Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.
Chapter Sixty: Eikon
April 14th, 2012 10:03 AM
Shamelessly, Max paused in her footsteps with a folding chair under each arm and watched as Chloe passed. Goofy idiot, she thought to herself not for the first time as the girl tried not to wince as she brushed, ever so barely against Dana. You know, Max told herself as she started to carefully walk a chair toward the edge of the gymnasium wall that did not already have bleachers above it. It's kinda funny that, with my freckles and all, I'm not the one who got burnt to hell. Chloe's skin was still pink and only just beginning to peel. To be fair, Chloe's burns had been nothing to laugh at; they had actually been somewhat severe since someone had decided it was smart to go walking around in the bright sun without putting on sunscreen. Now that the mechanic's pain had mostly passed, though, Max enjoyed gloating to herself that she was not the worst off. Hell, compared to Chloe she was more or less tan, something which never happened. Not that either of us hold a candle to Rachel. Speaking of Rachel, Chloe paused beside her and suddenly whipped her head around toward Max, as if she could sense that just moments ago, Max had been grinning at her. Then again, she was not sure she had ever stopped. Beside her, Victoria raised an eyebrow and caught Max's attention.
"Oh, Chloe's just jealous that I didn't turn five shades of red over break." Max made sure to say this loud enough that then majority of the gym could theoretically hear her and was rewarded by a rude hand gesture from the artist as she steadied the short ladder Rachel was standing on. Logan stood at the bottom of Dana's. Together the two girls attempted to hang a banner from the scaffolding near one end of the room, held aloft by the old aluminum ladders.
"Not from sunburn at least," Chloe teased, glancing back toward them but not abandoning her post even to give Max a piece of her mind. How dedicated, Max thought to herself as she and Victoria finally reached one edge of the old gymnasium and settled the chairs each were carrying down. Max took a second to unfold each of the chairs and then shoved them aside as Victoria did the same to her own. It was true that there had been any number of other reasons she might have looked a little red in the face over break, but she knew Chloe was just a tiny bit bitter about having had to spend an evening of their vacation laying in a lukewarm epsom salt bath to lessen the pain. At least, Max really hoped it had lessened the pain, because the bottle of aloe vera gel purchased from a drug store on their way back to the hotel had not been enough to really ease the girl's suffering.
"So what did you three do over break?" Victoria asked her. Max, who could not say that she had ever experienced anything quite as amazing as the trip they had only just returned from, did not hesitate to tell her. As they continued their work Max, recalled the trip in some detail: the bungalow Rose Amber had rented in San Francisco for a week, the time spent by the pool or at the beach, even a couple of excursions into the city. For the most part, it had simply been the three of them, though Rose was in a room at the hotel herself, she mostly left them to their privacy unless they all went somewhere together in the afternoons or evenings and they did manage to secure three days almost completely to themselves throughout it all.
"If you can name some typical touristy thing to do, we did it," she confessed, feeling a bit guilty. "I'm talking the San Francisco zoo, which Chloe didn't care much for but humored us anyway-"
"What?" Victoria asked, sounding a bit dumbfounded. "Why wouldn't she-?"
"Yeah, well, I kind of get her point," Max said, eagerly. "It is kind of shitty to see animals trapped in cages for peoples' amusement, but we went." Victoria's green eyes rolling did nothing to slow Max down, neither in hauling chairs from one rack to either of the walls they typically lined during Vortex Club soirees nor in recounting the trip. "Then there was the trip to The Castro and the Golden Gate Bridge, we even took a boat ride out to see Alcatraz Island, and I was a total monster and took them to like four art galleries and two art museums." Max had to cut herself off there. The honest truth was that she could have gone on and on about any one of those events and had not even gotten to talking about various restaurants eaten at, or their trip to Pier 39. When she saw that Victoria was not just humoring her, not completely at least but looked to have had her interest piqued, Max realized why that might be. Art museums. "Victoria, their Museum of Modern Art has like, an entire floor for photography. It was amazing."
"You're such a nerd," Victoria shot back, but the smile on her face and the way she was looking at Max did not match the words enough to suggest any actual ill thoughts. In fact, while Max was confused about precisely what the look in Victoria's eyes was about, somehow it caused her to make a confession.
