Bonus Chapter: RAX's 1st Date
Ryan
My knuckles whiten as my grip tightens around the steering wheel, but I quickly release my grip when I realize it's not helping my already clammy hands. Once I reach a red light, I pass a quick glance to the right only to find that Max is playing with the two braids wrapped like a crown around her head. I'm assured for a split second that I'm not the only one feeling a bit fidgety, but then the light turns green, and I'm reminded of the fact that no light is changing the dead silence between us.
I'm not lying when I say I'm literally itching for something to say. I probably have red marks up and down my neck as I try to think of something, but it seems I'm stuck with not only straw for brain, but also cowardly lion like tendencies. It's pathetic. I'm pathetic. Especially since this isn't the first time we've hung out. Since I recently passed my road test, this is the first time we've hung out without Xavier as a chauffeur. It's not like that made him a buffer, though. Okay, maybe he was a little bit of a buffer, but I'm officially deciding that this current silence is my fault. Unlike the past few weeks I didn't ask her to "hang out" in text form like I usually did. I stupidly said the words "go out," and I suppose I'm now experiencing the inevitable difference.
Just then a sputter of air has me glancing back over in Max's direction, and I do a double take when I realize she's laughing.
"What?" I ask unable to hold back the smile that forms on my face. It's involuntary when she's around.
Max shakes her head in laughter for a few more seconds before glancing over at me in my peripheral vision. "Have you ever realized how many times you blink and then you just can't stop?"
My face scrunches up in confusion, and I give her another dumbfounded, "What?"
Max only continues to laugh, and I quickly put my blinker down before taking a right into a parking lot. After parking in front of Baskin Robbins, I put the car in park, pull the keys out of the ignition, and turn my evident confusion towards her.
"So you can't stop blinking?"
"No—I mean—yes, but—" she laughs again, this time covering her face with her hands before turning her head towards me. "Do you ever count how many times you blink and then it feels like the only thing you notice is your blinking?"
"I—" I start, but as I continue to stare back at her, and the way her eyelids continue to rapidly flutter, another goofy smile stretches across my lips. "You're adorable."
Max makes a few incoherent sounds before she slaps my arm. "You," she squeaks before she unbuckles her seatbelt, and gets out of the car. I'm now the one laughing as I follow suit, but catch up to her just in time to hold the door.
Since the shop is mainly empty, besides a few people and families sitting at tables, both people behind the counter are able to help us with our ice cream orders. I ask for a scoop of cookie dough while Max asks for cookies n' cream, and as our orders are being fulfilled she turns to me with a wrinkled nose.
"Cookie dough?"
"Cookies n' cream?" I counter with raised brows, and she nudges my arm with hers.
"I have—" Max starts trying to dig in her wristlet with one hand while holding her ice cream cup in the other, but I hand over the money while accepting my own cup. After stuffing the change in my pocket I turn back around to face Max's glare, and a ten dollar bill in her hand.
I laugh as I use my open hand to close her hand around the money. "Next time."
Her glare is broken by a pout."You said that last time."
"Well, now I mean it." I throw over my shoulder as I go, and sit down at one of the silver two person tables.
Max follows and slumps down in the seat across from me with a sigh. "You kill me, Ryan Cassidy."
I wave my full spoonful of ice cream at her before shoveling it into my mouth. A moan escapes me before I can stop it, and I point my now empty spoon back in her direction. "You kill me, actually, because how on earth can you be a cookie dough hater?"
"Because," Max says around her own mouthful before pointing her plastic pink spoon down at her own cup. "Cookies n' cream is where it's at."
I shake my head at her, feigning my shame, before another silence falls between us. I like to think this silence is more of a comfortable one as we both enjoy our ice cream, and I also use it to try to decipher what the hell kind of music station their playing. The song sounds like Xavier trying to sing karaoke, and I almost laugh at the thought.
"I have a question." Max pulls me from my thoughts and my eyes focus back on her as she stabs at her ice cream. "And it's kind of random, and maybe even a little weird, and is a little late now that I think about it."
"Max." I finally cut in before she can think of another way to describe the question. "Just ask."
