53. Spinning the Bottle
At school, Wednesday afternoon
(2001) Max is 16, Liz is 15
"You'll never guess what just happened!"
Liz barely glanced over the rim of her dark sunglasses before she suggested, "Meg and Millerrun got back together?"
Maria rolled her eyes and slumped down next to Liz against the school building. "Noooo." Considering the possibility of seeing the most popular couple in school get back together again, she added, "But that would've been pretty cool though."
Liz nodded with an air of disinterest and returned her attention to the book titled Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future in her hands.
"Cooome on, guess!" Maria urged.
Liz sighed, trying to think of what else had the power to excite Maria to this degree. Liz knew very well that Maria's excitement didn't stem from some bubblegum-popping-sparkling-eye-shadow-teenage personality. It was more a case of having fun at the expense of some high school people who thought they owned the world.
But there was a possible alternative for Maria's happiness. An alternative that always made Maria's enthusiasm levels skyrocket.
Looking at her friend, Liz stated, "Party."
"Paaarty!" Maria replied, jumping to her feet and doing a bizarre squiggling dance.
Liz couldn't help but laugh. Shaking her head, she confirmed, "You're a freak, Ria."
"Ah, you love me," Maria said. "And you're going to love me even more when you hear that I didn't only manage to get me invited, but you as well!"
Liz looked horrified for a moment before her face turned into a frown. "Who's throwing this party exactly?"
"Ryan Anderson."
Liz sighed loudly. "That explains it."
Maria threw her hands up in resignation. Why did Liz always have to burst her party bubble? "What? What does it explain?"
"Don't you know? Sean is Ryan's best friend and Sean is kinda stalking me."
Maria gave her an incredulous look. "Oh come on, Lizzie. Of course he's not."
"Why else would someone like Ryan invite some 15-year-olds to a party, huh? It's not like we're the popular pretty girls. We never get invited."
"Max's going," Maria said.
Liz rolled her eyes. "And how exactly does that help in convincing me to go?"
"You know him, right? Pretty well. So at least you know someone there. Besides me of course."
Liz slammed her book together and started pushing it into her backpack at the same time as she pushed to her feet. "Maria, are you feeling okay?"
Maria looked at her oddly. "Yes, of course I am."
"Are you sure?"
Maria looked absolutely dumbfounded. "What are you talking about?"
Liz slung the backpack over her shoulder. "Because it seems as if you have managed to forget about every single conversation I've ever had with you."
Maria sighed. "I know you think that you hate Max Evans-"
"I don't think anything, it's a fact."
"How can you hate something so beautiful?"
"Because he's an idiot."
"He's one year older. You've known him like forever so he actually acknowledges you. He's very," Maria made sure to further emphasize this word by looking at Liz pointedly, "very easy on the eyes. He has a car. Oh, and did I mention? He's one year older."
"So you think I should just like him because he looks good, is one year older and has a car?"
"Okay, sure. There are certain principles one has to follow," Maria said all seriously and Liz nodded. "I myself wouldn't date someone like…ehm…your brother. Because he…uhm…no offense Lizzie, but he sleeps around."
Liz shrugged and nodded for Maria to continue.
"So I can totally understands this whole 'hating Max' thingy you got going on there, because…rumor has it that he also shares the goods."
"Rumor has it?" Liz asked incredulously. "I've heard it from his own mouth, against my will."
"I'm just saying…I don't really understand why you hate him so much because he seems okay to me. And you would know someone else at the party, that's all."
Liz didn't look particularly convinced. "Right."
"But if we forget all about Max, let's just talk about the fact that we have a chance to go to a party, with older people. We can make the party our playground-"
"Hmm…not really sure I like the sound of that-"
"And have the time of our lives. It'd be great. We don't really have to hang out with the other people if we don't want to. If they're boring or drunk or whatever, we can just hang out with each other. It'd be great." Maria brought out the puppy eyes. "Please, Lizzie. Pretty pretty pretty please pretty Lizzie. I really want to go, but I don't want to go alone."
Liz had already made up her mind to go. After all, she wasn't the sort of person that would deny her friend a night of fun. But that didn't stop her from making sure that she had marked her stand.
Pouting, Liz objected, "But it'd be like encouraging Sean's stalking behavior."
Maria looked a bit more hopeful, having felt the shift in Liz's thought processes. "We'll just ignore him."
"And Max?"
"Won't be a problem at all," Maria assured. "Ryan's house is biiig. We can easily stay away from him."
Liz bit her lower lip thoughtfully, putting on a bit of a show. "Hmm…I dunno."
"Cooome ooon," Maria pleaded.
"How much do you love me?"
