Leo doesn’t like Max’s date
Leo doesn't like Max's date
LEO
Elliot is destroying me. Like, absolutely demolishing me at Mario Kart. He's been Rainbow Road's quiet ninja for the past three races, and I've come in fourth every single time. Fourth. Out of four players.
"How are you so good at this?" I ask, watching his Yoshi drift perfectly around another corner while my Toad careens into a banana peel. Elliot doesn't answer. He gives this tiny satisfied smile and crosses the finish line in first place. Again.
Haru laughs from his spot on the floor. "I think Elliot has been secretly practicing."
"Betrayal," I mutter, but I'm smiling. "Absolute betrayal."
"I can take over if you want a break," Haru offers.
"Please." I hand him the controller and stand, stretching.
My back cracks in three places. "I need snacks anyway.
And dignity… but mostly snacks." The living room is at peak cozy tonight.
Luca's curled up in the armchair with his laptop, probably doing some terrifying organization with his class schedule.
JP's in the kitchen making what smells like his grandmother's kimchi fried rice, and the whole house has a warm, delicious aroma that makes me drool.
I'm halfway to the kitchen to see if I can sneak a bowl from JP when headlights sweep across the living room window. A car is pulling up outside. Not unusual; we live near campus, and people park on this street all the time. But something makes me glance out.
Max.
He's climbing out of a car I don't recognize. I can't see who's in the driver's seat, but Max waves, casual and friendly, and the car pulls away. No hug. No kiss. Just Max, heading up the walkway in his good jacket.
The date. Right. Max had a date tonight. Max comes through the door looking… tired. Not upset, exactly. Just worn out in that specific way, which means social interaction has depleted his battery. But he's smiling.
"Hey," he says, toeing off his shoes. "What'd I miss?"
"Elliot has been kicking Leo's ass at Mario Kart for an hour," Luca says without looking up from his laptop. "It's been embarrassing to watch."
"It's been painful," I correct. Max grins and heads straight for the kitchen. There's some rustling, cabinet doors opening and closing, and then he emerges with an armful of snacks and flops onto the couch next to where I had been sitting.
"So?" JP appears in the doorway, spatula in hand. "How'd it go?"
Max drops his head back against the couch cushions and groans. "Thanks for helping, but it was a total waste of the good bum jeans."
"The great bum jeans," JP says, looking genuinely offended. "I'm offended on their behalf."
"Sorry, jeans." Max pats his own thigh. "You deserved better."
Luca finally looks up. "That bad?"
"Not bad," Max says quickly. "Cole's nice.
Really nice, actually. Just… no spark. Like, zero chemistry.
We both knew it pretty fast." He starts unwrapping a granola bar, and I grab a snack from the kitchen, shove a carrot in my mouth, and wait to hear about Max's date.
Haru and Elliot pause the game, both of them turning toward Max.
"So what happened?" Haru asks.
Max takes a bite of the granola bar, chewing thoughtfully. "He picked me up around seven, and we went to The Tap—"
The Tap is the loudest bar on campus. The place where you have to yell to be heard over the music, and there are approximately seven hundred people crammed into a space designed for maybe two hundred. Max hates loud places.
"—and it was packed," Max continues. "Like, wall-to-wall people. His swim buddies were already there, so we grabbed a table with them."
His swim buddies were there. On a first date. Why wouldn't you bring your friends to a date? That's definitely how romance works.
"We tried talking," Max says, "but it was so loud, and honestly, we don't have much in common? Like, he was really nice about it, but I'd start talking about Robotics and his eyes would glaze over, and then he'd talk about swim training, and I'd… nod a lot."
He's using his hands while he talks, waving the granola bar around like a conductor's baton. There's a smudge of chocolate on his thumb.
"And then his friends started talking about some meet they have coming up, and Cole got really into it, and I kind of… sat there. Listening. Which was fine! They were nice guys. But it wasn't exactly a date at that point, you know?"
Nice guys. Right. Nice guys who monopolized the conversation while Max sat there trying to follow along.
Nice guys who didn't notice when Max went quiet because, of course, he went quiet.
Max always goes quiet when he's overwhelmed or out of his depth.
Did Cole notice? Did he try to include Max in the conversation?
"Eventually, Cole realized what was happening," Max says, answering my unspoken question. "He apologized, and we tried to talk one-on-one again, but it was just… awkward. We both knew it wasn't working."
JP leans against the doorframe. "So what did you do?"
"We talked about it." Max shrugs. "Like, actually talked. Cole was really cool about it. He said he'd thought maybe that since it worked with Luca and Del, maybe it could work with another athlete and a geek, right? But there wasn't anything there. No spark."
He says it so matter-of-factly. Like it doesn't sting.
"Del is the anomaly," Max continues, smiling, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I don't think athletes are for me. We're just… too different."
Logically, he's probably right. Athletes and geeks don't usually mix. Different interests, different social circles, different ways of existing in the world. Del and Luca are the exception, not the rule.
