The Start of Me and You (24 page)

“I’m not lying.”

“You
think
you’re not lying.” He tapped his forehead knowingly. “But you’re lying to yourself.”

“Sorry to break it to you on your birthday,” I said, “but you’re not my type.”

“Oh?” He grinned, raising his eyebrows. “You have a type now?”

I shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Yeah.” He thought for a moment. “Your type is nerd.”

“Maybe
your
type is nerd.”

“Oh, it absolutely is.”

My eyebrows pulled together, thinking of Nicolette from Coventry—pretty and smart, with a kind of avant-garde cool I envied. “Nicolette doesn’t really seem like a nerd.”

“She is. But maybe not nerdy enough. Maybe that’s why it didn’t work out.”

“Alas, I’m not your type either, I guess.” I meant this to sound overdramatized, like it was all a big joke to me. But Max looked smug—like he was smirking
at
me.

“You’re very defensive about this,” he observed, leaning
a little closer to me. “So, you’re telling me that if it weren’t for the ‘ruining-our-friendship’ issue, you would never, ever want to be in here with me?”

“Um. Pretty much.” I believed this as I said it, though it pained me to be unkind to someone who had become such a good friend. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Janie,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “You’re in denial.”

“Okay, Max,” I said sarcastically.

He stepped closer to me, so that his body was nearly up against mine. Before I could react, he put one hand around my waist and his other behind my neck. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t pause. He tilted my head up toward him, his thumb on my chin. Oh God, he was seriously going to kiss me. And in that moment, I seriously wanted him to kiss me. My heart gave a surge like a confetti cannon, so loud that I was sure he must have heard it as his lips moved toward mine. My eyes closed instinctively.

“Denial,” he whispered, close to my mouth. He backed away immediately, moving a few steps from me. I opened my eyes instantly, and he grinned like this was a hilarious joke. It stopped being funny to me, as jokes often do when they wind up being true. My brain tried to recover while my body tried to melt into a puddle on the floor. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Max Watson had moves. Moves that worked.

He was giddy with laughter, head tilted back. “Oh my God, I freaked you out so badly. Wow, Janie. Your face. Total panic.”

I exhaled and placed my hands on my hips. He misread my reaction completely, to my relief. “Seriously. God, Max.”

“Okay,” he said, still oblivious. “I have a plan.”

“For what?” My hand found a shelf ledge, and I steadied myself against it.

“Our audience.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Okay …”

He reached his arms over toward me again, only this time he ruffled my hair.

“Hey!” I cried, swatting him off before he could mess up my bangs.

But Max was now mussing his own hair, beyond even its normal mussed state.

“Ten!” voices called from the outside. “Nine!”

I looked over at Max and grinned slyly. I undid the top button of my shirt.

“Good thinking,” he said.

The countdown continued, a mounting chant. “Six! Five!”

Max undid his belt so that both ends swayed against his jeans.

“Two! One!”

The door flew open, and I pretended to look panicked. I
rebuttoned my shirt, and I heard Max’s belt jangling as he redid the buckle.

We were met with hoots and laughter. We walked out of the room feigning sheepishness, and I attempted to fix my hair.

“You all think you’re so funny.” Morgan shook her head.

Max gave her a wily smile. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You guys are dorks,” Kayleigh added, laughing.

We sat back down in the circle, where Max was met with a slap on the back from Tyler.

“I knew you had it in you, cuz,” Ryan called from the other side of the circle.

“Oh, please,” Morgan said. “Nothing happened.”

Everyone knew that already, of course, and the game died off in favor of video games. But while I was still breathing, and participating in the conversation, I felt stunned. The movement of the room seemed to slow down around me as I replayed what had just happened. I could barely look at Max, who was laughing, his disheveled hair falling in his face. I doubted that he actually liked me because, if he did, the moves he pulled would have been pretty gutsy. Plus, he seemed to be joking around. But I couldn’t undo it now, the feeling of his hand on my waist and the way my heart had bungeed to the floor and back.

Ryan was more of an idea in my mind, and Max was a person—my person. Sure, I daydreamed about Ryan,
imagined being his girlfriend and what that would be like. But it was Max who remembered everything I ever told him, Max who looked perpetually delighted when I made him laugh, Max who watched me from the driver’s seat as we talked, hour after hour in his car. I could pick up the sound of his laugh in the busiest hallway. When had I learned him so completely? His rolled shirtsleeves and his jaunty walk and the way he chewed at his thumbnail when something was really perplexing him. It all played like a montage in my mind; Max by my side all these months.

I had seen myself reflected back in his glasses a hundred times—my own face smiling, interested, at ease in his presence. How had I not seen
him
?

Maybe my feelings for Max had been there the whole time, obscured by the rubble of the Ryan Chase crush that I’d somehow outgrown. I’d been focused on rebuilding with the debris of my former life when instead I should have been clearing myself a path out. And that path led straight to Max.

For the rest of the night, I found myself watching Max, his smiles and reactions and the way his face was illuminated when he leaned forward to blow out the candles on his cake. He looked flushed with excitement, his friends’ voices echoing against the walls in a sugar-fueled rendition of “Happy Birthday.” He laughed heartily as he made out the
Firefly
ship in icing form, and he glanced up at Ryan
and me. My lips formed a smile as we launched into the final verse of the song.

“Make a wish!” Morgan said as Max took a deep breath.

The flames sizzled out.

“What did you wish for?” Kayleigh teased.

Through the trails of candle smoke, I searched his face for tells, for any sign of what Max Watson’s wish would be. He didn’t give Kayleigh an answer, or even look at her, but his mouth turned up into a content smile. And in that moment, I found myself hoping that he had wished for me.

