Max's mom looked positively worn out as she walked into the lounge area of the Topas restaurant. She held her phone in her hand like she was expecting a call any second, which was probably true. As far as Max knew, Mom was working on a difficult and important catering business deal that, in her words, 'will be a game changer!'
Max stood as his mom approached. "Hey mom," he greeted her.
Instead of greeting him back, Mom's dark eyes narrowed. "That boy you fought yesterday evening at Lounge6 was Patrick Braham. Do you know who he is?"
"Frankly, his name is already more than I want to know about the loser."
Max wrinkled his nose, and Mom let out an exasperated sound. "He's the son of Mr. Braham, head of Braham's catering services. And Mr. Braham's wife works for one of the best lawyer firms in our state!"
"Oh. That explains why Cologney boy reeked of overconfidence and entitlement," Max replied sarcastically. "You know, despite the fact I had no clue who he was before you told me."
Max thought his reply was pretty clever, but Mom wasn't amused at all at his answer.
"Mr. Braham is our new caterer," she said through gritted teeth. "A deal worth millions. And now I have him telling me you assaulted his son and his son's friends at that club!"
"What!" Max's eyes went wide. "Bullshit! He attacked Selene and I defended her!"
Mom shot Max an irritated look. "I know you didn't start it, but that doesn't matter if Patrick is telling his dad you did! And I have to fix-"
A shrill ringtone cut off her sentence, and Mom immediately picked up her phone with a 'yes?'
She walked away, and Max lowered himself in one of the fancy chairs, audibly letting air escape his mouth and clenching the armrests.
The snake! Trying to pin the blame on him. Paul, or whatever his name was, was both a wuss and a liar. He and his lackeys had quickly left when Selene got security involved. And now he had taken the low road and told his daddy a sob version of the story in which he was the victim? A story in which Max had, of course, attacked him first.
What could Max do about it? It would only be a he said-she said story. Selene would support his version, and Patrick's friends would support his. He was going to get nowhere fast. In both the figural and literal sense.
As if Max's mood hadn't plummeted enough yet, for the next few hours he would get to share a table and make polite dinner small talk with his now second least favourite person, Axel Cortés, and his parents. In a suit.
"Frown deeper will you," Max's dad, Leo, said once Max lowered himself in a seat at the dinner table. "It's not like you're in one of the best hotel-restaurants in town, about to eat an amazing dinner that'll make your tastebuds sing."
Leo winked at Max with sparkling green eyes.
"I would enjoy my amazing dinner much more if I didn't have to eat it with Cortés' ugly mug in front of me," Max grumbled under his breath.
It only made Leo laugh.
At thirty-eight, his dad -who he rarely called Dad, but rather referred to as Leo- hardly looked a day over twenty-five. Max kept his fingers crossed he'd not only inherited dad's sandy complexion, height, great smile, and even greater bone structure, but also his ability to look great at any age. Looks were only part of it however; a large part of Leo's youthful appearance be attributed to his attitude, too.
Leo, even when elbowing Max in the ribs and chastising him for looking moody, he still sounded more like a friend than a dad sometimes. Probably the reason why it was weird calling him Dad and Max stuck with Leo.
"Ah, your unfortunate rival Axel Cortés." Leo nodded. "I forgot he's your least favourite person. That's why you're moping."
"Second least favourite. He got demoted since Patrick Braham."
Leo paused, then nodded again. "Understandable."
"No. No, not understandable."
Max's mom, who'd been on her phone for a great portion of the evening but had now finally slipped the device into her purse, frowned at Max. "Why are you always picking fights with the kids of our friends or business partners?"
She took her seat next to Leo, elegantly adjusting her dress. While Mom couldn't hold a candle to Dad's looks, she still looked like what any woman would hope for at age fifty with her long, midnight black hair and barely any wrinkles. She attributed it to her Indonesian father.
Max crossed his arms. "I didn't choose the drama life. The drama life chose me. Next time I'll turn around and walk when someone harasses Selene. Oh! Wait! That's exactly what I was trying to do, but cologney boy didn't let me."
Leo snorted at Max's reply, but quickly shut up when his wife showed her infamous pinched expression.
"And, like I said: I believe you," Mom said, turning to Max. "It's good that you defended her. Just..." She sighed. "Just stay out of his way, will you? He'll do the same with you. The deal with Mr. Braham is almost final."
Max averted his gaze to the various cutlery on the table. "Fine."
"And, I expect you to behave tonight, too."
"I will. Can't promise Golden Boy won't make me gag, though."
"Max--" his mom started, but it looked like the discussion was over. Mr. and Mrs. Cortés had arrived, their son Axel walking just behind them.
Greetings between Max's parents and Axel's parents always resembled that noise a flock of wild geese made when someone tossed bread their way. A lot of high pitched vocals, and laughter that sounded like honking. They acted like they hadn't seen each other in decades, while in reality it had only been a month. Only Max and Axel gave each other a 'normal' handshake during which they subtly tried to crush each other's hand.
Max glared at Axel when the latter moved to kiss his mom on the cheeks. Look at him, being all nice to her face while he called her an attention seeker behind her back and then proceeded to eat on her expense.
"I love your dress Christina!" Mrs. Cortés said, after they'd also planted kisses on each other's cheeks.
"And I love yours," Max's mom replied with a wide smile. "It suits your hair and eyes so well!"
Leo and Mr. Cortés were the last to cordially shake hands, and then they all took a seat. On cue, but not too on cue the waiter appeared out of nowhere with the menus.
"And, Max," Mr. Cortés asked, making Max tear his gaze off of the appetiser section of the fixe prix menu. "How's your wrestling training going? You better be working hard for those matches after the winter break, because our Axel is."
