Cause for Concern ✓

thirty four

NOTE: I am so sorry this is late!! Life happened and it took a few more days than expected for the chapter to be ready!! I hope it doesn't read as rushed and I hope it meets your expectations!! Thanks lovelies, enjoy <3

SATURDAY. 01. JANUARY. 22. (UNEDITED!)

MAX could still taste Cole on his lips when he sat down besides Freya on Nick's front porch, watching the fireworks that glittered into the black sky; golds, and reds, and oranges fizzling out before their eyes. Colours spangled across the sky; small, artificial stars burning vibrantly, light coruscating like the heat trailing along Max's skin.

His skin was flushed with warmth and his lungs were suffocated, his breath pulsing like the explosive beats of the music that blared through the house. He ruffled his hair, revelling in the cool breeze that ran through it, soothing his heated face and refreshing his damp hair.

"Hey," Freya murmured, pulling Carter's jacket tighter around her shoulders and knocking her knee gently against his own.

A small pool of white smoke blew out between her slightly chapped pink lips and disappeared into the air, her face illuminated by the light pouring out of the house; a visible shadow. Her hair was tangled now, falling messily over her shoulders and stuffed in the collar of Carter's jacket, and her dainty fingers, adorned with graceful silver rings and her knuckles red raw, grasped the plush black material.

"Hey," Max replied, watching shadows of stumbling teenagers pass behind her, their feet catching on the porch stairs as they descended clumsily onto the lawn, desperately grasping each other and pulling themselves along in a mess of limbs.

"Everything okay?" She asked, faint black marks colouring the ivory skin beneath her bright, tired eyes.

"Yeah," he nodded, shuffling closer towards her until they were shoulder-to-shoulder his jeans pressed against her slender, milky legs. "Ava didn't know where you were so I thought I'd come look for you, make sure you were alright."

"I'm alright," she nodded back, ghosts of vibrancy glinting in her eyes and her thin lips tugging into a half smile. "Did you get your New Years kiss?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, arms folded over his knees. A small smile escaping his control, he glanced down at his lap as his lips blossomed, tilting his head upwards towards the sky and watching blues and greens splatter across the black canvas at the next BANG. "I have no idea where he is now though."

"I don't know where anyone is," she shrugged, huffing and swiftly tugging a fallen strand of hair behind her pink ear. "Gave up looking and came out here instead. Do you know what time it is?"

"Two forty-seven," he replied, clicking his phone on. The light of his lock screen flashed across his face and he clicked the phone back off, shuffling it back into his jacket pocket; it didn't have a lot of charge left in it and he wasn't planning on leaving just yet. "You look tired."

"I'm exhausted," she admitted with a small, strained smile. "I haven't had a drink in over an hour probably. How you feeling?"

He held his hand out flat in front of her, tendons tight like piano strings against the pinkish flesh, and waved it from side-to-side. "Alright," he told her. "I've only had a few drinks but I'm not ready to go home yet."

Before he'd even bounced out of his mom's and into Cole's car hours and hours before, he'd known that he wasn't going to get as wasted tonight as everybody else seemed to want to get. It was kind of nice that Freya was in the same boat that he was in, rocking gently along lullaby waves instead of thrashing wildly in an ocean storm like everyone inside of the house.