MY OH SO BELOVED REVIEWERS:

bloodyXfangs (You reviewed just in time. XD And totally! FANG IS MY DEEP LITTLE BIRD KID! XD), Lilac Rose6 (Hmmmm… I may do IPOV next, Iggers. XD I was so excited when I saw that you were 100th! That made me happy too. XD), Rainpath-Lizzie (XD I thought I heard something… LOL I'm glad you liked it!), Anna (Nudge now worships you. XD And Fang is blind, just not physically, like Igs… XD), Jace'n'FangLover (SOCCER TRYOUTS THIS CHAPPIE! XD I didn't go into a ton of detail about Max kicking butt, 'cause that can get Mary-Sue-ish, which I am desperately trying to avoid, but still… Thanks for the review! =D), padfootlover109 (I think I will write a NPOV chap, just to make Nudge happy. Thanks so much for the review!), Fly On Maximum Taylor Ride (It means a lot to me that you review, so your reward is a mention! =D Thanks again!), Writersforthewin (I'm glad you like my story! And no, Maria isn't Angel, she's her best friend. That's explained in this chapter. Umm… I haven't read Twilight. So Idk exactly what that means… Thanks for the warning anyway though!), Rhaksha Ora (OH YEAH GO NIGAHIGA! Sham-WOOHOO!), The Seagull (Okay, I'll keep the blanket pink. LOL thank you for the review Seagull! =D), PurpleTea88 (I know, right? That's why I was so excited. I'm sorry that that paragraph was too long, I'll go back and fix that. I usually just write one draft of each chapter, not multiples, so sometimes I miss stuff like that. Lissa DID get what she deserved! Lol I love hating on her for some reason. It's just so fun. Thank you so much for your helpful review! Your kind are the best to read, I have to say. Thanks again!), kk24 (that is the most generous offer I've ever gotten on ff. I'll totally write a chapter in three days for a promise of a ton of reviews. Here goes...)

Spacing issues fixed as of 11/12/21

MPOV
"Hey Max I!" Max II greeted me, jogging towards where I stood by the school gym. I smiled at him, feeling relieved that one of my friends had finally showed up.

"Sup Max II?" I asked, slapping a high five with him. "Αre you ready for tryouts?"

"Definitely!" he declared, smiling brightly. "I've been waiting for tryouts since the first day of school."

"Me too!" I joked. Max II looked blankly at me, not getting my humor.

"But you just started last week," he pointed out slowly, his forehead scrunched in concentration.

I raised an eyebrow, trying not to be affected by the awkwardness level rising. "Yeah, I did," I agreed. "That's what I meant..." Max II's face remained blank. He didn't get it. Okay then... "Anyway, umm..." I tried to think of a subject change. "Umm-"

"Hey Maxes!" Gazzy yelled, starting to run towards us. I smiled, happy to have a distraction. "Are you ready to RUMBLE?" he roared, stomping his feet exaggeratedly. I rolled my eyes, but Max II laughed.

"Totally, Gaz!" Max II agreed, his expression losing its confusion finally. "We'll make the team, no problem."

Gazzy grinned. "Well, of course. I'm wearing my lucky cleats!" Max II and I looked down to inspect Gazzy's supposedly lucky footwear. The cleats were shimmery silver, with blue and white streaks on the sides. However, both laces were broken, the toes were horribly scuffed, and there was a small hole developing on the right toe. I could clearly see his black sock against the pale material.

"Nice," I commented, trying to ignore the fact the shoes were obviously on their last legs. "How long have you had those?"

"About a year," Gazzy replied nonchalantly, his eyes shining. "Aren't they beautiful?"

"Dude, I can see your soc-" Max II started. I swiftly elbowed him before he could offend Gazzy, and he shut up. I smiled sweetly at both him and Gaz before turning to walk towards the girl's locker rooms.

"I gotta go change now," I announced, swinging my soccer bag for emphasis. Both boys nodded, then put their heads together and started discussing strategy. Shaking my head slightly, I headed into the locker room and started changing my clothes.

I was almost fully dressed, just slipping on my first sock, when Nudge and Ella burst in, chattering their heads off. "Max!" Ella practically shouted, running over to me. "Are you ready for tryouts? How's your foot doing?"

I rolled my eyes at her, rubbing my instep. "It's still bruised, but I can run fine. You're lucky I can kick well with both my feet, or you'd be at the bottom of a lake right now," I threatened. Ella squeaked, running back to hide behind Nudge.