"I burned through basically the next four months' budget for film last week," for a moment Victoria eyed her as if to see whether or not she was kidding and Max snorted before breaking into laughter. The blonde simply grinned at her, shaking her head and having apparently decided (rightly) that Max was completely serious. Max shrugged and made to return to the rack of chairs. The truth was that other than the sightseeing and way too many photographs, the week had been a tiny bit like the three of them living together. Except that they could never have afforded such an amazing place in a city like San Francisco. Max's parents weren't exactly poor but they probably wouldn't have been able to afford the trip, certainly not with its length and considering the kind of place they were staying in.
For a few minutes, Max mostly kept her tongue and listened to Victoria recount her own Spring Break, which she said she was quite happy to spend in Seattle with her parents. It was enough to make Max feel a little guilty about not having gone home, but her family had been good sports about it. There had been talk of compensation in the form of one or two photos from the experience but Max figured she had time to choose some and send them to her mom and dad. Eventually, long after conversation had dried up and they were done with the particular stretch of wall they had been lining with chairs alongside Zachary, Courtney and Taylor, Max lost her cool again.
"I need to gush about one thing," she finally confessed to Victoria. The girl waved her hand as if to say 'if you must' and crossed her arms one hand still clutching a bottle of water that remained half finished. Max reached into the old messenger bag which she had retrieved from where it sat as soon as it was clear they were both taking a break. A trio of photos that she had not felt like parting with even to put away safely in her room were freed from the front pouch, earning another shake of Victoria's head. That being said, Max knew the girl was just giving her crap for the sake of giving her crap: photography was one of the things they shared in common. If they were going to bond over anything it was most likely to be that. Max loosed the first of those three photos from the pile and tilted it Victoria's way. She knew the photo by heart already and had been tempted for almost an hour the night prior to absolutely abuse her abilities and go back in time to experience just a second of it, again. Rachel and Chloe were framed in profile in the photo in front of the ocean with a sinking sun between them. The star's reflection on the water shimmered in roughly a conal shape, most pronounced in the area exposed between the two of them. There was just enough light left in the air that the features of their faces could be made out, even if a bit darkened and dimmed.
To Max's immense gratification, Victoria made a noise of appreciation in the back of her throat and reached cautiously, askingly for the photo. Max handed it over without hesitation, watching long fingers carefully draw the picture up for closer inspection. Slowly, the slightly derisive smile shifted to a lopsided smirk. For a moment Max thought it was somewhat judgey and dismissive but the girl did not put the photo down, her eyes continued to work across it and after a couple of seconds which felt oddly like minutes, Victoria handed it back to her without a word, though the blonde did set her bottle of water down beside her. At that point, Max shamelessly exposed Victoria to the next photo, a sort of tight selfie taken in the bungalow's kitchen that Max thought judging by her clothes in the picture had probably been taken somewhere on the third or fourth day.
At this one, Victoria was silent but when she took the photo that smirk vanished. There wasn't a frown on her face, per se, but while the tilt of the girl's lips was upward at least, it did not look like any kind of happiness Max had ever seen. Still, Victoria looked at it for about the same amount of time she had the one prior and passed it back. Unsure what the sudden shift in the girl was all about, Max almost hesitated before passing the third one over. This one was by far and away her favorite after the beach. It had been taken by a random passerby, but it featured Chloe on the day she received her bad burn, reddish-pink in between Max and Rachel somewhere in the heart of the Castro, a neighborhood that had become something of an LGBT mecca long ago. Framed surprisingly well in the background (God, I'm such a photo snob) a large flag baring all the colors of the rainbow flew unashamedly. Chloe, despite obviously being in some discomfort by that point, had been the one to insist they stop for the photo and her smile was perhaps the largest, though Max rather thought that the fact that Rachel's eagerness was not marred by the concern she and Max both had started to develop for Chloe's health was impressive.
