a/n: WE'RE BACK. AT LONG LAST.
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"Can you—Can you fix it?" Maze asked, gesturing to the exposed caliper.
Kass studied her for a moment before glancing over her shoulder where Maze's paranoid eyes flickered. "Yeah, just give me a sec," she said.
Maze paced up and down the length of the truck. She was too anxious to sit still and watch what Kass was up to, no matter how much she wanted to. It didn't help that the radio was still playing at a low volume that was barely registered to her until she passed the driver's door and caught wind of the drum beat of an old song from the 60s.
And, it certainly didn't help when Kass started singing it.
"Oh my God, stop. It sounds like Tiptoe Through The Window," Maze complained, half-covering her face.
She could hear the smile in Kass' voice when she dipped her voice abnormally low and sang, "'It's your mind that's been tricking you... So step in line—' Hey, help me get the tire back on."
Maze let out a breath of relief. Finally. They were so close to getting the hell out of there.
The two of them put the truck back together. Near the end of it, movement at the end of the road brought her eyes up from the tire.
A car pulled up to the intersection, headlights off, but very much running. Maze stared at it, and with the halo effect of the street lamps, she couldn't make out the model of the vehicle.
"Okay, done," Kass said. Maze took the jack and, after assessing the look of terror on Maze's face, Kass glanced back at the car. She cursed under her breath and pried open the passenger door. "Get in—let's get outta here."
Maze scrambled into the cabin. Kass circled around the hood and, to Maze's horror, made direct eye contact with the car at the end of the road. Maze held her breath as they pulled away from the shoulder. Kass tested the brakes at the stop sign, at which point the ambiguous vehicle turned down their street.
"Go, go, go," Maze hissed.
Kass turned right and bolted a block down. She took the next turn down one of the suburban roads, headlights flicking off. She curved into a nearby driveway, up to the garage, and shut the car off.
They both looked back through the open window to watch the car trail past their road and out of sight. But now, close enough to see, Maze recognized the car in an instant.
"It's that Aston from the race," Kass whispered.
Maze's breath caught in her throat. They sat in silence until Alfie' car was out of sight. Kass looked back at Maze and said, "You were talkin' with that guy, weren't you?"
Maze swallowed hard. "Yeah. He's... friends with Bryan's brother."
"Malachi?"
Maze shook his head. "No. He goes by Malak," she said. Kass raised an eyebrow, so Maze gestured to her arms and neck and said, "Tattoos everywhere. Pretty thick beard."
"Doesn't ring a bell," Kass said.
"He recognized Vincent's Corvette, though. He knew who I was," Maze insisted.
Kass rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying you're lying, I'm just saying—"
Something crashed next to them.
Maze jumped, startled, as some guy in a robe marched out of the side of the house, waving a fist at them and yelling, "Get the fuck outta my driveway before I call the cops!"
Kass backed up immediately as Maze called out the window, "Sorry, sir! Sorry!"
They peeled out of the driveway and onto the street under the furiously confused glare of the stranger. As they drove off away from the scene of the crime, Maze took to studying Kass again as if she hadn't just spent the previous hour staring at Kass over diner fries and shakes.
"You don't have to stare at me," Kass said, and it was muddled between her clenched teeth.
Maze's lips tugged into a faint, fond smile. "It's just been a while. Seeing you in person is different from seeing you in photos."
"Yeah, and maybe if you take one it'll last longer."
She laughed, and it bubbled up in her chest until every bit of her was buzzing again. "Why are you saying that when we just, like... made out in your truck. Two times."
"'Cause I'm not going anywhere," she said.
Maze opened her mouth to argue that it was for that explicit purpose that Maze wouldn't take pictures. If Kass wasn't going anywhere, then she could see and stare and experience everything that was Kass in person, no division between them.
She shut her mouth, though, when she realized what Kass was implying.
"I already told you that I'm not leaving Indiana," she said, and despite all the logic, panic rose. She spent four years without this—without a real connection to Kass—and she could save her existential crisis for when she was on the precipice of sleep. It was a crisis that would torment her for wondering how in the world she went on for four years thinking that kissing Kass would end the world as she knew it.
Kissing Kass resurrected it, if anything.
"I can't live by those rules anymore," Kass said, shaking her head. She spared a glance at her, and it was enough to hollow out Maze's shell of a body. Hauntingly familiar, and something she had desperately tried to wipe from her memory before.
"I'm not going anywhere," Maze insisted, and she waited three painful seconds for Kass to say something in return. Seconds had weight, thought, and she felt every pound of them breaking away at the reassurance they had built up at the diner.
