First of all, I'm so sorry this took a little while longer than the other chapters-I've been pretty busy lately and not had the time to get back to it, but as always, your kind words continue to ever-inspire me to get back in to it and keep chugging along! Secondly, this is definitely my longest chapter yet :p so enjoy!
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So as it turned out, convincing Max's boss of their need for more staff was the easy step. And the hard part? Convincing her that they were in need of specific staff…that specific being a certain pushy blonde, of who at this very moment, sat drinking a frappé at the table nearest to the counter within the café.
"So how often does he come in?" She asked between slurps. It was her second refill in the last few hours she'd been here, and quite honestly, Max was baffled as to how the girl hadn't needed to use the bathroom at least five times by now. A bladder of steel, methinks.
"I told you already, he comes in a few times a week—it really depends on how busy he is and what mood he's in," the brunette answered after a few moments, having had to direct her attention away to serve another customer. She had become rather distracted talking to Victoria while bustling about, and at the look her boss shot their way now and then, Max was sure to appear as though she were working just that little bit harder. She was supposed to be helping Victoria secure a job, not lose her own.
"What do you mean what mood he's in?"
Always picking at the small details. Sigh.
"I don't know," she shrugged, drying out a teacup with the hand towel she kept thrown over her shoulder. "Usually he comes in when he's in a good mood. I guess maybe he's the kind of person that likes to be alone when he's feeling shitty, and likes to be around others when he's not?"
The blonde seemed to mule this over for a time, her lips sealed over the straw of her drink, taking cautionary sips now and then between thoughts.
In between working Max continued to chat with Victoria, but eventually the girl left and it grew close to closing time. Just as she had begun stacking unoccupied chairs, the brunette was approached by her boss. The elderly woman wore a serious expression on her face, and Max swallowed nervously.
"Hey, boss…did I do something wrong?"
The woman simply shook her head, glancing to the entryway, watching as a couple exited with a tinkle of the bell overhead.
"Tell me, Max…why does that girl want to work here?"
Her somber tone confused Max, and she lowered the chair she had lifted to place over the table she stood at. Why was she being so serious? It hadn't been so hard for her to secure a job here, and the woman had certainly never asked Max why she'd wanted to work with such a tone.
"She…she needs the money."
"Money?"
"Y-yeah."
"Hmph," the woman folded her arms over her chest, creasing her smoothly ironed apron in the process. "Her choice in attire certainly doesn't make it seem that way. She looks richer than your average Arcadian girl. So what is it really?"
"No," Max held her hands up defensively, putting as much effort as she possibly could in to not stuttering. She was a terrible liar and she knew it – but what she knew even clearer than that was that this was her chance. If she couldn't convince the older woman to hire Victoria now, she doubted she'd get another opportunity like this to do so again.
"You see, her family got in to a lot of trouble recently and have had to sell up a lot of what they own—but Victoria's too embarrassed to let anyone know it, so she wears what little she has left whenever she's out…she wants to work to help them out in paying for her tuition at Blackwell—it means so much to the both of them that she's at school here in Arcadia…"
Realizing just how ridiculously stupid her excuse sounded, Max waited for her boss to laugh in her face, to tell her what a terrible liar she was—to say something.
"…I see."
Confused by the simple response, Max searched the older woman's face, looking for some indication as to what she believed and disbelieved at this very moment. She remained stone-faced however, and as she turned Max was hit with the realization that she did not believe her.
I'm sorry, Victoria. I tried.
Turning back to her work, Max heard the tinkle of the overhead bell as the last customer left the shop.
"Tell this girl to bring her resume and details in for me by lunchtime tomorrow. I have the afternoon off, I can do her interview then and we'll see where it goes from there."
Oh.
"T-thank you Ma'am! I'll let her know, she'll be so—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Her tone was harsh, but Max did not miss the smile on the woman's face as she exited the store. "See you tomorrow, Max."
Back on campus, the first thing Max did was head straight for the dorms and take a sharp U-turn in through Victoria's door.
"Hey Victoria, you're not gonna believe—"
"Fuck!"
The yell had not come from the blonde girl sat on the bed, but from the boy now sprawled all over the carpet, rubbing his elbow as he glared daggers at her viciously. What? She hadn't been the one to push him on to the floor—what did she do?
"What the fuck Max, the hell are you doing here?!"