Nudge shook her head at me. "Tsk tsk, Max. Giving your little sister death threats? How dare you."

"She deserves it!" I protested. "Don't you have any siblings, Nudge?"

"Nah," she replied, starting to change into her outfit for tryouts. "But I practically share Maria with Fang. She's so cute! Oh, and Gazzy has a little sister too, she's best friends with Maria! Her name is Angel, and she is just about the cutest little girl you will ever meet, including Maria even!" Nudge exclaimed, tugging on her shorts. "I just love Ange and Ria. I'm their honorary big sister. They've initiated me and everything!" she added with a grin. "I had to kidnap Gazzy's pet turtle and hide him in the teapot, then sneak into Fang's room and steal a pair of his boxers!" Nudge giggled as she remembered her orientation. "Even Fang's boxers are black, as you might imagine," Nudge added, grinning even wider. I blanched, dropping my shoe laces with a start. I did not want to imagine Fang's boxers. The subject was making me feel vastly uncomfortable, and I resumed tying my shoe in order to escape Nudge's rant quickly. Ella grinned at me, obviously knowing exactly what I was thinking. I narrowed my eyes at her, mentally daring her to say a word about Fang and/or his underwear.

Ella took the dare, much to my dismay. "Hey Nudge, do you still have Fang's boxers?" Ella asked, giggling wildly. I felt my eyes widen, and straightened up, knocking over my soccer bag in my hurry to leave.

Nudge nodded, smiling wickedly. "Yep! They're in my closet somewhere," she confided. Ella and Nudge burst into giggles, and I took that moment as an opportunity to retreat.

"I'm gonna go outside..." I mumbled, grabbing my bag and forcing myself not to sprint out of the place. Their giggles echoed, following me out of the room until the door swung shut. I closed my eyes in relief, sliding back to lean against the door. Thank the lord that was over.

"Embarrassing locker room encounter?" a familiar voice asked, tinted with amusement. My eyes flew open, and I jumped into an upright position.

"Fang!" I whined, crossing my arms. The boy in question smirked, his whole body language radiating that he was enjoying my embarrassment. "Do you make noise when you walk? I didn't even hear you come up!" It was true. I hadn't heard a single sound to indicate someone was walking towards me, and yet here he was, leaning against the wall on the other side of the hall.

Fang shrugged, the smirk fading from his face. It was replaced with a neutral, carefully emotionless expression. I didn't mind, though. This was the expression I had gotten used to seeing over the last week. It turned out that our moms had hit it off immediately, and were now practically best friends. As a result, we were seeing a lot of each other. Mostly when our families met up, the adults would talk, Ella would go off to play with Maria, and Fang and I would head outside to play soccer. We didn't hold back when we played each other, not caring if either of us got elbowed in the gut or tripped over a hip. It was part of our game.

"Max! Fang!" Nudge squealed. She came barging out of the locker room with my sister close behind, decked out in soccer gear. Her hair was styled in an impeccable ponytail, and her cleats were purple with an orange Nike swish across the side. Ella was wearing a simple green t-shirt, black shorts, and white socks, and was kneeling to secure the laces on her bright green cleats. I was proud of my little sister. Even if I always beat her, I knew she was actually a decent player, and she looked the part. "ZOMG I can't wait for tryouts to start! I've been waiting to play on the school soccer team since the first day of school!" Nudge exclaimed, unknowingly repeating exactly what Max II had said.

I grinned, deciding to use the same reply on them that I had for Max II. I had a feeling that Fang, Nudge, and Ella would appreciate my joke more than Max II had. "I've been looking forward to it since my first day, too!" I agreed.

Ella nodded vigorously. "Me too!"

Nudge giggled wildly, and a slow smile broke out across Fang's face. "I think we've waited just a bit longer than you too," Fang remarked. Nudge whirled on him, looking disapprovingly at his attire.

"As for YOU, mister!" Nudge began, her voice sounding like she was about to give Fang the scolding of his life. "What is with you? Do you ever wear anything other than black? I mean, look at you! Even when you're playing soccer, you're wearing black shorts, a black shirt, black socks- even your freaking cleats are plain black! Do you have a vendetta against color or something? I mean, really! Even your freaking BOXERS are black!" Nudge put her hands on her hips threateningly. Fang, who had begun to look a bit stiff at Nudge's scolding, suddenly looked inquisitively at her.

"How would you know if my boxers are black, Nudge?" Fang asked, sounding as if he didn't particularly want to know the answer.