"Well, you know how you wrote me the . . ." She glances around for a second before leaning forward a little. "The notes."
I laugh at the fact that she whispered the last two words. "You don't have to whisper. I'm not ashamed."
"Oh sorry." She chuckles to herself as she scraps more ice cream onto her spoon. "Force of habit, but as I was saying." She stuffs her spoon into the frozen treat before glancing back up at me. "Have you ever, or have you ever considered writing poetry?"
My eyebrows rise for a second, and I bet I look just as shocked as I feel. I'm not appalled by the idea, but I just have never been asked that question before. Usually, people think my only field or knowledge is on a sports field, and although that's where I'm the most comfortable, I appreciate the idea of breeching out of the endzone.
"I can't say I've ever thought about it, but I can say that I've never entirely hated English."
A breath of a laugh escapes through Max's nose. She brings a hand up to lips most likely to prevent herself from choking on her ice cream before she flashes me with her smile. "I can't say I've ever thought about it, but I can say that I've never really hated cookie dough ice cream."
I blankly stare back at her as I try my very best to hold back my own smile. Not only because I have a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth, but also because it's an automatic reaction to hers. My attempt it futile, though. The second I swallow, my smile takes hold.
"Do you have any favorite subjects?" I not so stealthily ignore her statement, but she doesn't seem to mind as she sits up a little straighter.
"Well I—" Max looks at the space above my head before her shoulders droop back down. "No, but I suppose—no." She scoops up some ice cream from her cup and waves her spoon around. "I actually—" Then her elbow drops back down to the table and she sighs. "All right, it all just really"—she shoves the spoonful into her mouth—"sucks."
I laugh not only because what she said was true, but also because of the way the last word was stated around a mouthful of ice cream. That alone just goes to show that whatever awkwardness settled between us before is gone, and has been replaced with the comfort we've gained with each other over the past few weeks since the whole revelation of our feelings. Looking back, I can not only say that I was quite pathetic for not trying to talk to her sooner, but also my feelings for her are almost like an added bonus to the relationship we've developed, and will hopefully continue to develop.
"Are you even listening?"
My eyes snap back up to Max's, and even after all this time, my brain can never seem to wrap around the fact that those brown eyes are trained on me. My heart acknowledges the pressure when it thumps an extra beat, but my mouth goes against everything, and I say the most dumbfounded word around my own mouthful of ice cream.
"What?"
Max continues to blink back at me for a few seconds before those brown eyes shrink, and she squints back at me for no other reason than annoyance. However, she laughs seconds later when I mirror her expression. A laugh that starts out loud, but quickly turns to shoulder shaking as she reaches for a napkin from the dispenser at our table.
"Well," she says when she finally gets her breath back. "All I was trying to ask you was, when the baseball championships are and whether, or not you guys were going to make it."
"Well, if you're dying to know," I start and a smile quirks the corners of her lips before she eats a spoonful of ice cream. "The championships are in three weeks and we have to win the two games we have this week, the three games we have next week, and then beat the undefeated team in order to even be qualified." I scoop up some more ice cream onto my spoon before glancing back up, and I'm smiling again at the face that her eyes are on my chin. "And I'd say this time it's your eyes that are glazing over."
Her eyes burn back into mine. "I was listening."
"I know." I continue to smile, an all knowing smile. "You just didn't really want to."
Her mouth drops as does her hold on her spoon. "That's not true."
"Okay," I hum before eating the ice cream off my spoon, but the exasperated expression still doesn't leave her face.
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know."
I only nod back her, completely teasing, but not entirely wrong. I meet her eyes again only to find her eyes have turned back into slits.
"Ryan."
"Max," I say in a more playful tone and she soon breaks the stare off with a smile and a shake of her head.
We sit in silence again, but I suppose it's not entirely silent since our spoons continue to scrap against the sides of our cups. After one last melted spoonful I reach for a napkin and wipe my hands with it, but when it becomes a futile attempt I just stuff it in my cup along with my spoon.
"You know what's weird . . ." Max starts.
"The fact that you don't like cookie dough ice cream." A closed mouth smile curves up one side of my lips as I check the time on my phone, but I glance up just in time to catch her glare.