The look on Victoria's face faded slightly but it was in this fading that Max recognized the look for what it was: a sort of sad smile that Victoria was trying and failing to cloak. Max retrieved the photo when it was offered to her but she couldn't resist trying to understand the look. Was Victoria sad that things were not great between herself and Courtney? Had her break been lonely? Slowly she put the pictures away, giving herself time to think. It seemed to Max that the right thing to do in this situation would be to say something but she wasn't sure what would help.
"I don't think I've ever seen you look that happy before," Victoria told her all of the sudden as Max finished setting her bag aside again, which was surprising. Max wasn't sure what she had been expecting Victoria to say, but it certainly wasn't that. Shit, she's been having a rough time.
"I don't think I've ever been that happy before, to be honest." It probably should have sounded like a depressing statement, but it wasn't. The week in San Francisco had involved some of the most amazing moments of her life. Many of them had been intensely personal, others had been kind of world-reinforcing. Switches had been flipped, processes set into motion that Max did not think could ever be undone, to top it all of, she thought that that week had been enough to finally convince Max that there was a light at the end of all of the dark in front of her. She knew hope was a dangerous thing, but she also knew, now, its power. "It was a good day. I kind of want to borrow Kate or Brooke's scanner and put that last one up on the internet." The downside to working with exclusively analogue cameras was the difficulty in getting a photo digitized when one absolutely wanted it preserved.
"You know," Victoria drawled as she stood up as if to return to work. Max followed suit, leaving her bag on the chair beside her. "You could always join the 21st century and get a digital camera."
"No fucking way," Max insisted. "Polaroids are where it's at." There were four tables lined up near the bleachers which needed unfolding and positioned near the door to the gym to act as a kind of barrier to anyone who might want to make away with free refreshments. Judging by the fact that most of the chairs had been laid out and Juliet and Sarah had almost finished with the sound equipment on the far end of the room, that seemed to be the right place for them to return to work. Across the room, Chloe and Rachel were helping Taylor and Courtney lay out a series of streamers reaching from the lattice-like framework around the small stage the dj was supposed to be on to the edge of the stage, so that they would frame part of it like a curtain. Chloe's a champ for helping out on her last Saturday off. Though, it looked like they all had a reprieve coming soon in the form of lunch, since the room was almost ready for that evening.
"Max, polaroids haven't been 'where it's at' since 'where it's at' was an acceptable phrase to say out loud."
"Whatever you say, Victoria," Max told the girl, this time the one guilty of rolling her eyes. "I guess I could get a cheap digital camera just for fun. It could be cute. Maybe I'll see if mom and dad will get me one for my birthday. It would probably result in me cutting down on film so..." She knew that no matter how little they said about it, they had more than indulged her passion in photography.
"That's the spirit, Caulfield," Victoria teased her. "Now, back to work." They were joined shortly into setting up the first table by Rachel and Taylor. Max did not pay a ton of attention to anything beyond moving the tables but she did occasionally catch sight of Rachel, who at one point gestured toward Victoria. Victoria was still holding her end of the table Max held, but her eyes had wandered to Chloe, Juliet and Courtney as they continued their struggle with the streamer curtain. Chloe was laughing at something one of them had said. Max would have been willing to bet William Price's old camera that it had been Juliet, though, given Courtney's relative discomfort around Max, Chloe or Rachel.
"You know you should go talk to her," Rachel told Victoria as the two pairings passed one another, Rachel and Taylor going back to retrieve the fourth and final table and Max and Victoria still carrying the third to its position. Victoria frowned and paused, forcing Max to slow and wait with her. Rachel, for her part, crossed her arms and came to a stop to at this as Victoria glanced her over once and then sighed. "What?"
"It's just- you're right," Victoria admitted. "I'm just not sure how to start." As if that was a signal, Max turned and lowered her end of the table to the floor.
"Courtney, could you trade off with me? I need to bother Chloe for a second." When the brunette looked up, nodded briefly and silently from across the room and started toward them, Max turned back to see one of the three blondes she was stood beside beaming at her and another glaring daggers. All things considered, Max thought both that this had been the right move and perhaps a little too nosy. Then again, she was a nosy bitch and there was very little any of them could do to stop it. Max strolled off across the yellowed floor toward Chloe and Juliet shamelessly, though Chloe had yet to return to work staring at Max as if she thought, correctly, that Max was up to something. Rachel makes me do all kinds of things I shouldn't do, she thought to herself. God, I love having partners in crime.
