Chapter 23
Max supplies me with a raspberry hard cider from a case stashed inside the washing machine.
I look around for a bottle opener, but when I don’t see one, he smoothly takes the bottle out of my hand, angles it just so against the kitchen counter, and gives the top a whack. The lid pops right off, and I’m impressed enough that I have to make an effort not to gawk as I take the bottle back.
I clear my throat, trying to shake it off. “So, um…”
Great work, Cerys. A conversational superstar.
It’s not my fault, though. Max makes it so hard to talk to him.
He’s all stoic and serious and superior and downright annoying, and it’s not as if he’s here throwing out “Hey look at me, I’m Mr. Approachable, small talk is my forte” vibes, is he?
Thankfully—God, this is what my life has come to, that I’m stuck alone at a party with Max and grateful when he has something to say—he finds something for us to talk about.
“Anissa seems cool.”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Yeah, she’s…” The exact opposite, but maybe in Max’s books she’s the height of cool? She definitely is where Jake is concerned, it seems…
“You went to the same school, right? Jake mentioned you guys were never really friends, though.”
“We weren’t.”
I don’t have much else to say—the truth is I’m still uncomfortable with being seen hanging out with Anissa in case I’m judged and exiled for it, but she does seem really great, and I regret not getting to know her sooner.
I feel a whole mess of shame when I think about any of that, and I’m realizing it has less to do with her and a lot to do with me, but that’s really scary to confront.
The very last person I want to open up to about any of that is Max.
He takes my brusque response as some kind of invitation to pry, though, saying, “So what changed? Don’t tell me all it took was a mutual appreciation for OWAR.” He quirks an eyebrow, apparently skeptical as ever about my own investment in this fandom.
I bristle. Not because he’s right, but because I am invested. Genuinely, deeply. I’ve written fanfiction, for God’s sake! Not—NOT—that I am about to prove that to him by sending Max my lovey-dovey one-shot of a ballroom dance. I’d rather set myself on fire.
But I’m backed into a corner: I don’t want to stand here elaborating on my fangirl status to make a point, and I don’t want to reveal just how shady my motivations for inviting Anissa to the party tonight were. I don’t want that getting back to Jake—or worse, to Anissa.
“I didn’t realize my friendships were any of your business,” I snap.
Max scoffs.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Clearly, it meant something.”
His jaw works for a minute before he shakes his head and mutters, “Forget it,” and sets about finding himself a drink. He doesn’t bother with the washing machine ciders, but yanks open a cupboard to find a glass, and pours himself some Coke.
That ever-present tension between us is back, amped up, crackling and angry, making me grit my teeth as I wonder who the hell he thinks he is to try to pick apart my newly forged bond with Anissa, and what the hell that scoff was all about. It takes every ounce of my willpower to try to let it go.
Fine. Let him think what he wants. Let him hate me. See if I care.
But I am not going to let him spoil my night any more than Jake and Anissa and even Daphne already have. Eventually, they’ll run out of steam and come hang out with us again, and I don’t want to be in a foul mood when they do.
For now I’m stuck with him. I guess I have no choice but to try to be civil, if I want to salvage this night.
Max, it seems, has the same idea, because although he leans against the counter a safe distance from me, his frown looks more perturbed than annoyed now, and I get the sense he’s trying to think of small talk that’s safer ground.
If that even exists; I don’t think we’ve managed to have anything resembling a normal conversation since we met.
This time, it’s me who breaks the ice.
“You’re not drinking?” I ask, nodding at his own glass.
Max shakes his head. “I drew the short straw.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out his car keys, gives them a little jangle, then puts them away.
Then he tilts his head in the direction of a few other people clustered in the kitchen.
“Just wait till later, I’ll suddenly be everybody’s best friend, even if they don’t remember my name and call me ‘Matt’ half the time. ”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
He locks eyes with me, and it’s so piercing that I almost flinch. “Should it?”
I think about Anissa, about my conversation with Jake in the Discord channel, about how desperately hard I’ve tried to fit in.
It’s definitely a lot easier to chat behind the safety of a screen with the OWAR fandom as a shield, but I swallow, my mouth dry, and dare myself to ask, “I get that ‘finding your people’ is important, but…you don’t think it gets lonely, alienating yourself like that? Being…”
Max waits for me to finish that sentence, and I cringe.
