WOW. WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS. I can't believe I took so long on this one. This time I had no idea what was gonna happen. I had started this chapter months ago and then every time I came back to it, I couldn't get past the part where he asks for the check! Can you believe that?

Anyways, I'm gonna work my butt off so you guys can have a some what good reading experience. But I might take a hiatus so that I can get ahead and have a few chapters ready to publish and keep this story moving at a decent pace. I wanted to let you know so that, when that happens in the near future, you won't be that shocked.

So, sorry to all of my readers out there. I would like to thank Paco the Loser for kicking me out of my slump because of a review they sent me a few days ago.

I'm done stalling you. READ AWAY.

Disclaimer: I don't anything but the plot.

Picking up my mug, I took a long sip of the hot coffee. In front of me, Max was steadily swallowing down her two pancakes, two slices of bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and strawberry crepe.

Setting down the warm beverage, I chuckled, wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand. Max stopped eating long enough to up at me and arch an eyebrow. "What?" she mumbled around the bacon hanging out of her mouth.

"Nothing. It's just that you eat as much as I do. When I'm food deprived! Which, in all honesty, is pretty much every day that Iggy isn't cooking for me," I said amusedly. She shrugged and sipped her water and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

"I'm just really hungry. That's all. I didn't get a chance to have lunch or dinner yesterday sooo…" she said picking up her fork and twirling it between her fingers. "Why not?" I asked. Realization dawned on me. "Oh. Never mind." She nodded.

After a couple more minutes of the sound of clinking silverware, we were both done. I stretched my arms above my head and sighed. Max yawned, bringing one hand to up to cover her mouth. Her nose scrunched up and I smiled a little.

"I have a question," she said as we waited for our waiter to come back so that we could get our check. "And what would that question be?" I asked, folding my arms down on the table and resting my head on them. "How can you eat so much and still look like….. that?" she asked, the last word coming out in an embarrassed tone. I lifted my head up and smirked. "I could ask you the same thing. But, I have a high metabolism, so calories are burned easily. And since I practice every day, they get burned off within hours."

Max nodded. "Same for me. Except my exercise comes from kick boxing." I rolled my eyes. "What?" she asked. "Figures you'd be into something like kick boxing," I said teasingly. She smiled sheepishly.

"Well, hey, when you have an excuse to round house kick someone and say it was just self-defense….." she shrugged and laughed. I pulled my baseball cap down to cover my eyes as the waiter came around. Hey, who said I couldn't go out into public and act like a civilian?

"Are you all finished up here?" he asked politely. I nodded and looked up just enough so that I didn't seem suspicious, but not enough that he could recognize me. "Yeah, I'll take the check." He smiled politely. "Sure thing." He left and I drank the rest of my coffee.

"So what are we gonna do now?" Max asked me looking out the window at the cars on the highway. I shrugged.

"Not sure," I said putting the mug. Max looked at me with a thoughtful expression. Her eyes lit up as she thought of something.

"Hey, I know! We could go to the park!" she said excitedly.

The waiter came back and put the checkbook on the table, then wandered off again. I looked at the price and then showed it to Max. She nodded and pulled out her wallet, proceeding to put down in change half of the bill. I paid the other half and the tip and we pushed back our chairs and stood up. I stretched and started towards the exit.

"The park's good. Let's go." I held the door open for her and she skipped towards my Camaro. I shook my head in amusement. Sometimes that woman is strange.

-0000-0000-

"So anything coming up soon?" Max asked me as she laid back on the grass and watched the clouds. I laid down next to her and put my hands behind my head.

"Yup. Practice starts up again next week. Kill me now," I said, lacing the last sentence with sarcasm. She laughed.

"You need it. Somebody's starting to look flabby around the edges," she said slyly.

I glared at her. "Am NOT. Wait….. Were you checking me out this morning?" I asked. She blushed and crossed her arms over her chest.

"No! I wasn't checking you out!" she snapped. I laughed at her. "You know, if you keep on making fun of me, it's always only going to end in you being in pain. Emotionally and/ or physically," she said, glaring at me and sitting up as I continued to laugh.

I managed to calm down enough to only be chuckling. "Did you just add the word "slash" to that? Who does that?" She pouted and I finally stopped laughing. "Ok, I'm done."

"Good," she mumbled. She looked back up at the clouds, randomly pointed to one. "What does that look like to you?" I squinted slightly and followed her finger. She was pointing at a cloud that was thin and pointed at one end then exploded into a larger shape that, as I looked hard at it, began to take shape.

"It… it kinda looks like a puppy running around with its tail wagging and its tongue hanging out of its mouth," I said. (AN: I actually saw a cloud that looked like that a few days ago. So I decided to put "Puppy Cloud" in here!)

"That's what I thought! And that one looks like a orange construction cone." She pointed to another one. For the next hour, we just laid on the ground pointing out different clouds. Sometimes we disagreed and started arguing, but the arguments just ended in laughter.

"Max?" I said as we just quietly stared at the sky.

"Hmm?" she answered.

"What park is this?"

