- Original Cindy, Licensed Confidante -
When Max entered the Crash, only to spot Alec comfortably chatting it up with Asha at the bar, she was too blinded by the tumult of emotions that rose up in response to notice the figure walking toward her in an equally distracted daze, until the pair came to a complete collision halfway to their respective destinations.
Feeling the impact of a fragile body bouncing off hers, and assuming she had just mowed over someone's grandpa in her preoccupation-ignoring the question of what business, exactly, would someone's kindly old grandfather have in a place like the Crash-an immediate apology began to roll off of Max's tongue. "Oh, I'm sorry sir. Are you-?"
She broke off suddenly as she glanced down only to find a dazed Logan lying prostate on the ground, his glasses askew on his face and one shoe missing from his foot. Strange, how easily his shoe had come off, Max pondered distractedly. There hadn't even been that much force when they'd collided.
"Oh Logan!" Max said, startled to run into her ex… well, quite so literally.
But she was even further puzzled to notice as she watched him readjust his glasses and snatch up the fallen shoe, that said shoe was a few sizes too large for his foot. In fact, Logan's feet were quite… tiny. As she studied them with greater attention, she realized that they looked quite absurd on a man of his size, and would have been more appropriate on someone at least several inches shorter. Hell, they were even smaller than hers!
Logan had put the shoe back in place, but was still seated on the floor, struggling to get back to his tiny little feet. He gave Max a slightly annoyed look, but said nothing.
"Hey, I'd offer you a hand, but…" she held them up to show where her fingers were left bare by the workout gloves she preferred to sport for her messenger job. "Probable death thing and all," she finished with a casual shrug.
"It's okay," Logan replied, finally standing and readjusting his glasses once more in forcefully nonchalant manner. He gave Max a weak grin. "I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
There was a pause as the pair glanced at each other, sharing forced smiles as they both shifted uncomfortably.
"So…" Max began.
"Um, yeah…"
"How've you been Logan?"
"Alright, alright. How about you?"
"Pretty good, I guess…"
"That's good."
"Yeah…"
Logan glanced toward the bar, and Max's jaw clenched knowing that Alec was probably still there with Asha.
"So how are you and Alec doing?" he asked casually.
"Good." Max smiled, willing the expression to look natural. "Great." She noticed the slight darkening of his expression, but attributed it to the fact that he was probably still sore about the whole her breaking up with him and then hooking up with Alec thing. Feeling the slightest bit of guilt for, in an offhand way, flaunting her imaginary relationship with Alec, the smile became even harder to maintain.
"Um, I think I saw Original Cindy over there… so I'll talk to you later, huh?"
Logan nodded quickly, "Yeah, sure, later."
Both eagerly scrambled away from each other, Max sending a sideways glance toward the bar again, where she found Asha sitting alone now. Hmm, Alec must've left while she was talking to Logan. She suppressed the surge of disappointment that rose up automatically to the realization that she wouldn't be spending the evening in his company, as they usually did after work. Well on the bright side, he hadn't left with Asha.
Max slipped into the seat beside OC none too gracefully. It was more of a flop, just short of a crash, than a slip. Cindy raised one perfectly shaped dark eyebrow as she regarded her brooding friend.
"Hey boo, what's with the pout?"
"It's not a pout, it's a glare," she said, brow furrowing further.
"Uh-huh. And what exactly is it that's got you 'glarin' like that?"
"A certain blond-haired member of a government corruption exposing agency."
"Ah," she nodded in understanding. "Original Cindy saw her chillin' wit' yo man earlier. 'Course," she drawled slowly, "it ain't like you can really blame her, boo. She don' know to stay away from what's yo's if you ain't markin' yo territory."
Max glanced over at her friend, her frown transforming from one of irritation to puzzlement. Well, there wasn't much of a transformation, really. The girl didn't exactly possess a wide range of expressive facial movements… though, again, she did seem to have perfected the art of pouting, even if she always insisted on denying it was a pout.
"Marking my territory?"
Cindy gave a slight sigh and a roll of her eyes. "Well, it's a little crude fo' my usual tastes… but let's be honest here, Max. If you want to keep what's yo's, you gotta make sure to let the competition know to stay away."
"Mark my territory…" Max muttered again, glancing forward thoughtfully. The churning of the gears in her head was an almost visible phenomenon.
OC grinned, feeling quite triumphant in seeing that she had gotten through to the usually obstinate brunette with actually very little effort. She patted her friend lightly on the head with one delicate, perfectly manicured hand. "Good girl."
Max quickly got to her feet, returning the expression with a somewhat wicked smile of her own. She bid the other woman a hasty goodbye and headed toward the Crash's exit. Cindy was right; it was time for her to mark her territory… in one of the most primitive forms known to man, woman, and all other members of the animal kingdom.
Her eyes sparkled with a light that some might have considered dangerous, others enticing, and her head tilted to one side, as if her ears were picking up a sound only she could hear.
And that sound, that sound was the primordial mating call.