Maria's face brightened. There was only one reason as to why Liz would ask that; she had given in and Maria was going to have her way. Maria measured as far apart as her hands would go. "This much."
"And what am I?"
"The smartest, coolest, hottest girl in the universe?"
Liz laughed. "Okay, deal. I'll go."
"Yaaaay!" Maria shouted, encasing Liz in a bouncing hug. "You're the best."
"And the coolest. Don't forget that."
Three days later
Ryan Anderson's house
"Little Lizzie Parker."
Liz automatically rolled her eyes before she turned to face her arch nemesis. Handing him a fake sweet smile, she retaliated, "Jerkass Max Evans."
Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the doorframe with a hurt expression. "Ouch, Parker. What crawled up your ass this morning?"
Liz sighed. "Don't you have some vulnerable, clueless victim to prey on?"
He shrugged. "Actually…yes. But I couldn't help noticing my best friend's little sister in the kitchen. The same sister I thought didn't have much interest in going to these things."
"Really? Then what about yourself? What are you doing here? I didn't know you were a fan of Ryan."
Max shrugged again and answered casually, "A party's a party. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter who throws it."
"Still the perfect opportunity to score," Liz added, a bite to her tone.
Max gave her a crooked smile. It didn't bother him one bit what she was insinuating. He knew he had the rumor of being a playboy, even if he hadn't actually been with that many girls.
But it was all about the reputation. And little Lizzie Parker was good at feeding his reputation, even if he was sure that wasn't her intention. She probably still thought it would embarrass him if she called him a manwhore, not having a clue that it served the absolute opposite purpose.
"True that," he answered and watched her eyes darken with irritation.
"Okay," she said, tasting lip gloss as she bit her lips firmly together, "It's been lovely talking to you, but I have to go back to Maria."
"Sure," he answered.
He remained in his position, leaning against the doorframe, taking up more than half of the door opening and Liz stared at him pointedly for a couple of long seconds before the developing grin on his lips told her that he was not going to move to let her pass.
Her eyebrows rose in frustrated questioning bows. "Do you mind?"
Not moving an inch, Max's grin turned as sweet as honey. "Not at all."
Sighing dramatically, Liz stomped up to him and tried to squeeze past him. As she did he moved towards her, pushing her into the opposite doorframe.
She hissed. "Max! Get the fuck out of my way!"
He grinned, obviously amused. "What?"
"Ooooh," Liz erupted annoyed and ducked down under his arm, expecting him to move to stop her progress there as well.
But he didn't, and she found herself on the other side. Throwing him a glare, she brushed off her clothes and tried to reclaim some dignity before stomping off to find the friend that had dragged her to this party.
2 hours later
"What's going on downstairs?" Liz asked, not being very happy about the prospect of following Maria down to the basement.
"They're playing some games or something," Maria shrugged. "Come on. Let's just check it out. The party's so dead up here."
At her words, Liz scanned her surroundings, noticing the couple making out on the couch, the guys smoking pot laughing at a bottle cap in another corner, the girl sleeping on the floor, the guys having a drinking contest involving ketchup to obviously see who would throw up first.
Liz grimaced. Maria had a point. What could be worse than staying up here?
"Maybe we should just head home."
Maria glanced at her watch. "It's only like…eleven."
Liz bit her lip, thinking hard. She had been so over this party ever since she had met Max in the kitchen. He just really had a way of pissing her off and destroying her mood for several hours afterward. She really felt like ditching this place, taking a long hot shower and crawling into her soft bed.
"Fine," she regretfully agreed.
Maria took a long look at her friend's face. "Lizzie, we can go home if-"
Knowing that Maria still wanted to stay, Liz waved her words away. "No. No, that's fine. Let's go downstairs."
Maria smiled. "Thank you, hot Lizzie."
Liz rolled her eyes and couldn't stop a small smile from grazing her lips. "Whatever."
Hooking arms with her, Maria pulled Liz down the stairs into the large basement.
Liz blinked. The music was enveloping her from all directions. The buzz from all the conversations was almost hurting her ears.
Obviously, this was where the party was.
She glanced around, estimating there to be about 50 people in that basement alone. There was a pool table and a ping pong table. There was even an old jukebox playing in a corner.
"Oh, there's Amy. I'll be back in a sec."
Before Liz had a chance to react, Maria had left her side. Feeling oddly self-conscious and awkward, Liz tried to decide where to look, feeling the gazes of a lot of people on her.
Straightening her shoulders, she tried to brush the stares off her.
She picked a corner to walk to but just as she started to walk, someone grabbed her by the elbow.
"Kitten."
The voice was smooth in her ear and delivered a mixture of relief and irritation.
Turning her head, she found Max towering over her with a lopsided grin. "So we meet again."
"What do you want?" Liz snapped.
