, more than they already have. I already feel like a visitor in my own home thanks to the new stepfam, and next year I’ll be saying goodbye to all my friends when we leave for college. And now...now this.”
I thought that over as I watched her stare at her phone, but she was clearly lost in her own thoughts. I was lost in thoughts of my own. Some about my own recent realizations about me and my family. About how I’d always felt second best in my mom’s eyes because I wasn’t as thoughtful and intellectual as Cristian and about how Cristian felt the same way toward our dad.
I thought a little about how he and I were trying to start over with each other and with our parents. But mostly, I thought about Max. How she acted around her friends, the glimpses I’d gotten of her different sides, the soft heart under that hard exterior, and the way she’d done nothing but give me crap for months on end because I’d unwittingly hurt Avery.
“I don’t think it’s just change that’s freaking you out,” I said suddenly. “Do you want to know what I think your fatal flaw is?”
Her head snapped up and her gaze was weary. “What?”
“You have a hard time with forgiveness,” I said.
She stared at me for so long, and I could read everything there in her eyes. For once, she forgot to keep her guard up. Or maybe she hadn’t bothered. I knew without her saying that she knew what I meant. She’d been so angry at me for so long. And she clearly still had anger issues with her dad for leaving, for moving on.
“My guess is, you pushed him away and were happy to keep him in a separate town in his little box where you didn’t have to think about him or spend too much time with him or forgive him.” I was going too far, and I knew it.
But she didn’t snap at me like I’d expected. She just tipped her head down to stare at her phone. After a while, she muttered, “Do you have, like, a PhD in psychology that I don’t know about or something?”
I laughed, my tension easing. “More like, I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit doing some serious thinking about this topic.”
She peeked up at me, and my heart clenched painfully at the sight of tears hovering on her lashes. “You have forgiveness issues too?”
I nodded and shifted so my shoulder was resting against hers, the only physical comfort my prickly new friend might accept from me. “Cristian and I have been working through our stuff. But yeah, I think it’s safe to say I’ve
been struggling with forgiveness and also trying to break out of a role, you know?”
She nodded. “It’s hard with families. Breaking out of the role you’ve been cast in is tough. And with new families it’s even harder because you have to figure out where you fit—or if you fit—and what your role is supposed to be.”
I made a noise of agreement, and then we faded into silence again. This time, all I could think about was how weird it was that the deepest, most interesting and meaningful conversation I’d ever had with a girl was currently taking place in a middle school hallway in the middle of the night.
“What’s the opposite of a fatal flaw?” I asked.
She flashed me a confused smile. “I don’t know, why?”
“Because whatever it’s called, I know yours.”
Her brows arched up. “Do tell.”
“You don’t let a lot of people in, and those that you do...you love them deeply. Fiercely.” As I said it, I felt this yearning. I couldn't think of any other way to describe it. It was a yearning so strong it hurt...to be let into that inner circle. To be one of the people she cared about so passionately.
“I guess, I do,” she said, a yawn drowning out her words. “But I’m not sure that’s such a great feat.”
I smiled. “Trust me, it is.”
She yawned again, and I shifted to shrug out of the hooded sweatshirt I was wearing. I folded it up and placed it in my lap.
“What are you doing?”
“We have at least an hour before our relief shows up, but these kids are either watching a movie or passed out, so…” I patted the sweatshirt. “Lay down.”
She eyed me oddly.
I found myself holding my breath. For not-not friends, this was a little intimate. She knew it. I knew it.
When she finally gave in and curled up beside me, her wild curls spread out over my lap, I let out a long exhale and grinned.
We might be not-not friends tonight, but by the end of this school break…?
Well, I had plans.
Nine
Max
Sleepover with the Enemy (How to Catch a Crush Book 5) Page 8