Max couldn't help but review the change in Victoria. Contrary to what a few people were whispering in the halls, it had begun long before Nathan proved that he was an animal who would turn even on his best friend. Maybe it had taken a fair amount of time but at this point Max considered Victoria a friend. She was pretty sure Victoria connected far less with Rachel or Chloe than she did Max, but that actually made sense. They shared a lot in common: photography, living in Seattle, forceful personalities. Speaking of Seattle, Max had not quite gotten up the courage to admit to Victoria how often she used to visit her parents' gallery, the Chase Space. Max also thought that if her parents could see Victoria's work, the kind she turned in on a near daily basis, they would be proud. Sometimes it felt a little cool to her but Max thought that came down to the almost tactical way Victoria handled lighting and framing.
As for Nathan, the boy was not precisely absent that day from club activities. Even as Max joined the fun of hanging and arranging streamers, she could turn an eye up to the bleachers and see him glaring around the room as if everyone in it owed him something. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last. He knew he was beginning to be isolated and outed even if he played it all off as lies, as jealousy or as being bullied. It had had its consequences for everyone, though, including Max who had been contacted while on break to talk to her parents about a 'disturbing rumor' which had made it to them, that she might have been the victim of a sexual predator in the school. Telling her parents the truth (at least the truth which did not involve time travel or Rachel being the avatar) had been the most painful part of the that vacation, even if Rachel and Chloe had followed her from poolside back into the bungalow to sit with her while the discussion occurred.
Almost as hard as the conversation which might have been the hardest in her life was her parents' constant reminders through texts or phone calls that she could be withdrawn from the school any time she wanted. The threat of what might come if Nathan stepped out and attacked someone else was about all that kept Max from considering herself happy. Not only would it mean there were another victim, someone else to experience what she had gone through, but Max was not entirely certain that her parents would let her remain at Blackwell no matter what if they caught wind. That being said, Max wasn't sure how they found out in the first place. They had been unwilling to divulge that bit of information.
Max, Rachel, Chloe, Victoria and Taylor separated from the rest of the committee after too long. It was as much about the cafeteria being done as it was the honest fact that Max couldn't stand looking over her shoulder and seeing Nathan staring down imperiously at her. While the weather was somewhat warmer than expected, it was also far from ideal for an impromptu lunch session. The good news, as far as Max was concerned, was that the chinese place had agreed to deliver the group's hefty order in a relatively reasonable frame of time, so Max settled into a seat and looked around at the extended lunch table. Who'd have thought when I first moved back that we'd be sitting down together for lunch? Unfortunately, even good times for her seemed to be marred by Nathan Prescott sooner or later.
"So," Taylor started during a break in conversation about party preparations. "What do we do about Nathan tonight?" It seemed that Taylor had come to fully embrace the idea that Nathan was trouble. The idea that she counted herself among those taking on any responsibility for his actions was new and unexpected. "I mean, the party's where he's probably going to try something, right?" This was among the most forceful and assertive acts the girl had ever taken without prompting so, as much as Max wasn't in the mood to talk or think about Nathan Prescott at any length, she answered.
"We'll be watching him most of the night," Max told Taylor. There were no immediate objections from Chloe or Rachel, so she took that to mean that the plan was still on. "If you two want to help out, that wouldn't hurt." As Rachel was going to speak, Chloe suddenly reached out and put a hand on her shoulder and Max's.
"That was them," she announced, gesturing vaguely to the road.
"What?" Rachel asked, looking slightly annoyed to be interrupted.
"The food," Chloe told her, slowing her voice to emphasize the last word. Max rolled her eyes. Chloe was acting as if she had not eaten in days. The bluenette was out of her seat before Max knew what was happening. Okay, I guess that means Victoria and I better do our part. As Rachel and Taylor rose to follow Chloe from the picnic table outside of Blackwell Academy, Max matched eyes with Victoria, who looked momentarily deep in thought. Max gestured toward the main building.