"Uhhh..." Nudge stalled for time, looking with alarm between me and Ella. I pointedly avoided her eyes, not wanting to be sucked into this conversation. Ella simply began to giggle again. Fang was waiting for Nudge to answer, when suddenly a very shrill whistle blew. "Oh! There's Coach Walker calling us, like sheep to the shepherd, we better get going right now!" Nudge babbled quickly, bounding away from us. Fang raised an eyebrow at me, but I ignored it.

"Nudge is right. We should go now, or we'll start the whole tryouts with a bad record for being late," I suggested, breaking into a jog to go after Nudge. Ella nodded, following me as she attempted to stifle a few final giggles. I could feel Fang's still questioning gaze on my back, but ignored it as best as I could. It would be for the best if Fang didn't find out about Nudge's little 'older sister' initiation.

"Hello, my name is Coach Walker, but you can call me Coach Anne, or just Anne. I will be watching you all practice today to decide on who will be asked to join the Cromwell High coed soccer team this year. Work your hardest, play your best. I expect to see some good ball control, skills, and speed out there. We'll start with a few simple drills." Anne turned to pick up a few cones, and I took the opportunity to look her over. She didn't seem very athletic, with a petite frame and perfect French nails. However, I noted the way she deftly handled the ball as she explained the drill to us and had to rethink my first impression of her. Anne had amazing ball control. She pulled Croifs and Maradonas around the cones of the drill like they were nothing, and ended the demonstration with a complicated sequence of several lightning-fast moves. Anne's feet almost blurred over the ball as she pulled a stepover, rolled the ball to her other foot, Croifed it, then twirled a neat Maradona back the other way. When she looked back up at us again, there was a short silence. Then every player trying out burst into spontaneous applause. Anne smiled, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I want all of my players to be able to do that by the end of the season. Now get out there and impress me," she ordered. Immediately, everyone claimed a soccer ball from their own bags or Anne's supply and began to dribble, pulling moves every few seconds. It was easy to pick Nudge and Ella out of the mass of players by their bright cleats, and I located Fang by looking for a dark spot in the swirling crowd of colorful soccer uniforms and equipment. Nudge was right. I hadn't seen him in anything other than black clothing for the whole week I had known Fang. It was mildly creepy.

"Watch out, Max!" Gazzy yelled, quickly cutting to the side in order to not run into me. I shook my head, snapping out of my reverie.

"Sorry Gaz," I apologized, Croifing the ball at my feet in order to stay next to Gazzy for a minute. "I got distracted."

Gazzy smirked. "It looks like the other Max is distracted too," he replied before pulling the ball back and turning in the opposite direction. I frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Still dribbling, I looked around to find Max II. When I finally located him, our eyes locked, and I immediately knew that he had been staring at me. Heck, he had probably been gawking for awhile now, judging by the vacant expression on his face. I felt instantly self conscious. Was my underwear showing or something? I dribbled over towards Max II, wondering what had gotten into him.

"Hey, Max II," I said, pulling a step over right next to him. He snapped into focus, the vacant expression fleeing his face. It was replaced by a wide grin, and he started to dribble again.

"Yeah Max I?" he asked, neatly executing a quick scissors move. I rolled my eyes at his obvious showing-off in the form of the move. Max II was a good player, but he also happened to be the kind that liked everybody to know he was a good player. He wanted everyone to see him and think he was the best on the field. That kind of player was not my particular favorite.

"Is there some sort of horrific smudge on my nose I should know about, or were you just spacing?" I copied his scissors move, just to show that I wasn't impressed by his bragging. Max's nose wrinkled slightly, and I smirked.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" he asked. He looked genuinely confused.

"You were just staring at me a minute ago," I explained, reaching up to push some escaping wisps of hair behind my ears. "Did I suddenly develop a massive pimple or something?"

To my surprise, Max II started to blush, his ears and cheeks reddening massively to match the color of his hair. "Umm, no. Th-there's nothing," he assured me in a stutter. Suddenly, he veered off to the side, melting back into the crowd of players. I shrugged, wondering absentmindedly why he was acting so flustered just 'cause he had been spacing out. I did it all the time. It wasn't a big deal.

"Stop!" Anne's voice rang across the field. Obediently, everyone trapped their soccer balls under their feet and turned towards Anne. She walked across the drill, handing out green pinnies to certain people. When she stopped in front of me, I straightened, looking her directly in the eye. She held my gaze for a moment, looking at me seriously, before breaking out into a wide smile. "Maximum Ride?" she asked, her voice sounding friendly.