"Um," Max floundered, caught between looking to Victoria for help, apologizing profusely, and dashing straight out the door and pretending the whole thing had never happened. The choice was made for her however as the blonde girl stood, hand moving to rest on her jutted hip. Max wondered to the back of her mind as to whether Victoria could even stand upright without thrusting her elbow out to have her hand sit at her middle.
"It's okay, Nathan. I asked her to stop by—but didn't realize she'd be so early." At this the blonde shot her a borderline irate look, to which Max replied mouthing the word 'sorry'.
The boy seemed to recognize the situation, his grimace deepening impossibly as he glared between the two.
"Whatever."
Max caught the almost inaudible sliver of hurt in his voice as he skulked past her, and certainly did not miss the look of pure, unadulterated hatred he sent her way before disappearing down the corridor.
"Shit," Victoria sighed. Max turned back to face her, noticing the way she rubbed her forehead just as she last time. It had to be a tic.
"I-I'm sorry…"
The saddened look she wore shifted in to something a little angrier, and the blonde slumped back down to sit atop her bed quilt once more.
"No," she shook her head after a beat. "Don't worry about it. Nathan is…going through some serious shit right now."
All Max could manage was an "oh," having little else to really say on the matter. Though the boy had never done anything particularly bad toward Max herself, she still did not like him—though knew well enough to hold her tongue both for her own and Victoria's sake.
"So I'm hoping you've come bearing good news for me?"
An, now there was the queen Max knew and…borderline got along with? Yeah, let's go with that.
"You bet," Max confirmed, explaining as best she could what had transpired back at the café as Victoria stood, listening incredulously. At the smile she gave as Max finished however, the girl knew she'd done good. By Victoria, in the least.
"As totally relieved as I am, I still can't believe you made up a story like that…no money, really? She's going to think I'm some poor girl with a bankrupt family or something now."
"Hey she put me on the spot, I didn't know what else to say. I got you the interview didn't I?"
"That's true," Victoria sighed. "Thanks for that…I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens from here, then."
"Yeah…" not wanting to hang around for any longer than need be, Max took her opportunity to escape. "So I'll see you around, then. At work?"
"I suppose," the blonde gave her a quick smile, before moving to her desk to sit down. "We can talk more about it tomorrow, Max."
"Okay."
Max instantly knew that securing an interview meant Victoria had the job. And oddly enough, she was surprisingly good at it. Her flippancy extended no further past the inhabitants of Blackwell, all smiles and chatter with patrons as they ordered and paid by the counter, and she really was quiet pleasant when need be.
Two or so hours in to the shift, Max looked up at the tinkling of the doorbell to see none other than Mr. Jefferson walk through, his eyes immediately coming to rest upon her. The smile that begun to form upon his lips disappeared immediately however, as brown eyes gazed across at the blonde now standing beside Max. An odd look of displeasure washed over his expression, though lasted just a moment before a rather forced looking smile took its place. Max suddenly got the feeling that she'd fucked up…why was that exactly?
Gone from the brunette's side in an instant, Victoria had flitted out on to the floor and was headed straight for the teacher as he sat down, pen and paper out as she asked for his order. Max knew his order by heart of course—a café latte with just a single sugar, and he always waited a few minutes for it to cool before drinking, just sitting and stirring it round with a spoon, zoning out and thinking about whatever it was that Mark Jefferson thought about.
Not that anyone else needed to know she knew this in such in detail.
As it was her first day on the job Victoria had yet to be taught how to properly use the coffee-making machinery, and so it was left up to Max to make and serve Jefferson's order while the blonde (albeit grudgingly) busied herself chatting up an elderly couple as they came to the counter to pay.
The teacher looked up at Max's approach, his expression tight. Raising an eyebrow, she took her time in placing his coffee on the table, hovering, waiting for him to ask whatever question it was that lingered on his lips at this moment.
"And how did Victoria manage to secure a position here, Max?" her name was said with particular venom, and the brunette was thrown by the clear cut irritation in his tone. Was he…mad? Would he be madder if he knew she'd been the one to help Victoria in getting this job?
"U-um…" she floundered, not knowing what to say. Lies may have worked on her boss, but Max knew they would not work on him—and worst of all, so did he. "She wanted a job, and I guess that's probably why she was harassing me in the first place…I just asked my boss about it—I really only asked if we had any position's free—so"
"Max," the man interrupted, and Max realized she began to ramble. Shit. Nice composure, Max. Real smooth. "Slow down. You don't have to go in to such detail, I was just curious…"
"Oh…r-right. My bad."
