Never Saw This Coming

Fine.

Maddy

"Five letter word."

"Cake."

"That's four."

"Oh. Orange."

"That's six."

"Damn it. Pants."

"Uh-Uh. Nothing plural."

"What the fuck?"

"That's the rules."

"Juice."

"Finally," I roll my eyes. Novalee, Max, and I all lay on her bed, which is bigger than a regular twin bed since she resides in her dorm room alone. We lay compacted, even then, all staring up at the ceiling as we play the stupidest game. Then again, Max might be the stupid one for not being able to think of a five-letter word. "Okay, Maddy. Eight letter word, go," Nova is the one instructing us.

"November," I say quickly. "My birthday month," Max says. Of course, my best friend has to be a fucking Scorpio. We're compatible. As friends. "Chris' birthday month too," Nova says. I turn to Max and he turns to me. We both roll our eyes at Nova. I'm jealous of her, I don't know about Max. "Speaking of Chris, where is he? I'm hungry," Max groans. Nova picks up her phone and looks at her texts.

She frowns. "He said he was ten minutes away, fifteen minutes ago." Max sighs and sits on the bed. I have a clear view of Nova now as she types away quickly on her phone. "He probably got stuck in traffic," I tell her. She nods her head and locks her phone setting it down on her chest again.

Max lays back down. "Which girl is prettier?" he asks. He shows us a picture of a girl on his phone. A pretty blonde with green eyes. "Her or," he swipes right in his camera roll "or her?" This girl is another blonde, brown eyes. "They're both pretty," Nova says. "Why?" I ask. "Just need some opinions," he shrugs his huge shoulders. "Second girl," I say honestly. I think they're both pretty but the second one looks more like Max's type. I know we probably just chose who he's going to hook up with next.

A knock at the door catches all of our attention. Nova gets up quickly and jogs towards the door. Max and I both sit up on the bed. "Sorry I took long, I took a quick detour to my house. Cgc needed my suitcase and couldn't fucking find it," Valdez shakes his head and sets the bags of food on Nova's vanity. Cgc's going to New Orleans for a couple of days per his father's request. We're not on vacation or anything but he kissed his professor's ass to let him miss for a couple of days. He told Max and me about it yesterday, not many details.

He starts taking out the food we ordered and hands it to each of us. "California rolls, baby," I say, removing the top from my plate. Valdez throws me a container full of soy sauce and I catch it easily. Nova and him both eat at her vanity while Max and I take over the bed. "How's work going without my girl, Maddy?" Valdez smirks, picking up one of his rolls. I roll my eyes, swallowing the food in my mouth before speaking. Nova quit last week and apologized heavily for it. I obviously don't care.

I knew she was as miserable as she looked. Even though I still hate working, I've gotten used to it already and have made friends with a couple of my other co-workers. After a couple of weeks, Nova and I wouldn't really get that many shifts together so it kind of sucked anyway. "Work is shitty in general. But it's not completely terrible," I say in no regard to the fact that my best friend isn't working there anymore. "Sorry, I just got so busy since I'm learning my scripts already," Nov apologizes for the umpteenth time. "I know, it's fine, really," I say firmly.

She nods quickly and continues eating. "Bro, did you know Xander is smashing Keyla Sanchez?" Max says. I immediately choke on pieces of rice from my California roll. I cough loudly, catching everyone's attention. Max pats my back as I try and stop myself from coughing by drinking water. What the fuck did he just say? "You good, Mads?" Max says, patting my back. I nod my head but don't say anything as I'm still getting myself put together again.