"Let's go grab drinks," she said, pulling from her front pocket a small, wadded up plastic bag that would do well for carrying drinks for five people, some of whom wanted more than one. This seemed to snap Victoria out of her reverie and the girl shrugged. Nonetheless, they were only a couple of steps away from the table when the reason Victoria seemed a little out of it became obvious.
"How in the hell do you do this shit all the time?" Max was, to say the least, confused. Could the girl have meant the Vortex Club parties? Victoria had been doing that a long time before Max and Rachel joined. (Max still had not had the heart to tell any of them that they had joined just to spy on Nathan.) After a moment, Max raised an eyebrow and slowed as she hit the front steps to the school. Victoria sighed and made a frustrated gesture as if she might want to wring someone's neck. Drama queen.
"I mean you're generally nice to everyone, you don't care what anyone thinks about you, you're a good photographer and even after what Nathan did to you, you're more worried about everyone else." Max sighed, this time.
"I don't think I can be any other way. It's not in me."
"Why is that?" Victoria asked, suddenly sounding somewhat aggressive as if she had just caught Max making a false point in some debate she did not know they had been having. "It's okay to protect yourself, you know."
"It's just not the way I work."
"That's admirable, but stupid," Victoria grumbled, pulling the front doors to the school open and setting off for the soda machine as quickly as she could without breaking into a jog. "Pisses me off that I still envy that."
"What do you mean?" Max asked. What was it that Victoria Chase envied about her? It was actually almost a laughable idea. Why would Victoria feel the need to feel any kind of envy or jealousy?
"I don't know, I guess I sort of admire you sometimes." Something about the open way Victoria spoke drew Max's attention and her eyes back to the girl. As uncomfortable as Max felt hearing that, Victoria looked uncomfortable, too.
"Thanks," Max told her when she found words again. Unfortunately, by that time they had already found the pop machine meaning an unnatural silence had grown up between them. Cutting through it felt a bit like taking a machete to some tall and endangered plant. "You know, I like your photos too. They're kind of Avedon-esque and that seems to really work for you." In a moment, the entire air about the girl changed. Max did not comment on it, but she had this strange feeling that the wide grin that bloomed on Victoria's face would have found its way there no matter what she wanted. "But really, Victoria, all I'm trying to do is try to figure out how to get everyone through this when we know it would take something huge to bring Nathan or Jefferson down." She felt guilty for speaking this thought aloud as soon as she did it, but it simply slipped out. Max paused by the pop machine and glanced about to see if anyone else had heard her. No one looked to be around, but Victoria's smile had gone and she was staring at Max.
"What do you mean about Jefferson?" Victoria asked, far too loudly for Max's taste. "Has he done something at the school?" The truth was, Max thought as she struggled with how to talk about this with Victoria, that he had not. Except of course that she suspected he was teaching Nathan things he must certainly should not be. Or maybe event that hasn't happened yet. I don't know. The worst part of all of this was not having any sort of inside information, anymore. If she could just figure out how far their connection had gone, everything would be alright.
"Would you even want to really know, Victoria? I know Jefferson was a hero of yours." Instead of answering, Victoria simply rephrased her question.
"Is there something you know that I don't?" This came off a little more forceful, a little more standoffish, so Max stalled for a moment as she began to dig several quarters from her pocket and feed them into the machine one at a time. A couple of cokes for each of them would come out to about ten cans, which would be a pain to carry back. She hoped the bag did not rip. Meanwhile, Max finished weighing her options and decided on doses of the truth.
"I think Nathan and Jefferson are working together," she muttered, just loudly enough for Victoria to hear from where she stood only a foot or two away. Actually, the girl was unnaturally close to her.
"Why do you think that, or is it just those news articles you read making you paranoid?"
"The only proof I could offer is stored on a flash drive that isn't mine so I'd have to steal it and it probably wouldn't be enough to convince you, anyway."
"I don't understand why you think he's up to something," she confessed. "Okay, sure, the shit he did in the past was shady, but do you know something. That's all I want to know."
"I'm convinced by what I saw," Max lied. She had not seen anything, at least, not first hand. Unless one counts the text messages, she reminded herself. Okay, maybe she had seen something.