His smile was amused, and with a slight blush threatening to work its way on to her cheeks, Max returned to her place behind the counter as Victoria took to the floor once again, likely in hopes of getting the chance to talk with Mr. Jefferson again.
The man did not stay much longer however, and Max watched, mystified, as he left after just a single cup of coffee. Never in the entire time Max had been working had the man ever not ordered at least two cups of his favorite brew—why would he leave after just one now? Could it be because Victoria was here…? Did he really want to avoid her that badly? Max was reminded of how the man had saved her from Victoria's wrath just the other day, and a feeling of guilt rushed up upon her all at once. This was her fault. She'd been the one to help Victoria in getting this job, and in doing so, had angered Mr. Jefferson. But what exactly about it had made him so angry?
Biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from frowning at the curious look Victoria shot Max's way, the brunette just hoped that the man would return tomorrow, so that she could get some serious answers out of him.
Thankfully, Victoria had the next day off—her first shift a 'final test' of sorts before she could become a fully-fledged employee.
Manning the counter, Max bounced nervously on her heels, her head whipping up at every tinkle of the doorbell—though she was disappointed each and every time by the face of a stranger. It continued on like this for the next three hours, and by this point Max had begun to give up. The store was particularly quiet today, the weather having taken a turn for the worst. Though the skies had stayed mostly clear, the darkening clouds looming on the horizon did not go unnoticed by the brunette.
Caught up in pleading with the sky to not open up with rain the minute her shift ended, Max did not hear or see the front door open as her next customer walked through—until he was standing right in front of her.
"Hello, Max."
Her elbow slipped from the tabletop, neck jolting painfully as her chin fell from the palm it had been propped up in just a moment ago.
"M-Mr. Jefferson!"
Though he stood before her, the man seemed unfocused. Max watched as he glanced around edgily, leaning a little to steal a peek behind her.
"Um…?"
"Is Victoria in today?"
Opening her mouth to answer on impulse, Max was hit with a sudden realization.
Oh.
"You…" at the shift in her tone, his brown eyes were back on her in an instant. "You're avoiding her."
"When is she working next?"
"And you're trying to find out her roster so you can come in when she's not around."
He glared, and that was all the confirmation Max needed. A part of her wanted to laugh at this, to make fun of the man and his utter dislike of the blonde, but another more dominant part of her simply wanted to know why.
Of course, the girl was a force to be reckoned with—she was unafraid to step on and use anyone to get to where she needed to be—hell, in accepting to help her Max had likely been used as well. She knew that, but she'd helped anyway. There was also the way she acted around Mr. Jefferson too, like she had some sort of claim on the teacher.
"Let me ask you this, Maxine."
She ground her teeth. Again with the full name. He knew just how nettled that got her.
"What would you do in my place?"
A good question, and one of which she did not know the correct answer to.
"You asked when she was working again…" Biting her lip, Max was unsure as to whether to finish her sentence. Just who's side was she on here? She couldn't be on both. But what was she supposed to do? Abide by her teacher's wishes, or help out the girl who'd been nothing but a bitch to her up until this point.
Well, when you put it that way.
"She's not working again for another few days. My boss is still processing her interview and resume and all that, it won't be a while before she works again. Probably not until next week Wednesday—she'll give her quiet shifts to begin with."
His breath of relief was very much audible, and Max couldn't help but smile. It appeared as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders as his body visibly relaxed, and Max was relieved herself by this. If there was anything in particular Max hated, it was to see others unnecessarily bothered. A little like she felt at times, actually.
Her attention was brought back to him as he shifted all of a sudden, arms lifting to rest upon the counter. As one arm lay across the tabletop, he propped the other up at the elbow so as to drag deftly long fingers through his lightly tousled hair, and wow if you looked up the definition of sexy in a dictionary, this exact image of one mister Mark Jefferson would pop up next to it. Shit, where did that come from? Down, Max! Bad Max!
"So," he drawled, and she could swear to the gods he was doing this on purpose. He had to be. As if reading her mess of a mind, he dropped his pitch an octave lower. "…Has it been on your mind?"