Max felt his mom's warning gaze on him. No I am not training very hard, Max wanted to say, I'm only wrestling because my mom made me do this sport as a child. Mini-me actually wanted to be a figure skater. Instead, he put on a smile that got stuck somewhere between polite and a locked jaw from forcing his mouth to move into a position it didn't want to be in.
"Absolutely," he replied, smooth as a baby's bottom. "Our team is training very hard too. We won't be making it easy for anyone."
Axel kept his mouth shut. Probably had nothing nice to say. When he noticed Max looking at him, his eyes narrowed. Max just raised his eyebrows into an arrogant 'whatever' expression and turned back to his menu card.
If any of the parents had noticed their little exchange, they weren't responding to it, rather continuing their chatting about menu choices. Even if they did notice, they still thought the rivalry was way more innocent and friendly than it actually was. Principal Lesley had kept her word, and a phone call had never gone home about their actual fist fight last tournament.
Mom would blame him fully, Max was fairly certain. Because he should know better than to be provoked, and Axel was such a sweet boy. When they were looking. Nice to your face, knife in your back. How could anyone trust a guy like that? Absolutely nobody could be always be in a good mood and polite, like Axel tried to make it appear.
Key word: appear.
Max and his team were in the way of Axel's goal of being the best wrestler in the school and thus being assured a scholarship/career. That was Max's best guess as to why Golden Boy was so hostile towards him, and had always been. Too bad nobody else was on to the snake.
Damn, he'd put himself in a bad mood with thinking about Cortés.
Luckily, Max could always count on the waiters of Topas's restaurant to deliver him a plate of divine, delicious Icelandic Lamb soup. As the liquid seemed to melt on his tongue, Max felt his annoyance melting away too.
"This is amazing!" Mrs. Cortés also moaned dramatically, immediately downing another spoonful of soup.
"It's based on a recipe from a restaurant we found at the main shopping street of Reykjavik." Max's mom smiled. "Such a lovely place, Iceland. We went kind of off-season, so it was nice and quiet and a great place to rest from work." Her hand reached for Leo's on the table, entwining their fingers. "But of course, it's never entirely quiet and peaceful when my husband comes along."
"And you love it." Leo shot his wife a wicked grin, to which she giggled like a schoolgirl and batted her eyelashes. Ugh, PDAs between parents should never be done in front of their children.
Max made a gagging face when his parents leaned in for a wholly inappropriate in public peck on the lips, and Mr. and Mrs. Cortés laughed at his antics.
"It's kind of funny though, isn't it?" Mr. Cortés said, "a lot of people have Iceland on their wish list of countries they still want to visit, yet it's not the first country we think about traveling to. Iceland."
"Just like us. It's on our wish list but we've never been there either." Mrs. Cortés added.
Leo nodded his head of wavy dark hair enthusiastically. "You should! We rented a jeep went all over the country, and I can really recommend it. We finally settled at a vacation home in the capital Reykjavik. I've heard it's an entirely different place in the winter, though. A lot of roads get cut off."
"That sounds adventurous, especially going in the winter," was Axel's perfectly correct and polite opinion.
That sounds so boring and dull and fuck that, was Max's opinion which he wisely kept quiet. Max had heard his mom say Iceland had like an eternal night, or at least a lack of sunlight in the winter. If you're really lucky you happen to be there on Northern lights night. If you're not lucky, you're just sitting there staring at the sky with nothing to do because it was too darn dark to do anything.
Please, Max thought, give me a winter wonderland I can actually see
The other occupants of the table had different ideas. They kept spouting praise for the country, even deciding they didn't mind it being dark all the time, calling it 'an experience.' Max's mom and dad exchanged a meaningful glance, and Max already knew what was coming. A holiday plan.
"It is winter season right now..." Max's mom said.
"And we'd be absolutely thrilled to visit Iceland in a second time in a different season," Leo picked up where Mom left off.
"I can leave Charlie in charge for a week." Mom glanced at Leo. Leo nodded and turned to the family Cortés. "How about it? Let's go to Iceland this winter holiday!"
"Oh!" Mrs. Cortés pressed a hand to her chest and grinned. "That would be amazing. Yes! Let's do it. How about after Christmas?"
After Christmas. Huh. Sounded like a great week to have the house to himself, Max decided. He could organise some parties, walk around the living room with no pants on - oh wait, he also did that when his parents were home.
"And the boys won't have to miss a day of practice, since they can train with each other." Mr. Cortés nodded, satisfied.
The words needed a moment to get through his skull, but once they did, Max almost choked on a piece of lamb. "Wait, what?" he blurted, before recovering. "I mean uh, thank you for the invitation, Iceland sounds great, but I can't leave my team that shortly before the tournament. Especially not since I'm the captain."
"I have to agree." Axel had gone rigid in his chair, stupidly still holding his spoon up midair. "I mean, I'd love to see Iceland and I'd be grateful for the chance, but a week of training is honestly too much while in season."
Mrs. Cortés blinked. "But, Axel, like your dad just said: if you and Max are both coming, you can practice with each other. That solves the problem, doesn't it?"
"Oh. Right." Axel avoided his mom's eyes, and Max pressed his lips together. Leo kicked his leg under the table, probably meaning to warn him his moodiness was obvious again.
Leo was about the only person, aside his school friends, Max had told he really disliked Axel and his whole goodie-two-shoes attitude. But even Leo didn't know everything. Although his dad was significantly less strict than his mom, Max didn't see him agreeing to a high school brawl outside of the ring and him getting off without punishment.
"Well, I'm looking forward to the trip," Axel offered. He recovered faster than Max, already having his warm expression plastered back on. Had to be the abundance of practice he got being two-faced.
"Great," Max muttered, making Axel side-eye him. The truth was, they were both cornered and knew it.
This holiday was going to suck so bad.