"That's good enough for me," Victoria decided, quite suddenly and then the girl took a step or two back. "I'm being careful like you said to, but I... I'm thinking about letting my parents take me back to Seattle." At this, Max straightened up, passed the remaining quarters to Victoria and pressed the button for the first drink before kneeling down. She wanted time to think but knew that perhaps there had been enough long, drawn out silences during their talk. If a conversation was characterized more by its pauses than anything else, she thought that that was probably a bad sign. After every couple of cans were emitted, Max paused to pull them from the slot and lower them safely into the plastic bag sitting on the floor between her knees.
"I actually get it," Max eventually landed on. "Frankly, if it wasn't for Chloe or Rachel, maybe I'd go back. My parents found out over break somehow and now they're dropping hints for me to leave to get away from him, but my girls are here and I like Blackwell even if I wish it wasn't run by Sean Prescott." At this, Max looked up and received a confused stare in response. I forget that not many people think deep enough about the Prescotts to understand this one thing about the school. Somehow it was hard for her to keep track of the fact that Victoria had not always been a part of their conversations, had not always been part of the bullshit on their shoulders. "Just think about it- how much easier would it be if we could just come out and say what happened, if... if others could?" Max did not want to give Stella's name despite the fact that it was more or less common knowledge, by this point, that Stella was one of those who Nathan had attacked.
"Other people have gone through this too," Victoria mused quietly, a little sadly. Guilt rose in the girl's face, which was rather out of place in Max's experience. "They're staying. Just like you."
"Yeah, they are," Max told her, pausing in their retrieval of drinks to make sure that Victoria ditched this line of thinking immediately. "It's everyone's own choice, but either way this doesn't have to last much longer." For emphasis, Max reached up and slammed the button for another coke. The machine above her spat it out and as Victoria had been doing the entire time, the blonde slipped a few more quarters in.
"What do you mean?" Her voice serious now, Victoria was watching Max quite suddenly as predator to prey. That, too, made Max somewhat uncomfortable.
"I mean I'm going to do something about it before anyone else gets hurt. I'm tired of this."
"What?"
"I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out for months now, but every time I turn around there's this wall in the way: Nathan is from a wealthy, powerful family and no one has any direct evidence of what he does." As soon as she let slip this frustrating problem, they returned to the task at hand. It only took a minute or so more to retrieve the remainder of the drinks and start back toward the picnic table. Max was still tentatively watching the plastic bag like a hawk for signs that it was about to tear open and drop the drinks all over the floor when they reached the front doors of the school and Victoria started the conversation up where they had left off.
"Maybe it's time we get some," Victoria told her. "Physical evidence."
"It's not so easy. It can be... really hard for people to come forward with physical evidence, right?" Max thought of Stella, for instance. With what had happened to Stella, Max wasn't sure she wanted to learn anymore than she already had about it. Max quite worried that if she learned anymore about Stella's experience she might find out that her own attack had been a little more involved than she could remember through the haze of the drugs that had been in her system that night. She swallowed against nothing. "What could be easier to do is make people realize that Nathan is- unwell." Max chose the word carefully when all she wanted to do at the moment was call him every shitty name she'd ever heard and make up a few to boot. "Maybe force him into treatment?"
"How?" That was Victoria for you. She asked the hard questions in the simplest way possible and kept pushing that point if you tried to avoid answering. Max wondered how many times the girl would repeat that question: 'how' if Max chose not to answer. The good news was that she had an answer for Victoria, an idea that she had been chasing around and around her head for some time. The question was more about how effective it would truly be. If Victoria truly had no idea how much at the school revolved around the good will of the Prescotts, then she might not see what the risks with the plan were.
"Honestly, I have a digital copy of Nathan's school file hidden away somewhere. His real one, not the one Wells keeps in his office."
"So?" Stop it, Victoria.
"So," Max said, quietly as she saw that their chosen picnic table was not yet populated with food or people. "So it has its actual record in it. Every fucked up thing he's ever said or done in a class. His actual grades, the time he went ballistic on Eliot, the time he threw a chair at me and hit Hayden instead?"