"U-um," she stuttered nervously, hands searching at waist-height for something to grip at. She settled for the cash register. "Has what been on my mind, sir?" Sir? What the hell was this even. Don't turn to melting butter now, Max, you're a solid. Start acting like one.
Beckoning her closer with a crook of his index finger, Max could not help but do as she was told, leaning in over the counter to feel his lips ghost across the shell of her ear, causing her to tremble inexorably.
"The Everyday Heroes contest, Max."
"Oh my God," she jerked back, thankful for the steady grip she still had on the cash register. Her palms now itched with the unyielding urge to slap the man senseless.
"Oh come on," he smirked, and Max glared daggers at his smugness at having lured her in like that. "I haven't mentioned it in a while, have I? Tell me I'm not hunting down a lost cause here, hm?"
Decidedly ignoring his choice to use the word hunt in this particular situation, Max rolled her eyes at the brunette teacher, hand sliding to her jutted hip. What could she say, irritation made her sassy.
"Well…" thinking seriously about it now, Max realized it was actually rather good of him to have brought it up again. She hadn't spent anywhere near as much time snapping photo's as of late, her last few having been foiled attempts at snagging a photograph of herself in Mr. Jefferson's glasses. Speaking of, she'd been spending a lot more time with her teacher as of late. More than she probably should have, in the least…
"I'm working on it."
The best she could give at that point, Mr. Jefferson nodded, knowing it was the only conventional response the girl could give without making something up.
He settled in his usual spot a few moments later, and the rest of her shift passed without any further hitches.
Until the rain hit.
"You have got to be kidding me," Max moaned as she stepped out in to the whipping winds, still sheltered by the overhang of the café's roofing. So much for prayers. Looks like the rain gods had ignored her at the most inconvenient of times, yet again. Taking one step out in to the pouring rain now would mean an instant drenching, and right now, Max really couldn't afford to get sick. Besides, she was wearing her favorite shirt.
"Oh my."
Turning at the sound of the voice, Max realized with a start that Jefferson had not left the café until just now, almost as though he had been waiting for her to finish, following right out after her the moment she left…nah…
"It's really pouring, huh?"
She grumbled darkly.
"Need a lift?"
Halting at this, Max turned her whole body to face the man. His expression was one of inviting warmth, and right at this moment, was looking far more appealing than the sprint to the bus stop a few blocks up the road.
Luckily for them he had been wise enough to park his car just a few paces from the café doorway, though being out in the weather for just the smallest of moments still meant that by the time the duo had jumped in the car and slammed the doors, both were very much wet.
"Dammit," Max sighed, shrugging out of her jacket to drop it on the floor by her feet and satchel, leaning down to check see that her camera was okay.
"I can't believe how hard it's coming down," he seemed to agree with her curses, and the brunette glanced up at the sound of fabric rubbing against the leather car seats, almost laughing as she watched him struggle to remove his soaking outer-layers.
"Here," she offered him a hand, reaching out to tug at the collar of his blazer, pulling it from his shoulders with ease. Throwing it over his shoulder on to the back seats, the teacher exhaled breathily, one hand lifting to push his slicked hair back while the other went to undoing a button of his shirt, black today, as Max noted.
"Fuck," he groaned, and the brunette was a little taken aback at his selection of words, or well, word, wondering what had him acting so uptight all of a sudden.
"Was that an expensive jacket?" she tried, and he lifted his head from his hand, staring down at her. At the smile that slowly made its way on to his face, Max couldn't stop the hot blush that reddened her cheeks and ears, and turned her head away to look out the window, hoping that he would pull out and start driving soon.
The way he looked right now…it was so—
The whir of the engine was music to her ears, and the drive back was quiet, save for the spattering onslaught of the rain against the car and windows. Tracing her finger along the glass absentmindedly, Max found herself, so caught up in a daze, drawing the same whirling vortex as the one in her notebook.
"Are you drawing on the windows?"
At the stern, teacherly tone in his voice, Max quickly rubbed away any evidence of such actions.
"No," she chirped a little too brightly, and did not fail to notice the sideways glare he sent jokingly her way.
As they neared the school campus however the wind and rain began to pick up, impossibly so, so much that the girl felt the car shudder around them, bowing under the weight of the pounding rain and sweeping gusts.
