Chapter Twenty-Four Max
Chapter Twenty-Four
Max
This weekend was not going to plan.
For starters, Max had to piss before the plane to Philly boarded Friday night, so he missed the boarding lineup and ended up in a middle seat between a businessman who thought the no-calls-in-flight rule didn’t apply to him and a grandmotherly woman who threw her all (but mostly her elbows) into the sweater she was knitting.
Secondly, it was Philly, one of the largest meets of their season, and the last one Max could realistically afford not to ace. Nationals were a guillotine looming over his neck, waiting for the slightest slip to cut him off from everything he wanted.
Thirdly, it seemed, half of his team was still hungover from spring break.
He’d yet to see Jazz without sunglasses, and Alex wasn’t much better—during their warm-up lap, he stopped to puke in the grass by the finish line.
Coach had been cursing since and threatened to “lock down” training with every other sentence. Max didn’t want to know what he meant.
By some miracle, his solo sprints were fine enough. He easily conquered his qualifying heat for the hundred-meter dash and came in the middle of the pack for hurdles.
The relay was a different story. Even from three hundred meters away, he could see Alex turning green.
He was slower than average, too, which meant the rest of them needed to pick up the slack.
Max had bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to keep off the extra weight perching precariously on his shoulders.
Nolan flew through his leg, but Jazz must have been feeling the effects too, because she’d nearly dropped the baton during the handoff. It had plummeted to earth for a quarter of a second, mimicking Max’s heart, before her grip firmed up and she made up for her fumble in the curve.
As she drew closer, Max’s mind buzzed, and he heard his dad’s voice in his head.
Been better, been worse, here now.
It always helped him focus when the roar of the crowd grew too loud to hear himself think.
He could do this.
For his dad.
His fingers curled around the baton.
He pushed, breath hissing from him in hot pants. With each competitor whizzing by in his periphery, as he moved his team up in ranks by sheer grit, he seemed to get faster, his body settling into the thing it was built to do.
His all was enough—this time. They qualified for finals and went on to place, but Max wondered how long this would last. His best wouldn’t be enough forever.
Max would lose sooner or later, and then his dad would know for certain Max couldn’t handle the pressure.
Wasn’t built for this, the way his father was.
Now, silver medal tucked in his bag, he waited for the others for their return flight. Coach was discussing something with the employee working the gate, heads bent close together, voices too low to overhear.
The rain streaming onto the windows of the terminal matched Max’s mood almost perfectly. He’d wanted gold, dammit.
Unbidden, his mind drifted to another kind of gold.
Campus was hundreds of miles away. So why had his eyes searched the stands before the race and after the finish line, looking for a golden girl he knew wouldn’t be there?
And why was he thinking about her again, right now?
Her intelligent face, the perpetual smear of ink on her hand, the snarky comments hiding an undertone of something else. Something more.
A bright flash lit the dark sky just as Coach blew a short trill on his whistle. It was enough to get the team’s attention and annoy everyone else at the gate.
Max tugged down his headphones.
“Lightning storm,” Coach said, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “All planes are grounded for the foreseeable future.” The team groaned in unison.
They wouldn’t be home until tomorrow at this rate. Which meant there was a chance Max would miss his entire volunteer shift at the shelter.
And Keely.
Not her specifically. Just. . . the opportunity to see her. The smile she wore when a dog sat a toy at her feet or wagged its tail in her direction.
A large body dropped into the chair next to Max’s, and he would have bet the Pursue Your Passions scholarship he knew who it belonged to.
He would have been right. Nolan bumped him on the shoulder and said, “Spring break go okay? I haven’t talked you since you got back.”
Max lifted an eyebrow. “If you want to know something specific, Nolan, then ask.” He didn’t have time to read between the lines. Not when he was busy enough side-eyeing the clock and doing mental math on whether they’d make it home tonight.
Nolan hesitated, his gaze bouncing between their teammates and Max.
Max dipped his chin once, succinctly.
Still, Nolan hedged. “How was your week at home?”
“Good,” he said too quickly, ready to move on.
“And your. . . family?”
“Uh, yeah. They’re—hanging in there.” His tone was too sharp, but Nolan didn’t so much as flinch.
Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten used to taking Max’s punches.
Which was a blow of its own, right to Max’s ribcage.
He forced out more words, bitter on his tongue.