"I didn't realize that's what that was," Victoria told her, and Max paused as she felt the girl reach out and place a hand on her wrist to stop her in her steps. They stopped only a few feet from the table and from where Max stood she could see Chloe, Rachel and Taylor returning from the parking lot, laden down with plastic bags baring a bright red dragon on the front.
"It was," Max told her, slowly, looking the disturbed girl in the eyes. "Nathan does enough shit that he should have been expelled and forced into treatment a long time ago, but where does Wells get most of the money for the school? Sean Prescott. He's never going to be expelled, not without something serious happening in broad-fucking-daylight." Victoria released her, but she shook her head slowly as she asked Max what her plan was. "Oh, that's the only part of it that's simple: release the file to the local paper, the school paper, nearby news agencies, all of the students, all of the staff, all of the parents. I could include everything I showed you about Jefferson too." At this, Victoria gave a nod and then started again for the table, not speaking.
"If you decide to move back to Seattle," Max told her, feeling a small twinge of anxiety all of the sudden, "give us a heads up, okay?"
"You think I'd actually be missed?" Victoria asked her as the two of them sat down and began distributing drinks across the table, the excess resting in a bag in the center of it. Chloe, Taylor and Rachel reached the table, setting bags down one after another. Almost as soon as the first bag opened, even before a container opened, Max could smell the delicious meal ahead of her. Oh god, I missed this.
"You would, by a lot of people," Max told Victoria, choosing her words carefully to keep Victoria's privacy even as the rest of the table began to key in to the fact that some kind of conversation had been taking place. If the three of them had been talking, they grew silent as they began to distribute food around the table. Victoria was apparently very aware of the fact that they might be listened to, but still opened her mouth and responded to Max in a manner that left Max's cheeks warm for reasons she couldn't understand.
"Does that include you?" Confused and a bit flustered by the girl's tone, Max turned her eyes away from anyone else at the table, even Victoria.
"Yeah," she admitted and then silence fell over the table. For some reason, when Max looked up at the sound of Chloe clearing her throat, she spotted Victoria smiling to herself from a few feet down the bench. Chloe settled into a seat on Max's left and passed her a carryout container that was marked with an abbreviation for Max's food order. After retrieving a plastic fork from the pile, she dug in without saying anything else. The one thing she hated about ordering out was that she was always convinced she was about to break the plastic fork. Especially when digging into a large container full of pork lo mein. After a few seconds, even though Victoria had finished passing the drinks out to the table at large, Max noticed that beside her, Chloe was not eating. She looked up.
Chloe was not eating for the reason that she was staring at Max with a playful grin on her face. What's going on? Max thought, suddenly feeling like the butt of a joke she had never heard the opening lines to. In a manner barely perceptible to Max and thus probably imperceptible to the others, Chloe jerked her head, just slightly, toward Victoria and raised her eyebrows. When Max's only response was to raise one of her own and stare back, slowly chewing her food, Chloe looked a little disappointed. You're not making any sense.
"Sooo," Chloe started, her voice low and quiet, but frankly not quiet enough if she wanted to be sure no one else overheard. "What did you two talk about?" For the moment, Taylor and Victoria were engaged in conversation and Rachel seemed absorbed enough in her pepper chicken to give the two of them some privacy. That was only going to last so long. Then there was the matter of the tone of Chloe's voice, sing-songy. There was something going on that Max thought she should know about and in that moment she wasn't a fan of secrets.
"How she was doing and what we were going to do about Nathan," Max told Chloe once she'd swallowed the bite in her mouth. Her brow did not unfurrow as Chloe gave her one long, searching look and then shrugged. "Why?"
"No reason," Chloe told Max immediately. She had answered awfully fast for someone who pretended to have no real vested interest in the conversation though. The bluenette freed a fork from the bag in the center of the table and as Max popped the tab on her drink, she decided she wasn't letting Chloe off so easily.
"I don't believe you," she told the mechanic.
"That's probably smart," Chloe advised her conspiratorially and then opened her container. At this point, Rachel had caught onto the conversation and was now watching and listening with some open curiosity. Max couldn't see Victoria through Chloe and thought it would look suspicious to lean around her in that moment, but Taylor was still talking, so maybe there was still some privacy at play. "So what do you plan on doing?"