"Um," she began nervously, touching a hand to the window, watching with growing fear as the car began to pull distinctively to one side, despite the fact that they were still driving down a relatively straight fork in the road. "Mr. Jefferson?"
When he did not answer, she looked up to ask him again.
And screamed when she saw the spiraling hurricane surging right toward them at devastating speeds.
Making a grab for the wheel she did not hear as he protested, did not feel nor relent to the hands that made attempts to pry her away from the steering wheel as she clenched her eyes shut, everything turning black in an instant.
Sounds began to blur, morphing in to complete inaudibility, impossible to understand nor comprehend as black turned to pink, splotching her vision like sponge paint to a white canvas.
"…ax…Max…"
What…was someone calling her name?
"…are you…ay…?"
Was that Mr. Jefferson?
She felt something shake her, felt warmth through what she believed were her arms before the voice spoke again.
"ax…Max…MAXINE!"
Eyes flying open in an instant, Max gasped for air, her throat dry and scratchy as she tried to speak, only managing to cough instead.
His face was close, hands on her shoulders as she realized that he had indeed been shaking her.
"Are you okay?" he asked for what was likely the hundredth time, given the sheer panic in his eyes and the breathless way he spoke to her.
"I-I…"
"Max, tell me what happened, now."
"The storm," she whispered, unable to look at his worrying face as her head dropped, finding her fingers clutched white-knuckled at the material of his shirt. "I saw a storm…a-a twister—it was headed right for the car."
"Max…" his voice was disbelieving. Lifting her head slightly to glance around, the brunette saw that not only was there no hurricane headed straight for them, but the rain itself had calmed, a mere drizzle in the clearing skies, giving way to the orange-pink light of the lowering sun. They were pulled over on the side of the road, both seatbelts undone to allow movement as he leaned across the center-console with hands still pressing almost painfully in to her shoulders.
"You just started screaming all of a sudden, I had no idea what had happened, and then you grabbed the steering wheel and—"
"Oh my god," she murmured, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. She then noticed that within the midst of her panic she had not only wrangled him down by his shirt, but had popped a button or two in the process.
Whispering an apology she leaned in to him, forehead pressed to his chest as she attempted to calm herself, shaking under the trauma at what she'd just seen.
Just what the fuck had that been…?
Releasing her left shoulder, Max felt as fingers pressed gently to her collar, her neck, tangling in the hair at her nape as his other hand rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. Though his fingers are cold, icy even, the feeling is calming, and the brunette soon finds herself well enough to lift her head to look at him again. About to say something, she is cut of by the proximity of his face to hers. Dark brown eyes stare intensively in to her own, locking her in place, her body so frozen up she can't even flinch away as he tilts his head down just a little, allowing their foreheads to press together, noses almost touching, mouths just inches apart.
"You're burning up," he comments, almost sounding amused. She feels the feather-light breath of a laugh and it tickles her face, smelling wonderfully of spearmint against her lips, invading every one of her senses all at once.
She didn't know who it was that began to move first, but before she could even comprehend the situation she'd gotten herself in to, their lips were brushing, just the slightest of touches, and she watched as his eyelids lowered, still staring back at her with just as much intensity as before—
And she screams for the second time that afternoon at the blaring of a trucker's horn, the hulking vehicle roaring past on the wet slicked road just a few meters from where they had pulled off.
"I-I…" looking anywhere but his face, Max realized with a start that it was no longer raining, the skies all but clear save a few lingering spatters of grey. "I'm going to walk the rest of the way."
He does not answer at first, and she does not wait on it as she grabs up her things, shrugging in to her still wet jacket, slinging her satchel over her shoulder. It is only as the door opens that he responds, albeit barely.
"Sure."
His voice is cold, flat—devoid of any emotion whatsoever. Though Max had spent much of her life second guessing her decisions and asking herself if she'd done the right thing—she knew that in this very moment, she could not have been surer of the choice she'd made.
She had to walk away.
And so she did.
Crossing the road the start up the path, she steeled her resolve as she walked on, not allowing herself a single glance behind. He never did pass her though, his car missing from the teacher's car park as she walked up on to the campus.
She never did see the way his face contorted as he watched her walk away, the way his hands bunched up angrily in to fists, nor the way they slammed in to the steering wheel before ending up back in his hair. Glasses discarded on the seat beside him his breath was heavy, ragged as he watched her disappear down the road.
"It's coming…"