Chapter Eighteen

In the weeks that followed, I wasn’t sure how to act around Max. Sentences tied themselves into knots in my brain, and I kept stuttering when I spoke to him. We watched
Indiana Jones
at his house—and … fine, it was awesome—but my heart beat double time for two straight hours. Even when his mom sat down with us to watch the end.

He cashed in the
Firefly
marathon I’d promised him, and Tessa watched it with us out of genuine interest. We were all parked on the couch at Max’s house when we heard a voice.

“Hey, hey,” someone said from the door leading in from the garage. Ryan walked in, looking relaxed and purposeful until he saw Tessa and me. With
Firefly
still blaring on the TV.

“Oh, hey ladies,” he said. His eyes found the TV. “Okay,
what
is happening here?”

“Sci-fi education at its finest,” Max said. I had to admit—the show’s world-building was impressive, with well-drawn characters and masterful banter.

“Oh my God,” Ryan said, his gaze moving between me and Tessa. “Are you being held here against your will? Blink twice if you’re hostages.”

Ryan nodded off in a recliner as we continued our marathon. After three episodes, Max paused the show and turned to me. “Okay. Early verdict from the TV buff.”

“Well,” I said. “It has scrappy underdogs, a large-scale setting, subtle character moments, and great pithy humor.”

“In other words,” Max said, “you
love
it.
Firefly
is your
life
now.”

I threw a pillow at him as Tessa laughed. “Just hit Play.”

As the days wore on, I spun possible scenarios in my mind, time and time again, when I was lying in bed at night or daydreaming in class. But I knew the truth deep down in my gut: I couldn’t do a thing about it, even though I suspected he might feel the same. Max was just so intimidatingly real. I already knew him better than I’d ever known Aaron. If we did go out, there wouldn’t be any hesitant, getting-to-know-you dates. He’d seen me upset, seen me in sweatpants during the weekends. He already knew so many of my secrets. So us together? It would be intense immediately. Serious, even.

Still, I edited my plan for the third time:
3. Date (
RC
).

The whole idea seemed silly and shallow now. I’d liked Ryan the way I liked fashion magazine editorials—girls in full skirts, with doe legs and tall heels—the ones that make you think:
How beautiful
.
I wish that could be my life
. Ryan Chase was my eighth-grade collage, aspirational and wide-eyed. But Max was the first bite of grilled cheese on a snowy day, the easy fit of my favorite jeans, that one old song that made it onto every playlist. Peanut-butter Girl Scout cookies instead of an ornate cake. Not glamorous or idealized or complicated. Just me.

Besides, Max had never given me any concrete reason to think we were more than friends. Maybe that’s all I was to him, and I was extrapolating us into totally fictional territory. I read into every comment, every glance, every paper airplane note in class. I honestly couldn’t remember what I thought about before I met Max Watson.

“So,” Max said. We were walking down the hall together after school, heading to his car for an away QuizBowl match. “Tessa and I are getting tickets for another concert at the Carmichael. It’s not till June, but I think you’d really like the band. I mean, if you’re not at NYU, which I still think you will be.”

“I’d have to ask Tessa,” I said. “She’s particular about who can go to concerts with her. She hates when the other person isn’t as into the music—says it distracts her. The Carmichael is like her fort, and I’m not always allowed.”

“I could get you in with her,” he said, with a half-joking confidence. “I know the secret knock.”

I turned my head to grin at him, but I was distracted by the sound of plastic hitting the floor by my left foot—a pen with a chewed-up cap.

“Hey,” I said to the guy in front of me, shuddering as I picked up the mangled pen. “You dropped this.”

The boy turned around. It was Stoner Josh in a baggy black sweatshirt, blinking at me with bloodshot eyes.

“
Whew
,” he said, taking the pen from me. “That’s my only one. Thanks, Grammar Girl.”

“Hey,” Max snapped, turning toward Josh. “Her name is not Grammar Girl.”

My face flushed, caught between embarrassment and affection. Max looked down at Josh, who was clearly startled by the confrontation.

“Uh,” he said, glancing over at me before he took off down the hall. “Sorry.”

“Her name is Janie,” Max called after him. “JAY-NEE.”

“Thanks, Janie!” Stoner Josh said over his shoulder.

“I hate you,” I muttered to Max.

“Sure you do.”

I crossed my arms. He stood there, a few steps ahead of me, waiting for me to catch up. I weighed it in my mind for the thousandth time: the fluttering in my chest versus the shattering possibility of destroying our friendship.

And even though I rolled my eyes, I made my way toward him.

“This was actually good,” Cameron proclaimed, scraping at her plate. “I’m stuffed.”

“
Grazie
,” my dad said, affecting a heavy Italian accent as he took a bow. As usual, he was already hunched over the sink, scrubbing dishes.

I shook my head at his dramatics, savoring the last bite of his chicken tetrazzini.

“Why didn’t Mom come over?” Cameron bit into another bread stick, apparently not as stuffed as she claimed.

“Can’t I still have an evening with just my girls sometimes?” he asked.

“Of course you can,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” Cameron said. “I’m, like, used to you being over there most of the time. It seems weird to come here without her.”

“Well,” he said. “Some alone time is good for her.”

There was a pause as I handed off my plate to my dad. I dropped my silverware into the dishwasher.

“So, like,” Cameron said through a mouthful of bread stick. “Do you think you and her will get married again?”

I cringed at both her pronoun usage and her bluntness.

“Cameron!” I said, shooting her the most contemptuous look in my repertoire.

“What?” She sneered at me. “It’s a legitimate question.”

I did appreciate the four-syllable word, rare as it was for her.

“Dad, you don’t have to answer that,” I said, making my way back to the table to clear the glasses. I swatted my sister’s arm as I walked by. I didn’t want my dad to feel on the spot, but more important, I wasn’t ready to hear his answer.