"Yeah," I confirmed, looking at her warily. How would the coach already know me?

"I've heard a lot of good things about you," Anne continued, unaware of my thoughts. "I'm glad to have you trying out for the Cromwell team."

"Umm, thanks, I guess," I murmured, accepting the pinny she handed me. On the other side of the drill, Fang caught my eyes and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged in reply, putting on the pinny.

"Divide up into your teams now! Pinnies versus shirts," Anne instructed, walking back to the sidelines and picking up a clipboard. "We're going to playing a bit of possession right now. I don't care if your best friend is on the other team- beat them to the ball! And, go!" Suddenly, Anne dropkicked a ball high into the air. I ran to where I could see it was going to fall, my eyes on the ball dropping from the sky. Two other people from the shirts' team had run to the ball, and one of them looked ready to trap it as soon as it hit the turf. I analyzed this quickly, jumping to head the ball out of the air before it got to her feet. The girl who was going to trap it looked at me in surprise, but I had already moved on. I needed to impress Anne. I needed to be on the soccer team. No one would get in my way.

It turned out that I had headed the ball directly to Gazzy, who was on my team. He grinned at me, faking a left cut to shake off the boy who had come to challenge him. "Max I!" he yelled, passing the ball to my feet. I grinned back at him, trapping the ball and dribbling a few feet to some open space. A girl ran straight up to me, trying to kick the ball away, so I Croifed it back and passed to another girl wearing a pinny. She flashed me a smile before running off with the ball. We passed around for awhile, keeping the ball entirely in our possession for a few minutes straight. Then, a dark blur shot out of nowhere right as Gazzy passed to another boy on our team, neatly stealing the ball.

Fang performed a victory Maradona over the ball before speeding off to a corner of the playing grid. I rolled my eyes, watching as the girl I had passed to ran to try and retrieve the ball. Fang faked her out, passing the ball directly to Lucas, who was on his team. Lucas promptly sent the ball over to another girl, who passed straight to another player on their team. The four of them played in a diamond formation around a few of the pinny players, passing to one another's feet with perfect aim. There was no doubt that these four would make the team.

Fang received the ball again, and I started to sprint straight behind him in a stealth attack. I caught Gazzy's eye and jerked my head at Fang. We had the same weird mind connection thing that had happened on my first day at school, where we both understood exactly what the other was going to do. Gazzy grinned, before charging Fang straight on. His teammates watched as Gazzy and I both ran at Fang, and at least four of them yelled, "Man on!" in an attempt to alert him.

Fang obviously thought they meant Gazzy, and simply Croifed the ball to turn away from him. A wide grin tugged at my lips when I saw Fang's expression as he crashed directly into me. I had run at him from behind until I was right on his tail, and we collided hard, with a loud impact. Fang tripped over the ball and my cleat, consequently kicking my own feet out from under me. I couldn't hold back a yelp as I fell backwards, Fang sailing right along with me. My eyes closed instinctively as the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

My elbows hit the ground first, immediately burning as they scraped against the turf. Just to make matters worse, Fang landed directly on my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I wheezed loudly, trying to breathe, as Fang scrambled off my torso. His normally neutral expression was now worried, and he gently slid his hands under my back, trying to help me sit up. The ball rolled off to the side, unnoticed, as I opened my eyes and looked directly into his.

The breath got knocked out of me all over again. I may not have mentioned this before, but Fang definitely has beautiful eyes. They look practically bottomless, twin wells of darkness with a slightly darker pupil in the center. Right now they were looking directly at me, and nothing else. I continued to wheeze, wishing I could look away from Fang so I could breathe better. "Max?" he asked gently, continuing to look worriedly into my eyes. "Did I hurt you?"

I simply shook my head in reply, not having the breath to actually say anything. The worry drained from Fang's face, and he raised a teasing eyebrow at me. "Oh really? You're perfectly fine?" he asked amusedly. I nodded, struggling to sit up by myself. Fang rolled his eyes, standing up and offering me a hand. I ignored it, choosing to stagger ungracefully to my feet on my own.

Anne had apparently started jogging over as soon as Fang and I had tumbled, because she was right at my side when I finally managed to stand properly. "Are you sure you're okay, Max?" she asked, looking seriously at me. "It's fine if you need to sit out for awhile. I understand."

"Yeah, Fang weighs a ton," Gazzy agreed, grinning at me. Fang rolled his eyes, but I smiled weakly back at Gaz.

