Chapters 4- An Afternoon Swim and a Kiss

It was mid day when they came upon a lake.

"This is wonderful." Maxine says mainly to herself, shielding her eyes with her hand as she looked to the left then the right.

"We could always just swim across it." Sirius suggests.

"Hm…" Maxine says lowly thinking.

She began to strip as it seemed, she took off her shirt that revealed her black muscle shirt and took off her boots. Then from her pants she unzipped a zipper on each leg cutting her pants into shorts that went above the knee. Sirius then noticed his pants could do the same.

Must have done it while I was sleeping He thought to himself.

Then he did the same as she did; only his shorts went just above the knee. He was also bear chested. She shoved her cloths in the bag and handed it to him, and he did the same. After that she tied her shoe laces together and did the same to his, and then she telekinetically threw them across the lake. It kind of scared him since he'd never seen anyone do something like that before.

Maxine had said something but he was in a trance and didn't hear her. His trance was broken when he was splashed with water from Max who was already in the water. She laughed at him. He was half wet and the other half wasn't. Sirius walked up to a big rock and jumped in sending a strong ripple through the water and a small wave splashing her.

"Sirius?" She asks out loud since he hadn't resurfaced. "Don't play like th-"

Max's sentence was cut short when Sirius had grabbed her feet and yanked her under. They resurfaced together Max immediately splashing Sirius for what he had done, and then laughed with him.

"Come here, I'm gonna drown you." She playfully threats swimming after him.

She caught him and jumped on his back pushes him under. When he resurfaced he spit water at her and tried to swim away but didn't get very far, Max had jumped on his back again and pushed him forward. Maxine was laughing until he splashed her, then she spit water at him.

He didn't know why he did it but he pulled her into him and kissed her. He had wanted to do it before. Back at the inn when he was looking at her in the eyes after she had said she didn't believe he did what everyone believed he did, he wanted to do it then but didn't. Her lips were soft against his semi chapped lips. Was it only an instant?-a minute- two? He didn't know and apparently neither did she. When he pulled away from her she looked, well, he didn't really know how she looked. Maybe confused on why he did it, he could tell she wasn't angry because he figured if she was she would have smacked him. That would have been like her. Her pace had turned pale but with a red in her cheeks; maybe embarrassed?

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Sirius quickly tells her.

"No, no, its fine." She tells him.

Then she splashed him and swam off. This confused him even more. Did she like the kiss? Or was she playing a game? Maybe a bit of both or she had liked it and was trying to hide that she did.

He sat there treading water for a second before swimming after her.

Following the swim and the kiss nothing was spoken. The only sound was them walking, the wind rustling the leaves, and small animals scurrying around on the forest floor. He wanted to ask her if everything was alright but he knew she would say something like 'yes, fine.' Like every other woman would. Then it occurred to him that she wasn't like every other woman. None that he's met and could remember. However, back in the days of Hogwarts He never had a problem with the ladies except when James decided he wanted to make it hard for him or Lucius for that matter. But she wasn't from England meaning she wasn't like the women there or like the girls at Hogwarts, this complicated things. He realized for sure now that he had a thing for her and it wasn't just because she had saved him from the demeantors or that if he stuck around her always it would keep him safe. He liked her because of how kind she was to him, she had saved him, feed him, cleaned him up and was now allowing her to go with him where ever she went. It sounds motherly but it wasn't the same as that. He liked her sarcasm too even though it was unbelievably dark and cynical.

She was good looking too, a bit short but he thought that matched her unique tomboy mess with me and I'll kick your ass attitude.

Thinking of things to ask her he finally found one.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No." Max simply answers before going back to being quiet, "Why do you ask."

"You're walking a bit faster than usual." Sirius tells her.

Maxine then slowed her pace becoming the same pace with Sirius.

"Better?"

She's playing hard to get he decided, and inwardly smiled to himself for some reason and decided to lighten the mood.

"You're not going to sick your brothers on me are you?" Sirius asks.

Maxine smiles at him, "No." She tells him. "Don't be silly."

Since the mood was lightened he didn't speak of the kiss the rest of the day.

It was now night once again and they just stopped where they were and made camp. They sat across from each other with the fire between them. Maxine was poking at it with a stick. Occasionally letting it catch a light then blew it out and let it catch a flame again. After a while she laid down in her blanket, and he did the same.

The middle of the night had come again and Sirius woke from his sleep hearing a loud rustle. He looked around in the trees first then on the ground, a wild boar was walking through the tiny path sniffing around in the soil. Maxine must have herd it in her sleep too as she moaned softly and rolled over into Sirius, her head level with his chest. She sighed and stuffed some more of her blanket under her head as a pillow and curled up more.