Altering course slightly, I say, “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
His lips curve into a wry smile. “I do okay. Why? Do you get lonely, not alienating yourself all the time?”
Yes. That’s why I can’t afford to lose what I do have.
I take a fortifying sip of cider and fight back a grimace at the sickly sweet taste.
Gross. How does Jake enjoy this stuff? I wish Ginny had made it home for reading week; she would’ve given us some of that cheap rosé I actually do like.
I don’t much fancy minesweeping any of the open wine bottles scattered around the kitchen.
I tell Max, “Sure, when my best friend is replacing me. But I do okay, too.”
Mostly. Sort of.
At least, I thought I did.
Max, as if knowing there’s a lot more I’m not really saying, huffs a small laugh and clinks his drink to mine. “Here’s to doing okay.”
—
Drinks in hand, we leave the kitchen and go to the living room.
I check that there’s no sign of Daphne before deciding to stay.
There’s a big group involved in a noisy card game at a coffee table, with even more people clustered around to watch.
There’s a vile-looking mixture in a pint glass in the middle of the table, and as we find a spot behind a sofa at the edge of the crowd to watch, someone pulls a card that makes everyone howl and jeer, and they slosh some of their own drinks into the pint.
I wrinkle my nose, watching the liquid turn an almost purplish shade of brown. Even just looking at it threatens to turn my stomach. Surely nobody has to drink it?
I don’t realize I’ve said that last part out loud until Max says, “You’ve never played Ring of Fire before?”
“What?” Then I blink. “And you have?”
“Like I said—I do okay. This isn’t my first house party.” He lifts his Coke slightly. “And I’m not always the one driving.”
“But…”
But who invites him anywhere? He said himself, most of these people don’t even get his name right. Who does he have parties with, playing drinking games like this? I have so many questions, but I’m aware how not-civil they all sound, so I keep my mouth shut.
Max must be secretly cooler than I give him credit for.
As we watch and people take turns pulling cards from the pile surrounding the gross pint glass, Max explains the rules to me.
He’s standing close—my shoulder grazing his chest, his mouth near enough to my ear that he doesn’t have to raise his voice to be heard over the shouting and the music.
His breath tickles at loose strands of my hair and the edge of my neck, and a shiver threatens to roll down my spine.
Someone bumps me and makes me spill some cider over my hand and shoes, and my mind goes completely blank at the sensation of Max putting his arm around me—wrapping it solidly around my lower back, his hand resting on the back of the sofa just by my hip, like a shield between me and stumbling partygoers.
The heat of his arm seems to burn right through the thin fabric of my borrowed dress, my attention zeroing in on my shoulder against his solid chest, his breath skating across my skin and just how close his face is to mine.
I don’t catch all the rules, and blame that on the noise. It’s not like I’m distracted. It’s not like he’s distracting me.
Unthinkable. Impossible.
I think he asked me something, because from the corner of my eye I notice that he tilts his head, looking at me as if he’s waiting for my response. I’m biting my lip and staring a little too hard at the gameplay—seeing none of it.
“Uh-huh,” I manage, a noncommittal mumble.
The arm isn’t around me, obviously, he’s just trying to balance himself, that’s all.
Whatever comment or question I’ve just responded to, though, Max chuffs a breath of laughter and faces back to the game again. Did I insult him? Ignore him? I don’t quite have the brain capacity to care.
Someone draws a card and there’s a cacophony, voices hollering and howling, and the boy who drew the card—Alfie, the goalkeeper who flaked on games to be with his on-off girlfriend—buries his head in his hands with a loud curse before lurching to his feet, throwing his card, a king, down on the table, and reaching for the pint from hell.
“He’s not!” I gasp.
“He is,” Max says.
There are chants around the room—“Chug, chug, chug!” and “Weeeee like to drink with Alfie, ’cause Alfie is our mate, and when we drink with Alfie…
”—and I watch in horror as he downs the entire horrible concoction, gagging only a little halfway through, and belching when he slams the empty glass back down on the table.
Grim.
A fresh game of Ring of Fire is set up, with the players shifting as some spectators and participants swap places, and the scummy glass is set back on the table for everyone to pour a little of their drinks in anew, laughing and looking excited.
Raf is in the group playing now, and sits cross-legged on the floor opposite us. He notices me, and waves me over with a grin.