"No, what's weird is that last week at this time I was watching T.V., one month ago I was at the mall—" Her gasp startles me upright in my seat, and I find that the same seemed to happen to the spoon in her hand. "And one year ago I was helping Wren shop for prom dresses."
"Um." I rub a hand over the top of my head and down the back of my neck. "Why is that weird?"
"Because." Max pauses to discard her spoon into her now empty cup. "What were you doing a year ago?"
"Uh—" My teeth find my bottom lip as my hand drags down my neck again. Its times like these I start to believe that the female brain really is wired completely different—in a good way of course. "Um, I think Xavier and I were probably doing something."
Max throws me a look that says that's not specific enough, but then a thought hits me. After checking the date on my phone, I snap my fingers together.
"Actually, I went to a Red Socks game."
"See!" Her face lights up again. "I always find myself thinking about that. How easily each day becomes the next, how each week turns into a month, and then before you know it a year has passed, but it doesn't feel like it. Granted, it never feels like it," she mumbles that last part, and tucks her hair behind her ear before gaining her momentum back. "But if you train yourself to focus on the days, focus on the little moments in life, time still flies, but it no longer feels like it's flying away from you. It's alongside you as you continue to live in each moment until it's gone."
My eyes are wide to begin with, but right now I bet their bigger than the ice cream saucers in the freezer at the other end of the store. As Max's words echo in my brain, though, the expression quickly fades, and is replaced by a half-smile.
"Are you sure you shouldn't be the poet?"
I catch a glimpse of a small smile as she directs it at her lap, but then she looks up, and sends a full one my way. That's another thing my brain is still trying to grasp. As cliché as it sounds, and as cliché as I am considering I wrote her anonymous notes, when you like someone you don't just like them for their looks. After watching them like the creepy stalker you become, it seems you begin to fall for the person you perceive them to be. And oh, how I fell for that damn smile of hers. That full blown smile that lifts her cheeks, crinkles the corners of her eyes, and literally lights up her whole face. It's completely beautiful and completely contagious, and I'd be lying if I said its effect isn't tripled now that I've had the immense pleasure of having it turned on me—having it appear because of me.
"I just find it crazy," she says her voice now emitting a more delicate tone. "Because I never would've thought in a million years I'd be sitting here right now."
I lean back in my chair, passing a glance around her entire frame, before matching her gaze. "Me either."
I don't know how long we sit there staring at each other. It could be seconds, it could be hours, but when my phone dings with a notification I don't bother checking, I inevitably end up catching the time.
"Wanna head out?" I head nod towards the door.
Max nods and picks up her cup.
After throwing our trash away we make it out of the shop and back inside the car. I turn the key into the ignition and immediately get a few dings in response. I assume it's just the seatbelt monitor, and reach from mine, but a red blinking symbol catches my eye from behind the steering wheel.
"You've got to be kidding me," I groan as the seatbelt snaps away from my hand, and I lean my forehead against the steering wheel.
"What's wrong?" Max's voice rings out as I relentlessly shake my head a few times before finally lifting it to face her.
"We're out of gas," I admit, deciding to rip the bandaid off, and Max only blinks back at me in response. I don't blame her, though. I'd be speechless, too. Hell, I'm speechless, and I only wish I could say the same about the little voice in my head. Instead it prefers to continue its chant. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
"What should we do?" Max interrupts my thoughts.
I sigh before pulling my phone out of my pocket and sending a quick text. "I know what we have to do."
A few minutes later, as Max is in the middle of describing her mom's latest book, my mom's maroon explorer pulls up in the parking spot next to us. I roll down the driver's side window just as the passenger window gets rolled down.
Xavier leans his head forward as his hands continue to grip the steering wheel, and his mocking brown eyes meet mine. "Miss me?" His megawatt smile has me rolling my eyes, but then a mocking gasp has me looking back over at him. "Jeez, guys," Xavier says as he places a hand over his chest. "I could live without the double eye-roll."
I turn my head back over to Max and send her a smile at the realization that we both had the same reaction to my brother's antics. She sends me a smile back behind the thumbnail she continues to nervously chew on, and that only reminds me of the fact that I no doubt screwed this date up with the complete stupidity of the situation at hand.
