The other girl in Jessica's bedroom shrugged, making her voluminous and tight curled hair flounce on her shoulders. "Okay then. Both. I'm going to try that tape trick to get stripes on mine."
A family finally moved into that house down the street. Sang admitted one time to Jessica that she was going to camp out in that house before it was finished being built, but she said Kota convinced her it was a dumb idea. Sang was weird.
Jessica decided it was best not to share the eccentricities of her brother's girlfriend to the people who moved in. That would probably scare them away, and she wanted to be friends with the girl that looked to be just her age.
After knocking on their door that afternoon, Jessica introduced herself to the new family and found out the girl's name was Saria. Saria was taller and had skin the color of caramel candy with black sprinkle freckles all over her cheeks. Saria's mother promptly shooed them away for a "playdate" while the grownups unpacked. The moment the door closed, the girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They knew they were too old for "playdates." Young women like themselves went to go "hang out" with each other. That other word was for babies.
When they arrived back at the Lee Residence, the girls were nearly trampled by Kota, Sang, Silas, and Gabriel trying to rush out the door. There was a traffic jam of bodies in all sizes in the garage.
Gabriel told the girls to help themselves to the nail polish left out in the living room. The lot of them piled into cars and drove off. Kota's school probably called them up. Kota's school was weird.
Inside, Jessica and Saria made themselves lemonades then inspected the array of manicure paraphernalia set up on the coffee table. From the dozens of colors available, they picked a few and retreated to Jessica's bedroom. There, they got to know each other as they applied coats of nail polish like they knew what they were doing.
"Were there tweezers out there?" Jessica asked as she inspected a sheet of little rhinestones, careful to try and not smear the light pink color on her fingernails.
"Yeah, but I didn't grab them," Saria answered. "There was only on girl of them, right?"
Jessica nodded.
"Then why so much nail polish? Were they all getting manicures?"
Jessica shrugged and stood up from her perch on the side of her bed. "My brother and his friends are weird."
Saria laughed. "I think all brothers are weird. I have a baby brother, and he likes to stick carrots down his diaper." She put down the little scissors and roll of clear tape from where she was trying to cut out little shapes and joined Jessica. "Hey, what's this?" Something pretty and shiny on the dresser caught her eye.
Jessica stepped over and looked at what Saria's lime green nail was pointing at. "Oh, that?" She nudged it with a knuckle. "It's a wish stone. They say that it grants a wish to a girl who has a pure heart. It was my turn to try it out. You can have a go at it now."
Saria's eyes widened in wonder. "Does it work?"
"You know what?" Jessica said with a smile lifting her lips. Carefully, she lifted the chain and held it open so Saria could slip her head through. "I think it does. I wished to make a friend, and here you are!"
"Aw! That's so sweet!" Saria cooed and struck a dramatic pose to showcase her new jewelry. They both went to look for the tweezers and back to the kitchen for more lemonade, laughing the entire time at ridiculous wishes they could have asked for. Their ideas ranged from the largest peanut butter and banana sandwich in the world, to their very own bouncy playhouse to jump in whenever they wanted.
As the pair carefully clutched their glasses to sip the lemonade, Saria's eyes kept scanning around the house and out the windows for curiosity's sake.
"Oh em gee! You have a dog?!" she cried upon seeing reddish-orange fur scrape a paw through the dirt in the back yard.
Jessica nodded. "That's Max."
"I want a dog, but dad's allergic. Can I pet him?"
"Stay here. I'll bring him inside."
Jessica set her glass on the counter and went out back. During the few days Max was gone, she was convinced he abandoned her. His absence broke her heart.
Then there was all that crazy stuff with the mailman and the bomb. That was pure bad luck, as far as Jessica was concerned. Of course, that had to happen when Max wasn't there. If Max was at home, he wouldn't have let that fiasco happen to begin with.
She did not sleep those few nights. She didn't feel like home was home unless Max was around. She didn't feel safe after the bomb. Then Kota was gone for a night to stay with that stranger that took the bomb away. Jessica was grateful for the man's help. She picked out the flowers herself when her mom took her to visit Kota and the guy at the hospital. However, having her older brother absent from the home that night didn't help her relax at all either.
Then a day or two later, Kota came home. He drove his car into the driveway, and Jessica watched as he opened the back door of his ugly green car, and the most handsome dog leaped out of the back seat. Jessica ran out of the house squealing, which scared their mom. Jessica didn't care. As soon as she went out the door, she and Max tackled each other. Max covered her face with licks. Jessica clung around his neck as she cried, not caring if her brother saw the tears or not.
Now, standing in the back yard, she smiled. She was glad Max was home. Things were back to normal. Well, as normal as things got around their house.
Max sat on his haunches with his tail wagging back and forth, swishing dirt around behind him. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth as he panted, and it made him look like he was grinning goofily as his honey brown eyes sparkled at Jessica.
Something was scratched into the dirt beside Max. Jessica had to tilt her head to recognize a pattern to the lines and curves that looked like someone drew with a stick.
MAX ♥JESSICA
"Max?" Jessica scrunched her eyebrows at the family dog. "Did Kota do this?"
She swore he swung his head back and forth in a 'no.'
"Did you do this?"
Max woofed and jumped up excitedly, shoving his nose into her hand for pets.
Jessica giggled to herself as she carefully undid the hook from around his collar. She loved him, but Max was weird.
A/N: And that's it, folks! Thank you for reading, all the votes, and comments. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I have writing it.
Now, I'm absolutely positive I will come up with supplementary one-shots around Max the Man. Consider them his lost adventures since he only got to run around on two legs for a mere two days in this story. I don't know when, but once a one-shot gets chugged out, I'll be posting them as additional chapters on the end of this story. So! Even though Max is considered to be complete, please look forward to more material popping up randomly in the future.
And now I leave you with his signature head tilt (this is my first try at the multimedia on Wattpad, so forgive me if I muck it up).
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