“Dad was supposed to get to come home for it. He usually gets a break between his more intensive therapies, but they wanted him to stay for monitoring this time.”
Nolan ran a hand over his head and said, “That really blows.” And left it there.
Whereas Nolan seemed content to sit in the silence—as silent as a terminal could be when its flight was delayed—the inequity between them dug under Max’s skin and poked sharp nails. Nolan was just nice, and Max had only ever been an asshole in return.
It felt a little like the shin splints he used to get in middle school, before Dad taught him proper stretching techniques. A completely avoidable annoyance.
“Have. . .” He cleared his throat and looked Nolan straight in the eye. “Have I been a bad friend to you our entire college career?”
“No.” Nolan tried and failed not to smile. “Only most of it.”
Max laughed, surprised, and shoved him in the shoulder.
“I’m kidding. I thought. . . I thought you didn’t want friends.” Now, Nolan was quieter, and Max leaned in to hear him. “That your focus was on running only, especially after trials last year.”
“That’s probably part of it,” Max admitted. Whatever part wasn’t his dad. “I don’t usually do things halfway. I need my mind to be right.”
Nolan stretched his legs into the aisle, slouching in his chair.
“You know I almost quit after the first semester? My mom needed the help at home, and I didn’t feel like I measured up to the big boys.
” Something about the way he said it made Max think he might have been included in that.
“I tried to tell Coach I was quitting, and he flat out refused. Said even if I was giving up on myself, he wasn’t giving up on me. ”
Coach was on the phone now, likely talking to the two little girls he had waiting for him at home, if the smile on his face was any indication.
“Sounds like him.” Max rubbed at his neck. “He’s like that with me, too.” A quick cough. “So are you, by the way. And it means. . .”
He couldn’t find the right words, but it turned out he didn’t need to.
Nolan only shrugged, digging in his bag. “I don’t like it when people give up on me. So I don’t give up on people, either.” He held something out. “Gum?”
Just like that, the conversation was finished. And Max, for a change, didn’t want to run away.
Until he caught a whiff of peppermint wafting from the stick of gum. Then he did want to run.
All the way back to Ash Mountain.
· · · · ·
Max was so, so late. Their flight had been postponed until early the next morning, and they didn’t touch down until noon. The ride back to campus was two more hours on the rickety team bus that never dared to go over the speed limit.
He navigated to his text thread with Keely. The last thing in there was from her, a gif of a dog wearing a medal around its neck.
Max
Going to be late for my shift
Keely
How late?
Max
We just passed Stanton
Keely
Yikes
Was it okay to ask her for help, or was that something only friends did? Did they qualify as friends? Sure, she’d saved his ass with the motor development project, but there was also the locker room, the glide of her skin beneath his hands. . .
He definitely didn’t touch Nolan like that.
He tapped his thumb against the side of his phone, contemplating. Typing bubbles popped up again.
Keely
I can cover you at the shelter until you get here. Farah Pawcett told me to tell you she misses you.
Max
Liar. Farah Pawcett only ever tells me to fuck off. With her teeth.
Outside, a highway sign whizzed by and provided an update. A hundred miles.
Max
Anyone else miss me?
Keely
Obviously.
A picture popped up. Keely sat on the ground in the kennel, peering out and smiling from around Biscuit, perched directly on her lap with his tongue lolling from his mouth. A grin tugged at Max’s lips as he zoomed in closer.
He choked on a laugh.
Keely sent a second picture and another text: does Biscuit have a boner right now?????? Her face was disgusted this time; the hand not holding the phone covered her eyes.
From there, every twenty minutes or so, a new picture would pop up, accompanied by a caption.
Biscuit’s boner is gone!!!, with a photo of Biscuit laying in the sun.
One of the new kittens wounded me, after a closeup of the tiniest, most minuscule scratch on the back of her hand.
Georgie said I’m “not allowed” to feed Lottie without also feeding Milo. But Milo steals Lottie’s food so who’s really at fault here?!
Her messages shrank the distance between them, passing the time until he finally pulled into the school parking lot. He sprinted for his car and rushed across town. He didn’t bother freshening up or changing out of his rumpled flight clothes.
It was a good thing, too. When he slipped into the main room, it was in desperate need of extra hands.
“What the hell happened?” Max said, fingers still curling around the doorknob.