Max, upon seeing who the approaching person was, immediately turned her look of horror into one of happiness.
"Asha!" she greeted jovially with a large, fake smile on; although Asha, who was hobbling towards Original Cindy and Max on crutches, looked far from her usual happy-go-lucky uber-cheerer self.
"What the hell are you doing with my squad?" Asha demanded once she had hobbled over to Max.
"Your squad?" Original Cindy asked. She glanced at Max. "Her squad?" Original Cindy would be happy to jump to her boo's defense and all should the blonde start throwing around those crutches, but hey, she wanted to figure out what this was all about; she'd never really gotten the lowdown on everything that happened before she joined the team.
Max rolled her eyes playfully and smacked her head as if she'd forgotten something. "Sorry, OC. I never really filled you in on Asha." Asha took the time to look at Cindy.
"I was the captain before Max fell on me and ruined my entire career." She looked back at Max. "Forever."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Max said, taking a step back. "Now, forever? Is that really a proper description of time here? I mean, it'll take only a few months for that leg there to heal and you've always got college…"
"I was supposed to be captain!" Asha squealed. "This was supposed to be MY year and you sabotaged me!"
"Sabotaged?" Max yelled. "I didn't sabotage you! If anyone sabotaged you it was yourself!" Asha gasped.
"What are you talking about?" Asha asked. Max crossed her arms over her chest before changing her mind and switching them to her hips.
"I am happen to be one of the lightest members on the squad – " Asha snorted.
"Yeah, it really felt like that when the bone snapped, too."
"Valerie always had me as a flier because I'm so light and alert and," Max shrugged, "let's face it. I'm pretty, too. Meanwhile, Jondy is a little bit…" Max paused. "She's a base, obviously. And she's horrible with holding people up! So, obviously your situation is a product of your bad taste in choosing bases."
"I don't care what you say!" Asha screeched. "The entire team is still ruined because of what you did out there! I mean, what happened to the Plan that Valerie told us about last year? I mean, platter, nationals – hello!" Max scoffed.
"You mean the Plan that included a bunch of stolen cheers?" she inquired, confidant that she had at least one up on the perky blonde. Asha looked shocked indeed. Max mentally high-fived herself.
"Borrowed," Asha corrected. "they were borrowed cheers." Max dropped her hands from her hips.
"You knew?" she yelled. "You knew?"
"Valerie said it was fine if we just borrowed the cheers for a little while," Asha said, having the decency to look just a little bit ashamed at herself. Max scoffed again.
"It was all right?" she asked. "What – as long as we gave them back after we were done?"
"The Chameleons are never going to even make it to Regionals, anyways. They were just kidding themselves," Asha said gently. Max breathed deeply – good aura in, bad aura out (she found that the more she used this trick, the less it worked.)
"OC," Max muttered. "I'm going to hit her in her pretty little blonde face, I swear…"
"Listen," Original Cindy stepped in between the two girls. "Max made a mistake, it happens all the time. The point is, you can't punish her for this; she barely made captain, she's bound to hit a few bumps on the road…" Original Cindy cringed at her own words. How white-father-figure were those words?
"A bump?" Asha shrieked, catching the attention of several other cheerleaders. "You listen to me, you little two-bit gymnast! This isn't a little bump, this is the whole goddamn mountain over here!" she ranted.
Original Cindy looked heavenward, idly wondering how long it took one 18-year-old boy to find a simple bouquet of roses and a card, made the sign of the cross over her heart, then leaped at the mouthy little cripple at the same second that Max launched herself at Asha. Only then, a completely different voice yelled Max's name.
And then, there he was. Logan Cale, the light of Max's life – the apple of her eye (and Zane called their relationship unhealthy – ha!) dressed in his usual button-down shirt and khakis. He stood against the sliding glass doors with sunlight filtering through the panels and framing his tall figure, creating a halo of heavenly light effect around him. He looked like some kind of preppy messiah come to save Max's pagan soul.
But more importantly than that, or the fact that he'd driven three hours to see her and her only, or the fact that he had a bouquet of red roses with a white one in the middle (just like Max liked) in one hand, was the fact that he was carrying a six-pack of Red Bull in the hand that wasn't filled with roses.
"Logan!" Max squealed, running over to her boyfriend. She hugged him tightly, and he wrapped his arms around her as best he could with roses and soda cans in his hands. "Oh my God, Logan!" Max said again. "You brought Red Bull!"
A/N: I swear to god, this was the hardest chapter to get out so far. Mostly because I'm picky and I hate working on computersthat are foreign to me and I hate actually writing (you know, with the pencil and the paper). Or because I'm just picky - you decide.
Please review!