Chapter Thirteen Max #2
Max knew instantly it was a bad day: the gray pallor of his dad’s face; dark, sunken circles beneath his eyes. A wracking cough that started as soon as he opened his mouth to speak.
“What’s—” Max remembered their last conversation and corrected himself. “What’s going on, Dad? Is now a good time?”
His dad finished coughing, then wiped at his mouth and nose with a wrinkled tissue. He was in their living room at home, stretched out in the recliner that overlooked the front yard. Max was just glad he wasn’t in the hospital again. “Always a good time to talk to you.”
Max flipped the camera to show his dad the snow outside—and also so Dad couldn’t see Max’s eyes mist over. “Check this out.”
“Whoa. We didn’t get that much here. You’re not running today, are you? Make sure you bundle up if you do.”
“Nah.” Aside from his ritual morning and night stretches, done like clockwork in the middle of his floor, Max took rest days seriously. “Just the shelter in a bit.”
Would Keely be there again? Ash Mountain got snow often enough that it wasn’t an excusable absence, but part of him hoped she’d skip anyway.
Another part of him hoped she didn’t: he was unsettled by how they’d left things Friday after the book swap gone wrong, and their parking lot conversation left him with more questions than answers.
If she showed up today, if they had a moment alone, he could dig into why exactly Keely Sinclair hated him. He was starting to suspect it was about more than the scholarship.
“Stayin’ out of trouble?”
Just blowing up science labs. Swapping books. Racing in two-sizes-too-tight uniforms when a girl washes them. A girl with a smile in her eyes for everyone else but fire in her eyes for him. The usual.
He hesitated long enough that his dad caught on. “I see. Well, does this trouble have a name? A girl’s name, perhaps?”
For some inexplicable reason—maybe the furnace kicking on—his cheeks heated. “I—uh.” He scratched the back of his neck and glanced out the window again. “Funny story. Do you remember Keely Sinclair?”
“From middle school?” His dad nodded. “Wow. I haven’t heard her name in years. Did you reconnect with her?”
“I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.” He couldn’t tell his dad about the scholarship. Max worried about it enough for both of them, and any extra stress would only exacerbate his father’s symptoms. “We realized recently we both go to AMU.”
“Small world,” Dad said, voice dripping with glee.
“We’re just—” They weren’t friends. Not really. “We’ve been running into each other recently.” That was one way to put it.
“Well, if you run into her again, make sure you’re protected. I’ve got enough grandchildren for now. No need to rush things.”
Max accidentally-on-purpose hung up the call.
An hour later, Keely and Max arrived at the shelter at the same time. Clumps of snow clung to her shoes and the cuffs of her jeans. Her hair was covered by a fluffy white hat with a ball on top, and when she pulled it off, some of the strands stuck straight up, frizzing out at odd angles.
He stifled a smile, but she still clocked it. She opened her mouth to say something—or to bite off his head, if he was placing bets—but Tricia walked through the door, effectively ending the conversation before it began.
As Max logged his clock-in time on the cork board, he watched Keely in his periphery. She was up to something.
“Tricia,” Keely said solemnly. “Can we talk in private? I need to tell you something.”
Wait. Was she actually quitting?
And wasn’t that what he wanted?
His pen broke through the paper. He pulled back, dropping it in the cup once again. “I’d like to hear this,” he mumbled, but it was loud enough that they all heard it.
Keely looked down at her feet, and he would have thought she was seriously upset, if she hadn’t glanced at him the split second before her mouth opened. Mischief danced in her eyes. If you insist, that look said.
Her gaze redirected to Tricia. “Max was the one who dyed my hands blue.” She took a deep, steadying breath, like it was some massive secret she’d been carrying. “It was all his fault. I just needed you to know.”
Something in his chest eased. This was more of her antics. She was grasping at straws, and he suspected she knew it. He bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh.
Tricia looked similarly amused. “Right.” She turned toward a cabinet and didn’t say anything else.
Keely choked. “Aren’t you going to—to discipline him?”
Tricia shrugged, messing with her dog-bone printed bandana. “Didn’t happen here. Your business is not my business. What you two do together—” her tone dripped with suggestion “—outside these walls is none of my concern.”
“We’re not doing anything—” Keely started, nearly drowning out Max’s own cry of, “Tricia, you know it’s not like that.”
But Tricia just grabbed a roll of paper towels and left them alone in the office.
Keely stood there, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving beneath her sweatshirt.
And that, for some reason, really pissed him off.
He closed the space between them. “What was that about? What are you trying to do?”
He’d been expecting her to take a step back, but she held her ground.
It put her much too close to him. An eyelash rested on her cheek, near the curve of her nose.
He wasn’t sure why he noticed that, when his blood was still boiling.
Like that day at the stadium when the wind had carried her scent to him—like every time he stood too close to her—peppermint filled his senses.
And his mouth fucking watered.
Max ground his jaw, continuing before she could say something else that would derail him. “You’re not going to make her hate me, Keely. I’ve been coming here for years.”
Pink smeared itself across her cheeks, and her gaze narrowed. “I’m not giving up,” she said.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Or want her to, he realized.
This competition was spurning him toward. . . something. He just didn’t know what.
What he did know, though, was that sooner or later, this dangerous energy sparking between them would finally catch.
And there would be no survivors.