"I'm not, Kass. I don't—I don't even have anywhere else to go. This is it for me." "I'll believe it when I see it," she said.
Maze fell into an uncomfortable silence. Never in her life had she wanted to prove someone more wrong.
When they arrived at the Airbnb, the campfire was still going, albeit at a gentle crackle over dying embers. The house lights were off all except for the kitchen, which Maze could see from the edge of the fire. She had her hands tucked into her pockets, shuddering in the cold as Kass ran the hose attached to the side of the house, spilling water out on the driveway in preparation to douse the embers.
Bryan was there at the kitchen sink, squinting at her through the windowpane.
Maze squinted back—until Kass walked up to her after coiling the hose back up.
"I don't want people knowing," Kass said.
This dragged Maze's eyes away from Bryan's. "What?"
Kass glanced in the direction of the kitchen, where Bryan was glaring at them.
"I'm not interested in involving the rest of 'em. So just keep quiet about it, all right?"
Maze nodded, her voice caught somewhere between six feet under and screaming to the heavens as Kass walked off and disappeared into the house. Shortly thereafter, Bryan walked out, arms out, looking throughly put-out with all of Maze's interpersonal bullshit.
Bryan slapped his hands down and said, "We thought Kassandra killed you and buried the body—where the fuck were you guys?"
Maze grimaced. "Making out in her truck?"
Somewhere, she was certain Kass' intuition was smacking her upside the head.
Bryan stared at her, baffled. His jaw dropped a bit, but no words came out.
Maze rolled her eyes and said, "We just went out for milkshakes and french fries."
"So y'all already went on a date," Bryan concluded, and Maze shrugged uselessly. "That was a date. And you're okay with it?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" she said, and Bryan grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her to and fro.
"You—! You're gonna make me go grey, you know that? Just know that when all my hair is grey, it was because of you and your—"
Head thoroughly jostled, Maze caught Bryan's hands and pushed him off her shoulders. Her head spun like the teacups at the local fairgrounds. "I don't know why you're worrying about this—Just because Kass and I are friends again doesn't mean we aren't still friends," she said, rolling his eyes.
Bryan ducked his head. Two long, painful seconds passed before Bryan's eyes shot up to meet her and said, "You just said you and Kassandra are friends."
"We are now—"
"But you literally just made out in the back of her truck."
"Well, that's different. See, we would never make out in Scorpion—"
"Maze, you're the dumbest bitch I've ever met," Bryan said, and gave her one last firm shake. "'Friends' don't make out unless it's with benefits or the intention of dating. Are you positive that y'all aren't dating? You already went on a fucking date."
"We just sorta hung out, it wasn't really a date," Maze insisted, but she could recall parallels to their time at the diner with romantic comedies she had seen at the drive-in theatre with their friends back in high school. She put a hand to her chin, frowning, and said, "We did share a milkshake with two straws..."
Bryan collapsed onto one of the lawn chairs, slouched against the armrest, and held his weary head up with one hand. Maze perched herself on the edge of the picnic table bench, all starry-eyed and innocent as Bryan stared off into the distance, gathering his thoughts. Maze could see the wheels turning in Bryan's already-greying head.
"Okay," Bryan said, decidedly. He turned to Maze and said, "I need you to listen to me—actually listen, not like you're frantic, distracted puppy brain."
"P-Puppy brain?" Maze stammered, laughing. "Why is my brain a puppy?"
"Because you're spastic as fuck and loyal as shit and it's gonna fuck you over if you aren't careful," Bryan said, and that shut Maze up. She nodded, and Bryan continued. "So just take what I'm about to say as 100% fact. No arguing."
"Got it."
"You just came back from a date, and you need to figure out if you and Kassandra are on the same page about being benefits or girlfriends."
Maze bristled. Couldn't there be a third option? "But—"
Bryan shot a finger up. "What'd I just say?"
She slumped. "Not to argue," she sighed. "I'll talk to Kass about it."
"Ok, good," Bryan said, and while the relief wasn't there, he looked slightly more comfortable with Maze's answer. After a moment, Bryan grinned and said, "So how was it?"
Maze rose an eyebrow. "How was what?"
"Kissing Kassandra."
Maze's entire face turned beet red. "I-It was fine. Yeah, I don't—I don't really know how to describe it—"
Bryan threw his head back laughing, and Maze kicked him in the leg to shut him up. She was certain Bryan would never let her live this down.