"I'm okay," I assured Anne, my voice coming out hoarse. "I want to keep playing."

Anne stared at me for a moment, making sure I wasn't faking being alright. I was really okay, just a little breathless now. To prove it, I jogged over to where the ball had rolled, executing a perfect Maradona and continuing to dribble. "See?" I added, doing another Maradona right after the first. "I'm fine!"

To my surprise, Anne smiled and shook her head in defeat. "Like mother, like daughter," she muttered, moving to the sidelines. "Play on!" Immediately, Fang was on my tail, trying to take the ball away from me.

"I need revenge," he murmured in my ear as he stuck his foot out to trip me. I grinned back at him, nimbly hopping over his extended appendage.

"Just try me," I retorted, passing the ball off to Gazzy. Fang sprinted towards him instead, but Gazzy passed back to another girl on our team. The rest of the possession game was fairly even, and it ended quickly when Anne blew another long, shrill blast on her whistle.

"Moving on!" she bellowed, her voice much louder than I would've thought it might have been. "I've seen your skills, dribbling, and passing. Now I want to see your shots! Bring all the balls over to the goals and set up for PKs!"

"PKs?" a girl whispered behind me, sounding confused. I turned around and smiled at her.

"That's short for penalty kicks," I explained. "You know, when there's a foul inside the goal box and a player gets to take a direct shot on goal?"

"Oh," the girl said, sounding as if she still didn't understand. "I get it now."

I turned back around, feeling fairly sure that that particular girl would not make the team.

"Who plays goalie?" Anne asked, tossing a ball up and down in her hands. Immediately, Max II's hand shot up in the air, followed by a sophomore and another freshman. "Let's switch off between you three then. You'll take shots later," she instructed. "Get your gloves on."

The shooting drill passed by too quickly, as all shooting drills do for me. Most of the people trying out had decent shots, but all three goalies were amazing at blocking them. When the sophomore stopped my low shot to the right corner with an inhuman dive, I shook my head in amazement. It was nearly impossible to score on the sophomore goalie in particular. He was tall and lanky, with long arms and absolutely no fear of the ball. Of course, Max II was great, but the sophomore was in an entirely different league. The other freshman goalie was a tall girl with a long blonde ponytail and neon orange cleats. She was also amazing, catching shots out of the air like she was born doing it.

"She makes that look so easy!" Nudge complained, watching as her high shot was plucked neatly away from the goal by the girl for the third time. "That's just not fair!"

"But think about it; if she's that good, then we'll have a great advantage in our games if she's in goal," Gazzy reasoned, tapping his ball onto the penalty spot. He took a few steps backward, then ran at the ball and slammed his foot into it in a single fluid motion. The goalie's eyes widened, and she dove to the side in an attempt to catch Gazzy's shot. She missed, though, and the ball sailed right over her hands and into the open net. Gazzy whooped, and Nudge and I both punched him.

"Show-off," Ella muttered, kicking at him. Gazzy dodged the kick with a grin, heading towards the back of the line to shoot again.

"Of course Gazzy doesn't care if the girl's a good goalie," Nudge grumbled as she fell back in line. "He never misses anyway."

After the shooting drill, Anne divided us up into different teams and arranged a short scrimmage to conclude the tryouts. When I crashed into Gazzy and came away with the ball in my possession, leaving him standing behind me with a confused expression on his face, I heard Anne murmur, "Excellent." I turned just in time to see her write something down on her clipboard and walk back down the sideline. Gazzy had started to pursue me again at that point, so I passed the ball off to Fang, who was on my team, and continued on with the game.

Gazzy's team ended up winning, beating us 4-3. Gazzy himself had scored two of his team's four goals, and assisted the other two. Like I had noted before, Gaz was practically half of a team all by himself. I was happy to have scored at all, though, because the sophomore was playing goalie for his team. As Ella and I walked back home after the tryouts, our cleats clicking on the sidewalk, we argued over the many different points of our game. Ella had been on Gazzy's team, and was adamant about her opinion that her team had completely blown my team off the field.

"Nuh uh," I disagreed.

"Uh huh!" she insisted.

"Nuh uh."

"Uh huh."

"Nuh uh!"

Uh huh!"

"NUH UH!"

"UH HUH!"

"Jeez Ells, you're so uncivilized," I remarked, grinning at her. Ella stuck out her tongue at me before continuing to attempt to prove her point.