Max's grin turned into a laugh. "Fuck. You really woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning, didn't you?"
"Very funny," Liz mumbled and turned to scan the crowd again.
Max standing next to her had done nothing to soften the unwanted attention. Now, wherever she seemed to look, there were the hateful eyes of jealous girls. What was up with these people? Didn't they know that she hated Max Evans?
Pulling her elbow out of his hand, she faced him again. "So, what's fun down here?"
While looking slightly stunned at the one eighty turn of her mood, that suave smile that had a tendency to annoy Liz to death remained on Max's face.
Taking her elbow again, and this time she pretended she hadn't noticed, he said, "Come with me."
Resisting him, she shook her head. "I'm gonna go and see what Maria's up to."
"Oh come on, Parker," Max said. "It's fun. You need to lighten up some."
Liz pouted. "I don't need to lighten up."
He laughed. "Fine. Whatever you say."
This time she didn't resist his pull and he unceremoniously directed some people sitting in a circle on the floor to make room for her. Giving her a wink, he left her between two guys as he himself sauntered to the other side of the circle, sitting down in between two lightly clothed girls.
Liz's mood immediately darkened.
"Hi Liz," someone purred next to her and she shivered. She didn't have to turn her head to know who Max had put her next to.
Pervy Perry.
Narrowing her eyes in a promised I'm gonna kill you glare, Liz kept her eyes on Max's amused face. He was so going to pay for this.
"Didn't know you liked these kind of games, Liz. Then I would've invited you sooner."
Ready to scream, Liz refused the urge to stand up and leave the circle as she heard Sean's comment next to her.
There was no way Max had accidentally put her between Pervy Perry and Sean.
Clenching her fists along the sides of her body, she tried to control the urge to rush across the floor and strangle that pest of a person opposite her.
I hate you, she mouthed to Max and even though she was sure he was able to read her slow lip movements, he put a hand behind his ear and looked at her as if he had no idea what she had just said.
"Okay, people. Whose turn is it?" a boy called Tim asked.
"How about Liz spins?" Perry suggested. "She's the new arrival."
Perry gave her a big slippery smile and she shivered.
Locking eyes with Max, Liz directed her answer at him as she looked at him in challenge. "Sure."
She was no coward. Max would not get any pleasure out of that.
Bending forward, she placed her fingertips on the bottle in the center of the circle and set it for a spin.
The empty bottle spun once, twice, thrice…and then started to slow down.
It spun past Max, past the blonde girls on his right and continued towards Perry and past herself, slowing down even further when passing Sean and then moving past Tim and Millerrun.
Watching the bottle spin slower and slower, Liz's heart seemed to slow down in beat with the turns of the bottle. Glancing around the circle of people she realized that there really wasn't anyone in that circle that she wanted to do anything with. It had also just struck her that this game was usually about kissing.
She had yet to kiss a single soul. Did she really want the reciprocal of her first kiss to be the result of the spin of a bottle?
Her heart hammered in her chest as the bottle barely past by Sean, bumped past Tim and then reached a slow gradual halt in front of Max Evans.
Her eyes were glued to the bottle, not really knowing what to feel, let alone wanting to look at Max. He would be grinning his ass off by now, she was sure of it.
"Wohoo!" Tim erupted. "The bottle has picked Evans. You two – in the closet."
Liz's head snapped up and spun to face Tim's. "What? What closet? I thought this game was about kissing?"
Tim laughed. "Come on, little girl. You're playing with the big boys now."
A chill past over her heart and for the first time since the bottle had stopped its spin she looked over at Max.
She had expected him to be amused by her behavior and be preparing to make a fool out of her. But he was quiet and when her eyes made contact with his there was something she couldn't quite decipher in his eyes.
"Come on, Liz," Tim urged.
Liz swallowed back her sudden nervousness. She could do this. It was Max for Christ sake. She wanted to kill him a minute ago…being in a closet with him made the killing so much easier.
Her own rationalization made it easier for her and she pushed to her feet. She could feel Max's eyes follow her shape as she walked around the outer border of the circle. Coming to a stop next to him, she said, "What are you waiting for?"
The bold undertone to her question elicited cat calls and sporadic clapping from the circle.
Something past over Max's eyes before a satisfied grin spread across his face. Getting to his feet, he grabbed her hand, his touch gentle in comparison with the emotions he was pasting onto his face. "Eager, huh?"
He sent a wink to the laughing audience before he pulled on Liz's hand in the direction of the closet. Opening the door with one hand, his other hand led her into the darkness of the closet.
Liz's heart quickened as she stepped as far into the small dark closet as she could. Then she felt Max's warm body take up the remaining space and the light from the outside was cut off as Max closed the door.