"I think it's Maplegrove. Why?" I quickly got to my feet and brushed myself off.

"I just remembered that, when I was younger, I found a really cool hideout over here. I went there whenever my dad and I fought. You wanna see it?"

She smiled up at me. "Sure."

I pulled her up and, after she had adjusted her clothing (Which got messed up from lying on the ground people!) she followed me as I walked towards the back of the park. There was a wood in the back where people could walk on the designated paths for a walk in the cooler area. We walked along the path for a few moments until I saw something that looked slightly familiar.

As I continued to go through areas I recognized, the memory of my hideout slowly came back.

Soon I found myself mumbling to myself. "Take a left here, duck under the huge branch here…" Everything was exactly the way it had been five years ago. Just a little more overgrown. Ten minutes later, I smiled as I realized that we had come to the end. I turned around suddenly and Max ran into my chest.

"Oomph!" she pulled away from my steadying hands and rubbed her nose. "You could've at least told me you were stopping," she muttered. I chuckled.

"We're here. What your about to see… well I've never really shown it to anyone else." She looked up at me her eyes shining.

"Seriously?" she asked happily. I nodded. "I feel so appreciated!" she said. "Can we see it now?" I stepped back and walked over to a broken piece of a fallen branch that was almost twice as tall as me. I put my shoulder against it and pushed out of the way, grunting at the exertion. Soon it fell out of the way and a hole in the shrubbery was revealed. I ducked through and came out on the other side, moving so Max had room to come through as well.

As soon as she looked around, Max covered her hands with her mouth. We were standing at the top of a fifteen foot tall waterfall. Farther up the fast flowing river was a tall tree where a tree house hid within the intertwining branches.

"Fang, this is amazing! How did you find this place?" Max asked as she ran over to the tree house and tested the steps nailed into the trunk.

I shrugged. "You'd be surprised at the stuff you can find when you're running around in blind rage. This just happened to be one of those things," She climbed up after deeming that it was safe and stuck her head out of one of the windows.

"And you built this all by yourself?" she called down to me. I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly.

"Well, you aren't the only person besides myself whose been here. Sure you're the first person who I willingly brought here, but, one time, my dad came looking for me and found me over here sitting in that tree. He helped me build it. Sure it's something people tend to do when they're five, but hey, never too late for some father son bonding right?" At the end of my rather short, yet somehow long story, Max laughed.

"That's nice," she said sincerely. "So, are you gonna come up or what?"

"Coming!" I said, grabbing onto the step above my head. I pulled myself up and climbed onto the "porch" of my old tree house. It was actually pretty big, seeing as the tree was huge and that when I had built it, I had been sixteen. Dried, dead leaves littered the floor with a few empty chip bags mixed into the mess.

"Jeez, I used to be such a slob," I said kicking an empty soda can. Max was sitting on a cleared area of floor.

"We should clean it up and bring some lightweight furniture up here! That would be so cool," she said wistfully. I raised my eyebrows and smiled.

"You know, that's not such a bad idea. We could do that," I said. "Do you want to start tomorrow?"

"Sure!"

-0000-0000-

Around two o'clock, Max and I climbed out of the tree house and left the waterfall, due to my grumbling stomach. We left the woods hurriedly, hoping to get back to my house in time for Iggy's cooking. I had already called him and told him that Max would be joining us. Soon, we were pulling into my drive way and racing into my house.

"I win!" Max shouted triumphantly as her hand smacked down on the marble counter a second before mine. I pouted.

"No fair! You shoved me into a wall!" I complained.

"Hey. Nice to see you too guys!" Iggy's voice came from somewhere to my side, sounding sarcastic. Max shrieked in surprise while I stumbled back a couple of steps, smacked my head into a wall and swore.

"Holy shit Iggy! When did you get here?" Iggy was standing by the stove with a hand on his hip and an apron that said "Kiss the Cook" (AN: I know, I know, but I couldn't come up with anything clever on such short notice.).

"Like, twenty minutes ago," Iggy said in amusement, having accomplished his task of the day, AKA: scaring the piss out of Max and I. He pointed at the pan that was currently sitting on the stove. "The mashed potatoes are already done!" he exclaimed.

Max looked at him. "You made mashed potatoes?"

"Yeah. Why?" Iggy said

"I thought people only made those on Thanksgiving?" she said skeptically. He shook his head in exasperation.

"Mashed potatoes are good for any day of the year and anytime of the day!" She gave him a weird look and walked over to the table. I grabbed the sandwiches sitting on the island and put them in three different spots. Iggy brought over the mashed potatoes and scooped some out onto the plates. He sat down with us and we started eating and joking around.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful except for, you know, me and Iggy getting into a little scuffle.

But, hey, we're guys. What are you gonna do?

Reviews would be appreciated, but I don't really expect any because of the way I left you guys hanging. But, just so you know, I've been working on my other account (betrayal right there, huh?) honing my writing skills. I think I've at least gotten better! And my other account isn't for Max Ride.

SO, review if you want to!

See you guys soon! I promise!

-MFAFL123-MajorFaxandFangLover123-