Code Blue

Lexi vs. The Stacks

I didn't really have a plan, which would probably end up biting me in the ass. All I knew was that I needed to tell Max that I felt the same way about him, which considering he'd left the ball in my court, shouldn't have been that difficult of a task.

Except that I'd been around Max long enough to know that when it came to him, nothing was ever as simple as it seemed.

My first obstacle involved actually locating Max on campus. That would have been a lot easier if someone had actually answered the door at his house. When ringing the bell over the course of ten minutes turned up no result, I realized I would have to actually make use of the intelligence I'd collected on Max over the past few weeks, starting where he hung out the most.

The first stop on my Where's Max adventure was the student lounge in the business school. Seeing as he was the president of a bunch of organizations, he was often there for meetings, but apparently not today, seeing as when I got there, the room with the overstuffed couches was completely empty. I went on to check both dining halls and the student union only to realize that there was a very simple solution to my problem: I could just text Max and ask him where he was.

He responded to my 'you around?' text with his location and I lifted my eyebrows in surprise when I read the words on the screen, wondering why I hadn't thought of it sooner.

In the library. Tutoring session. Meet me in the stacks in fifteen?

If he felt any residual awkwardness from the fact that I had yet to react to his kiss, he wasn't showing it, a fact for which I was thankful because him being naturally flirtatious would make telling him that I was into it so much easier.

I walked slowly towards the library, not wanting to end up barging in on his tutoring session, but still getting there early enough to watch him at work. He sat at a large table with another male student, watching carefully as his pupil worked out the remainder of the calculus problem he had been given by Max.

Holding my breath, I watched in awe as Max encouraged his student to finish the problem and then piled him up with compliments and praise once he had checked that it was correct. I hadn't been particularly surprised to learn that Max was one of the most sought after math tutors on campus. Besides being pleasant to look at, I had learned through my observations during class that he absorbed information at an extremely rapid pace. Half the time I didn't think he was paying attention, but he had gotten straight As on every assignment we'd had so far. The fact that he was extremely patient and had a very soothing presence probably helped as well.

I made my presence known once I noticed they were wrapping up their session, stepping out from behind one of the stacks and lifting the corners of my lips into a smile when my and Max's gazes connected. All efforts I'd put into formulating some sort of plan of action immediately dissipated when he smirked in my direction, holding up a finger to indicate he was almost done.

The student slid an envelope which presumably held Max's cash payment across the table before nodding his thanks and slipping his arms through the straps of his backpack and taking off in the opposite direction.

Assuming it was now safe to approach, I made my way towards the table, my fingers curling nervously around the strap of my purse. "Is there anything you can't do?"

It was a legitimate question because I was having trouble finding his weakness, a problem which was causing a delay in my plan. Not that I really had a plan. But if I didn't find a way to get some sort of information out of Max sooner rather than later, I was going to have to deal with a lot more than just Evan's disappointed lectures.