"Well, are you guys going to help me, or are you lovebirds just going to sit there staring at each other?"
I throw my brother a glare through the windshield even though I have no doubt that my face will be pink in a few seconds, but then I turn my head only to find Max's eyes never left me. Her hand falls down to her lap, and she throws me another quick smile before getting out of the car. I follow suit after rolling up the window, but leave my stare on the pavement in order to contain a random mega-watt smile of my own.
"So what are we going to do?" I ask now that Max and I are at each of Xavier's sides.
My brother plants both of his hands on the hood of the car. "We're gonna push."
"Seriously?!" Max and I both yell at the same time.
Xavier to stands back up to his full height. He turns his head from side to side, ping-ponging his eyes between us and, knowing him, I know exactly what he's thinking.
Since he's the one that helped bring Max and I together, he's most likely thinking "I created that" as if he somehow perfectly molded us together from the start. And when he turns his head and flashes me with a grin, it only confirms my thoughts.
"Then I guess we're calling a tow-truck," Xavier says and I grip the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.
"Dad's going to kill us."
"Us?" Xavier laughs. "More like you."
"Me?" I shove his arm. "You were the one that was supposed to put gas in the car."
"Last time I checked it happens to be your car, too." Xavier pokes my chest. "So, why didn't you do it?"
"Because I thought you already did it!"
"Chill." Xavier plants a hand on my head. "I'm just saying that if the little red light is blinking, that means you need gas."
I slap his hand away, completely annoyed at him, and the way he always banters his way through life, but he shoves me in return leaving us both to continue shoving each other like the five year olds we truly are.
"Siri, where's the nearest gas station?"
Xavier and I cease fire with our arms poised in the air at the sound of Max's voice, and I crane my neck around my brother only to see she's holding her phone under her mouth. We all stand there patiently waiting for the robot women voice. When it finally announces that there's a gas station two miles from here, Max's face lights up, and she excitedly jumps up before turning to face us, pointing at her phone as if we didn't hear.
"Well, what are we still standing here for?" Xavier rips our mom's car keys from his pocket, throws them up, and then catches them for affect. "Let's go."
So we do, and after one of the guys working at the gas station laughs at us for a good five minutes, he finally gives us a gas can that Xavier surprisingly, luckily, and thankfully pays for. After bringing the can back to the car we use it to fill the car up just enough so we can drive to the gas station, and fill the rest of the tank there.
"So, are you guys good?" Xavier asks, leaning into the driver's side window of the car. His eyebrows only fall back down to their relaxed state when both Max and I nod. "Good." He smiles before stretching his arm out with no regard for my face. "Always a pleasure, Just Max."
Max laughs and mockingly shakes his hand. "Goodbye, Xavier."
Xavier then brings his hand back just enough to grip my shoulder and I look up at him mouthing a "thank you." He squeezes my shoulder before backing away from the car. Once he's settled in our mom's car, he sends us a little beep before driving out of the gas station. I turn the ignition of our car before following suit.
The silence comes back, and it's welcomed as we make the drive back to Max's house. However, the second we pull up in front of her house unnecessary worry claws at my gut.
"I'm sorry," I blurt after putting the car in park.
Her eyes are wide in my peripheral vision. "For what?"
I rub the back of my neck before dropping my hand at the fact that I've done that way too many times in one night. "For ruining the end of our, uh, date." Hesitation killed the hog. That's not a thing, and my conscious is literally sighing at my own stupidity, but I couldn't think of any other reason as to why my brain wouldn't properly formulate that last word.
Max continues to blink back at me, but I still can't bring myself to look at her. Pathetic, my brain chants again. I know, I chant back.
"You're ridiculous." Max's elbow falls against the center console before her hand grabs the left side of my face, and she drags my head close enough for her lips to press against my cheek. "I'll see you later!"
And just like that she's out of the car, and by her front door. She places one hand on her door knob, and sends me a wave with the other before stepping inside.
I lean my head back against the seat, and before I know it a smile creeps its way onto my face. That's another thing I've done way too many times in one night, but she's right.
Nothing could ever possibly be ruined as long as I'm with her.