"And?" Original Cindy asked eagerly as they changed in the locker room. Max had come home well after she'd gone to bed, and they had only been able to discuss it on the way to work. So far she hadn't said much about the doctor, but Cindy was more interested in the action between her home girl and Mr. Moneybags anyways. Bout time they got the juices flowing.
"Nothing happened and he got upset," Max replied. She was still floored about what had happened. Was it a fluke, or was there something more intended there?
"Typical man," Cindy said. "Kinda hoping he wouldn't be the lead around by the little leg kind of guy, but you know how it is."
"No," Max said. "That's not it." She said her words slowly and with great emphasis. "Nothing…happened."
Now Cindy understood. "Boy's dog wouldn't bark?" she asked a little incredulous. Max nodded. Damn, she was glad she was on the all-girls team. Nothing like that to worry about ever.
"We have packages to be delivered people! Bip-Bip-Bip!" Normal yelled before anything further could be discussed. In some ways hearing him yell like that was a relief to Max. This was a Normal she could cope with. That whole Dr. Ronald thing was too weird for even the queen of weird to deal with.
They got busy delivering packages. At lunch the Jam Pony gang met up together in a park. There were a couple of guys on bikes showing off, and it was fun to watch them crash and burn in front of their girlfriends. Sketchy was still too bruised from ending up on the floor the day before to play with them.
"You guys noticed Normal acting weird today?" Sketchy asked the others.
"It would seem the winds of his mind blow in a new course," Herbal replied. One would expect Sketchy to look blank at that, but he'd had years to perfect Herbal-ese. Herbal thought Normal seemed a little distracted today.
"Original Cindy with that," Cindy commented. "Boy's got all sorts of books and stuff with him. Forgot a signature today, and all he said was to be more careful. Handed out another box, and opened his magazine right back up. And, get this, Normal took lunch AWAY from the desk today." The others could only stare in disbelief. Normal could leave the building during business hours? There'd only been one occasion they'd ever even heard of that happening.
Max didn't know what to say. The magazine was an old copy of "The New England Journal of Medicine", and she'd seen one of the books. It was "The Physiology of the Brain, The Chemical of the Mind". Normal was doing a little research. He'd seemed like he was happy or something. It was like when he was dating that girl-boy he'd liked so much. Well, he was back to what he loved the best. If she didn't have a case to interest a doctor, nobody did.
Her pager went off. Logan. That was a good sign. He'd been so upset the night before. They'd made out for a while, and then he got all kinds of nasty with her. He'd asked her to leave, and gave her some kind of lame-ass excuse about needing to get work done. She'd torn out of there, embarrassed and furious that she had been expecting him to take her into the bedroom and…then it hit her. She'd been flying low through the streets, and she realized what had been wrong with him. Like that mattered! Well, he was a guy.
"See you later," she said jumping up.
"You going to be at Crash tonight, boo?" Original Cindy asked. She wanted to get Max alone to ask her about the doctor.
Max shrugged. "Yeah, sure." She smiled and waved. "Later!" She jumped on her bike and pedaled off.
Logan was sitting at his computer, pretending to be working. He actually was trying to, but Max consumed every thought. The softness of her mouth, the way her hands played in his hair, the curves of her body under his hands. She wasn't shy about touching him back, and that's when it dumped on him like a bucket of ice-cold water. He was dead in that way. God, he was an idiot. He wanted her, but she deserved more than half a man.
He heard the door rattle, and there she was. Just play it cool, he thought. Just play like nothing happened. "Logan?" Max called. Even her voice was exquisite.
"Yeah," he called back. She walked in. Even in her grungy Capri pants and loose shirt she was beautiful.
He couldn't look at her directly. He could see her reflection in the monitor, and that was almost more than he could bear. "Dr. Ronald called and said he wanted to talk to you after work," Logan said.
Max was hurt that he wouldn't even look at her. So it was true. It was the fastest way to kill a friendship. To Hell with him then. "He say what was up?" she asked, trying to be casual. If he wanted to act like nothing was different, then so could she.
"He just said he wanted to talk to you about test results," Logan replied, still not looking at her.
"That's cool," she commented. "Sebastian's crib?"
"That would be the best place," Logan answered.
"You going to be there?" She had no idea why she asked, she just did. Actually she knew why. If the results were bad, she wanted him there. Well, someone at least. Original Cindy couldn't because of Normal. He was the next best thing, being an ex-close friend and all.
"I don't know," he said. "I have a lot of work to do."
He couldn't see the sudden fury in her eyes. That was it! If Eye's Only was so damn important to him, then he could kiss her ass all the way home. All this over not being able to…what kind of person did he think she was? He think she would laugh? That compassion had been engineered out of her?
She whipped his chair around so that he was forced to face her. Now he could see the anger and frustration. "You think last night makes you less of a man?" she yelled. "Not being there for people you call your friends, that makes you less of a man!"
"Max," he tried to say, but the slamming of the front door was his only answer.