"Well, we won," she pointed out. "We scored four goals on you guys."

"And we scored three on you," I reminded her. "One point isn't a lot."

"It's enough," Ella shot back. I rolled my eyes at her.

"The score doesn't even matter that much, Ells. It was an opportunity for Anne to see us in a game situation. And if I do say so myself, my team was pretty effective in defending against you guys."

"Then how come we scored four goals on you?" Ella demanded, smirking.

"Obviously, you had Gazzy on your team," I replied calmly. Ella's smirk dropped, turning to an understanding expression as she nodded.

"Point taken."

"Exactly."

We continued walking in silence, the only sound being the click of our cleats against the pavement. We were both aware that walking on cement wasn't very good for our cleats, but frankly I was too lazy to change shoes, and Mom had promised Ella new cleats by next week.

It was a very soothing noise, anyway.

"Do you think we'll make the team?" Ella asked suddenly, stopping in her tracks as she looked at me. I shrugged, continuing to walk. Ella frowned in reply, tightening her ponytail like she always does when she's agitated. I finally had to stop walking so she wouldn't fall too far behind, and turned around to face her. "Scratch that," Ella continued, her voice slightly sarcastic. "I know you'll make the team. Do you think I will, though? I mean, I've got a lot to live up to, with the amazing Maximum Ride as my older sister."

I took a step towards her, but Ella glanced down at the pavement, refusing to look in my eyes. I gently tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at me. "Ells, I'm sorry if I make anything harder for you than it should be," I told her quietly. "You know I can't bear to do anything with less than my best try. It's just one of those quirky characteristics of mine, just like you can't help but sing along every time 'Grenade' comes on the radio." Ella's lips quirked up in a slight smile, and I let go of her chin, turning around to continue walking. "And for the record, I do think you'll make the team. That was a nice goal on Max II," I added. Ella's smile grew.

"Gazzy gave me a perfect pass," Ella admitted, hurrying to keep up with me. "I swear, it's like Gazzy was born simply for the purpose of playing soccer."

"He's a total prodigy," I agreed. "I had an extremely difficult time beating him, and you know I can take on pretty much anyone."

"But you did beat him," Ella pointed out, smiling. "I would say you're right up with Gazzy in the soccer prodigy ranks."

I shook my head. "No, I think Gaz is a lot better than I'll ever be. I have a few flashy moves, right, and I can handle the ball, but I'm not scoring on every PK I take like Gazzy does. I don't even have any signature moves or anything. Fang makes up his own moves!" Immediately, I wanted to take the words back. Any mention of Fang was an invitation for Ella to attempt to persuade me that I like him/he likes me/we're total soul mates, etcetera, etcetera…

"So, about Fang," Ella started, a sly grin twisting on her lips. I held up a hand before she could go any further.

"I refuse to talk about Fang in any way you have in mind," I declared, speeding up. Ella jogged to keep up with me, still grinning wildly.

"Max and Fa-ang, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Ella sang. I started sprinting for home, and Ella quickly fell behind me. She is definitely not as fast as me, and she knows it. "Max!" she whined. "Come back!"

"No!" I called over my shoulder, continuing to run. Ella pouted, but I just kept running. I didn't want to talk at all about Fang in the way Ella meant. Sure, in the past week I had hung out a lot with him, and learned so much that I felt like I had known him since birth. But that didn't automatically make us 'soul mates' like Ella was so set on making me think. I grimaced slightly. Guys were never my forte.

Like Sam…

I gritted my teeth, banishing any thoughts of Sam, Brigid, or Fang from my mind. I didn't want a repeat of what had happened the last time I trusted someone outside my family with my feelings. Sam had tossed them to the gutter. I wouldn't let that happen again.

Fang wouldn't desert me like Sam would, my mind insisted. I brushed the thoughts away, starting to hum loudly in order to drown out their words. Fang was my friend, not anything else.

And I intended to keep it that way.

Ugh, I hate making Max so stubborn. But yeah, I would like this story to go on for awhile longer, so she needs to be all SELF-DENYING in order for that to work. XD

Gazzy: I like how I'm so special in this one. =D

I think that Gazzy and Nudge are too overlooked in the world of Fanfiction, and even in the books! So yeah, I try to put them in my fics as much as I can, especially Gasser. I'm not Team Edward, Team Jacob, Team Iggy, or even Team Fang. I'M A PROUD SUPPORTER OF TEAM GASMAN! BOO-YAH!

Review please! =D

~TMI~