Chapter Ten Max
Chapter Ten
Max
After Max’s shift was over, he walked out to the parking lot and was completely unsurprised to see Keely standing by his car, blocking the driver’s door.
He figured a confrontation of some sort was coming, especially after he’d got to spend his day socializing puppies while Keely stocked cat litter.
“This was too far,” she started, holding up her ungloved, still-blue hands.
He wanted to laugh, but had a feeling if he did, he’d be leaving this parking lot in Keely’s trunk.
He swallowed his amusement. It went down thick. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and popped a hip against the quarter panel of his Trailblazer. “How was I supposed to know it would turn your hands blue?”
She scoffed, mirroring his posture on the fender. “Why did you mess with the Olympiad in the first place?”
“Why did you send an email saying my class had been canceled?” This time, he did let his laugh out, a dry, sardonic one. “From where I’m standing, you started all of this, Keely. I’m only following your lead.”
Jaw tight, she looked away, and he watched her watch the darkening sky.
“Did you need something else?” he snapped. He didn’t know how to handle this new version of Keely, one that challenged him, bit back.
She was unbothered by his tone—or more bothered by something else, judging by her teeth sunk into her bottom lip.
“Those puppies. . . he just left them.” She rolled her eyes, but they were shining.
This was her first abandonment since she’d started. Max still remembered his; he also remembered how much he’d cried when that bully was eventually adopted.
His heart softened a fraction. Maybe it was the poorly hidden fear in her gaze, glinting against the streetlights.
Or maybe he was hungry.
He shrugged it all off. “Don’t worry. The puppies always go really fast. As soon as we can get them up on the website, basically.
” He tried not to notice the way the corner of her mouth lifted.
Tried not to notice how he kept talking, just to see if it would go higher.
“And it’s good for some of the longer-term strays too, because people don’t fall in love with them until they’re here for the puppies.
I mean, you could see how Biscuit wouldn’t photograph well. ”
Her mouth twitched. A breeze shifted a lock of hair into her face, and she brushed it back. When she caught sight of her blue hand, they both froze.
Then she huffed and spun on her heel toward her own car. Max dug his keys from his coat pocket.
She pulled open her door and gave him a blue-tinged wave. “Have a great week, Max,” she called.
Before she got in, she made a point to blow air in her hands and rub them together menacingly. She held eye contact the entire time.
That wasn’t ominous at all.
· · · · ·
For half a week, Max looked over his shoulder in anticipation of Keely’s retaliation. He’d see her ducking around corners outside his apartment, slipping into the back of his classroom to embarrass him in front of his peers, tying his shoes together right before the tone went off.
But it was his imagination, fear playing tricks on his mind. She wasn’t anywhere. Nothing happened. Things were fine.
And that worried him more than anything.
Thursday, Max had a meeting with Dr. Goff to touch base on his scholarship application. He spent ten seconds talking about his stagnant grades and ten whole minutes trying to gain intel on Keely.
“How am I looking in comparison to the other applicants?” he said, fidgeting in his chair.
Dr. Goff raised an eyebrow. The arch was sharp enough to still him instantly. “While I can’t speak on others’ academics, of course—”
“Of course,” Max agreed, nodding emphatically.
“—I can say your work is cut out for you.” She pulled open her desk drawer. “If I were you, I’d look into a tutor.” She slid a card across the desk. “The sooner, the better.”
So, basically, he was screwed.
After his appointment, he made his way across campus, heading for the gym.
He made sure to avoid stepping on Abe the emerald ash borer, the school’s mascot overlaying the bricks in the sidewalk intersection nearest the Q.
Rumor had it, if someone stepped on him, his spirit would be crushed and AMU would lose the next sporting event.
Didn’t matter what sport or what part of Abe’s body.
Max wasn’t superstitious, per se, but there had to be a reason it was the least worn part of the sidewalk.
He took a wide berth around the mascot to be safe.
A sudden chill went up his spine, and he checked over his shoulder for the dozenth time today.
Still no sign of Keely.
Maybe she’d given up. He’d nailed her pretty damn good with the experiment. She probably didn’t want to risk escalating things.
Which was fine. He needed to focus on his own application, anyway. Find a tutor to pull his grades up from six feet under.
His phone buzzed with a call in his pocket, and the name on the screen made his heart skip a beat.
“Dad,” he said, worry sharpening a knife along his ribs. “Is everything okay?”
His father let out a chuckle, and it eased the sting in Max’s chest, but only marginally. “How would you like it if I answered your call every time with ‘is everything okay?’ ”
Max grunted. “I see your point.” He cleared away the rock in his throat, but it lodged near his heart instead. “What’s up? Is that better?”
“Much,” Dad said. Max heard his smirk. “How’s your season so far? Race day this weekend.”
At the start of every semester, his parents printed out AMU’s track and field schedule and magnetized it to the refrigerator door.
Put the dates in the family calendar. While most of it was taken up by his father’s treatments and appointments, his parents tried to come to his races when it was feasible for Dad.
When it wasn’t, they streamed them on an iPad propped up at the end of the hospital bed or on the living-room television.
The rock in Max’s heart had to be blocking something major. He pressed a fist there and massaged. “That’s right.”
“How have your times been this week?”
Max’s jaw ticked. “PR this week was eleven point eight on the dash, and a minute-six for relay.”
His dad made a thoughtful noise. “Decent for this early in the season. What about your hurdles?”
The word sent a shiver down Max’s spine the same way Keely Sinclair did. “Coach thinks the dash is the safe bet for this weekend.” It was a non-answer, but his dad knew how to read between the lines.
“Well,” he said after a beat, “I have no doubt you’ll do your best. And there’s plenty of season left. Plenty of career.”
Max’s chest tightened again, and he pulled at the fabric of his sweatshirt, trying to get some air.
The problem was Max’s best wasn’t good enough.
It wasn’t good enough last year at Olympic trials, when he’d fallen on his face and tweaked his knee.
Wasn’t good enough to keep his funding for postgrad so he could try again in three years.
Wasn’t good enough to win the scholarship outright, or to have decent enough grades so he had a fighting chance.
There wasn’t a single aspect of his life where he wasn’t treading water in a thunderstorm, trying to keep rain out of his eyes and saltwater out of his mouth.
“Gain any weight lately?” Max asked, desperate to take the spotlight away from his failings.
“Five whole pounds, I’ll have you know.”
Max let out a whoop, and other students threw him curious looks. “Five more next month, yeah?”
His dad chuckled. “How about you run your race, and I’ll run mine.”
They talked until Max reached the gym, catching up on what new recipes Max’s mother had tried recently, which ones made his youngest brother Jacob gag and which ones Duck and Goose, his family’s bonded golden retrievers, begged for the most. What his other brothers, Thomas and Henry, thought about their favorite sports teams’ seasons so far.
By the time he hung up, Max had almost forgotten about Keely’s blue hands and the fact that last night he’d woken from a nightmare in which they were wrapped around his neck.
Only almost, though.
And he still made sure the door was firmly latched behind him when he went inside.