"Let's talk about it later," Max told Chloe, both because she wanted privacy for some of the things she wanted to suggest or ask of Chloe and Rachel and because she thought moving this conversation away from the topic at hand was the real motivation Chloe had for her question. When the girl pretended to pout for a second, Max reached up with her left hand and patted Chloe on the shoulder once, hard. "Hey, see, I can do that now without it hurting. Isn't that awesome?" Rachel snorted and Chloe stuck her tongue out at Max shortly before stuffing a fork full of fried rice into her mouth. "So," Max asked, beginning to feel a little annoyed, "what was it that you thought Victoria and I were talking about?" Apparently, she spoke a little loudly.
"My lips are sealed," Chloe swore through a mouthful of rice. Behind Chloe, Victoria had leaned forward suddenly and was watching the both of them with abnormally wide eyes. Only, she was not staring at Max, she was looking at the back of Chloe's head as if trying to communicate something to the girl. Max's stomach turned and she lowered her fork back into noodles, leaving it there standing straight up as she glared at Chloe. There were secrets being kept and she was getting the feeling they involved her. Not even the look of hybridized fear and aggravation on Victoria's face could keep Max from pushing it.
"If your lips were sealed you wouldn't be driveling rice down your shirt," Rachel teased Chloe from across the table. Max did not even look at her. In that moment, if one wasn't helping Max pull Chloe's teasing secret from her, she wasn't interested. As Chloe swallowed, the girl glanced between Max and Victoria with conflicting looks of smug satisfaction and guilt crossing her face. Looking past Chloe to Victoria, Max matched eyes with the girl once, only to see her turn immediately away, face red. Oh, oh shit. The switch flipped rather quickly in that moment. Max turned her eyes on first Rachel's face and, seeing no help in the girl's curious gaze, looked back at Chloe since Victoria was staring down at her meal as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. Victoria's not into Rachel, is she?
Immediately unsure about exactly what in the hell to do, Max looked down at her food and reached without lifting her head for her coke. Food and drink were safe. After a few seconds of an unnatural silence settling over the table, Max glanced up. Chloe looked guilty, Rachel's eyes were as wide as Victoria's had been moments ago and in that exact same moment, Victoria began to speak to Taylor loudly as if nothing had just happened. Max continued to eat in relative peace and silence, trying to fathom the new information presenting itself. No one confirmed anything. You know nothing, Max Caulfield.
"Got a text," Rachel declared several minutes later. Max lifted her head from her nearly empty container to see Rachel brandishing the phone. A few conversations had taken place around Max which she had missed entirely, so this was not surprising. "I'm off to meet up with Logan, Hayden and Dana. Gotta go pick up the refreshments." As if eager to get away from the table, Rachel stood, grabbed her fork, newly closed food container and then stepped around the table toward Max and Chloe. She kissed first Chloe and then Max on the cheek and when Max thought that the moment was over and Rachel was going to all but dash away from the table in record time, Rachel whispered something directly into her ear.
"You lost the bet," Rachel told her. Max recalled making the bet in question, that Victoria was holding some sort of secret crush on Rachel. She regretted making it, too. Her mouth was full again by the time that Rachel ruffled her hair up, earning a muffled protest and then left to go find the other members of the Vortex Club. Watching her go, Max rather wished she was going with. I really need to relax before tonight and Chloe needs some chill time too, even if I'd rather corner her and give her shit until she spills everything she knows. Max rose to her feet a couple of minutes later and turned to Chloe.
"We should probably get going, we've got some stuff to go over before the party," Max told her. Chloe looked up, confused, from where she sat with a spoon still in her mouth. It was a cute enough gesture that Max might have laughed under normal circumstances. She did not, then and there.
"Max," Victoria called. Max shot her head around to look at the girl a little more quickly than she intended and heard it pop a bit. "I hope we can meet up before the party." Max nodded her agreement but had some difficulty with meeting Victoria's eyes. The truth was that part of her was a little annoyed that this had come up now of all times. Chloe's in trouble. As for the 'stuff' they had to go over before the party, that stuff mostly involved Chloe Price in her arms as they cuddled up for a nap while Rachel was off getting the beer.