But there's something about the way Max says it, resigned, a little defeated, that makes my head hurt. "So we decided to hang out as friends," Max says. "Spent the rest of the night people-watching and rating other guys in the bar. It was actually pretty fun once we stopped trying to force it."
"That is an extremely mature outlook," Haru says approvingly.
"Cole's a good guy. Just not my guy." Max balls up the granola bar wrapper. "Oh well. Back to the drawing board, I guess."
JP's watching Max with a furrowed brow. "We'll figure something out."
Right. Operation Social Interaction. The thing we all agreed to last semester. Get out more, make friends, try dating. Stop being hermits who only talk to each other.
Luca and Del were an accidental pairing. Luca went to the campus coffee shop; Del was working there, boom. JP still calls it a win for the operation. Counts it on his little progress tracker, as if Luca deliberately executed a plan instead of ordering a complicated drink and getting flustered.
Which means the rest of us are still… what? Pending? In progress? Incomplete? Max is out there trying. Going on terrible dates and coming home defeated but still willing to try again. That takes guts.
And me?
I've been… what? Cheering from the sidelines? Making sure Max remembers to eat before his dates?
The realization hits like missing a step going downstairs, that sudden drop, the split second of weightlessness before your brain catches up.
I haven't thought about it. At all. Not in an "I've been too busy" way.
In a genuine "I have no idea what I even want" way.
If JP asked me right now, pulled out his color-coded spreadsheet and said, "Leo, what are you looking for?
What's your type? Where should we start?
" I'd have absolutely nothing to tell him.
Do I want someone tall? Short? Loud? Quiet? Do I want someone who likes physics or someone who'd rather die than talk about quantum mechanics?
Someone athletic? Artistic? Academic? I don't know.
The thought is weirdly unsettling. Like finding a gap in an equation where there should be a variable. Something's missing, but I can't figure out what.
I should probably talk to JP about this. Get ahead of it before he comes at me with a twelve-point action plan and a deadline. But not yet.
Shaking my head, I try to pull myself back to the conversation. This is future Leo's problem. Right now, JP is talking, and I should probably be listening.
Let him focus on Max first. Max is actually trying. Max deserves the full JP treatment, the research, the strategizing, the carefully curated list of potential venues and conversation starters. I can go last. I have time.
"—think Leo should try the gym," JP is saying, and now I snap back to the conversation.
Wait, what?
"The gym?" I repeat.
"You need exercise," JP says, like this is obvious. "You could meet people at the gym."
"I don't go to a gym specifically to avoid people."
"That is a design flaw in my plan." Luca snorts.
"Anyway," Max says, rescuing me, "it wasn't a total loss. Cole and I are going to grab hot chocolate sometime as friends. He's got good taste in guys. We spent twenty minutes debating whether the bartender was a seven or an eight."
"Verdict?" Luca asks.
"Eight. Definitely an eight. Great smile."
We’re all laughing now, the awkward mood from Max's sad entrance fading into our usual thing, all of us joking around about nothing. Haru leans over and hugs Max, pulling him into a side-squeeze.
"There are many more sharks in the ocean," Haru says seriously.
Everyone stops talking to look over at Haru.
"Sharks?" JP says.
"Yes. There are many, many sharks."
"Haru," Luca says gently. "Do you mean there are many fish in the sea?"
Haru frowns. "Is that the correct idiom? Fish in the sea?"
"Yeah, man.”
"But there are also many sharks."
"There are," Max agrees, grinning now. "There are many sharks."
"And some of them are very attractive male sharks," Haru continues, completely earnest. "So this also works, yes?
" We all lose it. Luca's laughing so hard he has to put his laptop down.
JP's got his hand over his face. Elliot's doing his silent-laugh thing, where his shoulders shake, but no sound comes out.
I'm smiling despite myself, the weird, tangled thoughts from earlier loosening. Max is laughing too, tucked into Haru's side, and the defeated edge is completely gone now.
Good. That's good. I grab the bag of gummy bears from the kitchen, Max's favorite, the ones he pretends he doesn't eat an entire bag of in one sitting, and head back to the couch.
"Scoot," I tell Haru. He releases Max, and I drop down next to my best friend, offering the gummy bears.
"You're the best," Max says, already digging in.
"I know."
He settles against my side, head dropping to my shoulder like always. His hair tickles my jaw. He's warm, and he smells like that coconut shampoo bar he uses. He's home, and he's okay. That's what matters.
"Alright," JP announces. "Leo, Haru, you're up. Let's see if you can dethrone the Elliot Empire."
"I will avenge you, Leo," Haru says solemnly, accepting the controller.
Max snorts against my shoulder. "You're really bad at Mario Kart."
"Elliot is unnaturally good at Mario Kart."
"Fair."
The game starts up again, with Haru and Elliot selecting their characters. Luca goes back to his laptop. JP returns to the kitchen. Everything is exactly as it should be. Max shifts slightly, gets comfortable, and doesn't move away.