"Why no boyfriend, Max? Seriously."
Paused. The opening of cabinets ceased, knife in mid-air, the sandwiches half made. Terry's unexpected question jarred the serenity of the Friday night.
"Are we having this conversation?" Max finally said, hands on hips.
"I'm your friend." He stood up to stretch his tired body watching her in the kitchen.
"A male friend."
"So?"
'Where is this going?'
"So I can't just talk to you like I would a girl. This is girl talk."
"Course you can. Hey, I can even put on a dress and some makeup."
"Terry!"
"Hey, if I'm comfortable enough with my manhood to wear tights, then you can handle me in a cocktail dress."
For a moment, she toyed with the vision of him in a little black dress . . . and quickly shook her head of the scary visual. "Thanks, Bats, now I can have more nightmares."
Lettuce. Tomato. Turkey. The list busied itself in her head, not the sudden cross-examination from the cirme fighter.
"Still didn't answer my question." Terry pressed.
"You're not going to stop." Now Terry wanted pick her brain when it wasn't school-related? Max huffed inwardly.
"I just want to know why my friend isn't being a normal teenager."
"I am normal-more normal than someone who spends his nights dropping masked nut cases as an after school job." She was met with a dirty look from the Bat.
"Besides, guys don't appeal to me."
"Did I miss something-?" Terry ventured to ask but the chef's blade looked very ominous in her capable fingers.
"I'm still into guys if that's what you're asking." She sighed, "How to put this into words? Here: Guys are complicated. I'm complicated. Therefore we don't mix."
"Guys, complicated? Aren't you the one who says we're don't grow up but get taller, primitive cavemen and all that jazz." He gave a bad impression of a caveman, beating on his chest:
"Food. Sleep. Girls, girls. Ugh-ga, ugh-ga."
"You're a guy. You should know that most guys just want one thing."
"To understand women?"
She rolled her eyes, "No, sex."
Mock shock was written across his face. "Max, I'm hurt. My intention with every girl I've been with has been honorable. "
"When you met her father at the front door. After that-" Max walked to the fridge to grab a pitcher of lemonade.
"Hah-hah."
"Besides, this conversation about my nonexistent love life is over . . ."
"You're just too picky." He teased. For whatever twisted reason, he wanted to see if he could make a this dark-skinned female blush.
"Picky! Ha!" She laughed his words off, opening the fridge.
"Give a guy a chance. There's plenty of nice guys in Hamilton High's dating pool."
"Hamilton High could use a little more chlorine. Need I remind that half of Gotham's criminal population attended our school." She poured herself a glass of lemonade.
"So we had some bad apples."
"The whole slagging tree is rotten!"
"You just don't want to admit your standards are too high."
Terry followed her into the kitchen. Leaning on the counter, his stare burned into her until she stopped spreading mayo on the bread.
"Yes, Mr. McGinnis?"
One simple question: "Exactly what is it that Maxine Gibson want?"
He did it again!
Trapped her in his eyes, those eyes that persisted within her inmost thoughts.
She was lost in a sea of blue, a sea of meaning, a sea of dreams.
Sometimes torment laid there.
Sometimes love.
Sometimes nothing.
She felt the answer being drawn from her lips, half-parted-how long did half a second occur?
Long enough to hear a ringing cell go off.
Maybe now is a good time to believe in God. Thank you, Almighty.
"Hello . . . yeah . . . I'm at Max's . . . Now? But I was going to eat . . . Yes. I will tell my mother I had overtime . . . No, she hates steakhouses . . . Fine, but this means using the card and a private jet. . . Hey, you want me to stop the robbery or not? Okay, okay, we'll talk. Cya."
"I have to-" Terry sounded sheeplish but she finished his words.
"Go." Max waved good-bye. "Good night. Isis will enjoy your half of the sandwich."
"I still want to know." The Dark Knight warned, grabbing his half-finished sandwich from the sleeping calico cat on the floor.
"Mmmhmm."
"I mean it." He said between two large bits.
"Good-bye, Batman."
He gave her wink then grabbed his suit and jumped out of the window.
The curtains waved in the breeze, he was off again. Batman was once more apart of the night.
"If you only knew what I wanted was just sitting here." She whispered to herself.