Daisies || Max Mayfield

18: Code Red

"Max wants to know if you want to sleep over at her house tonight," Steve said, returning to the car. He had just hung up the payphone he was using to check in with her.

"Oh."

"I can bring you to her's." He added. "And I'll find somewhere to park for the night."

"Don't you have any friend's houses to crash at?" I asked.

"Nope."

"I thought you didn't like her brother?"

"He's out tonight."

"Alright." I nodded. "Uhh, yeah I guess I should go to Max's then."

"Good choice."

Thankfully, I was able to change my shirt at Dustin's, so I wasn't completely covered in blood when I met Max at her house. Steve left me in the driveway, with my backpack of spare clothes, and a toothbrush.

"You came!" Max exclaimed, laughing from the porch.

"Yeah," I muttered, walking up the sidewalk path. "Hi."

"Hi." She smiled. "We can just go right to my room-"

"Okay." I followed her inside, glancing around the house. It was small, with an icky-colored yellow wall, and furniture that definitely didn't match the rest of it. There was a massive bench press in the middle of the room, and cigarette butts all over the carpet.

"I'm sorry I didn't really have much time to clean-" She said.

"It's cleaner than my house-" I paused. "My dad's house."

She nodded, opening a door to a small, cleaner room. There were a few broken skateboard decks hanging on the wall, and a single set of trucks on her bed, next to a new-looking deck. She also had a screwdriver and wrench resting next to it.

"This is my room." She explained. "I know it's not much, but you said you didn't have anywhere to sleep last night so I thought you could try and get a good night's rest on an actual mattress, so..."

"Oh." I set my bag in the corner, next to hers. "Thanks."

She smiled. "Yeah, my parents are gone on a trip for the week, and my brother went on a date tonight, so he won't bother us."

"Cool." I followed her, and took a seat on her bed.

"And, we can order a pizza." She smiled.

"Pizza's good." 

"So," She started. "What shows do you like to watch?"

I shrugged. "I only ever saw VHS at my step mom's in New York."

"Oh. Cool." She grinned, then walked over to her closet. "I have a collection I started in California-"

I must've looked like I'd fallen in love with all the movies she had. Three shelves, of just the movies all stacked horribly in the boxes. Three full shelves.

"Holy shit." I laughed, scanning the covers.

"What do you like?"

"Hmm." I read the covers on the shelf until I came across an interesting one. "Why do you have an r rated movie?"

"Which one?"

I held up Fast Times next to her.

"Oh, yeah, that's a good one. It's only r because it has boobs in it." She muttered. "And I think we've both seen boobs, so it's fine."

I paused, holding the movie in my hands. What did she mean by that?

"Wanna watch it?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever seen it?"

I shook my head, following her to the television in the living room.

Yes, watching that scene with Max was very awkward. When I glanced at Max during that, she was looking at everything except the screen, her face redder than her hair. Then she glanced at me, while I was glancing at her, and we both laughed.

"This is awkward," I said.

"It's fine, it's just boobs." She muttered, refusing to look at the screen. "It's not like it's zoomed in on a dick, you know?"

I nodded. I saw something like that while I was flipping through channels once, and it traumatized me. I still can't get it out of my mind.

But seeing girls naked, I don't care. It's normal. I'm a girl, I've seen myself naked. So why be embarrassed when there's another one? But you're not supposed to think like that, so I don't.

An hour later, we ordered a pizza, ate it, and went to sleep. She let me sleep on her bed, and she took the couch. That was really nice.

When I woke up, it was thanks to the phone ringing a ton of times. I heard Max grumbling something, then her footsteps faded into the kitchen and she answered the phone.

She came back to her room, knocking before opening the door.

"Lucas says it's a code red." She explained, walking to her dresser. "I know we just woke up, but he's never called a code red. It sounded important."

"Oh." I sat up, pulling the covers off of me. It was nice, actually sleeping in a bed for the first time in three days. "Okay."

"Sorry." 

"Finally!" Lucas exclaimed when we stopped in front of his house. I didn't bring my roller skates, so we walked. Max brought her skateboard though, one she'd fixed up before we left. "We need to go!"

"Go where?" I asked. He had his bike in his hands.

"Junkyard. Dustin kept shouting about a code red." He explained. "Where are your roller skates?"

"I didn't bring them."

"Then how are you supposed to get anywhere?"

"We're going somewhere?" 

"Just, take Erica's bike or something," Max suggested. "Can you bike?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"She's gonna kill me if I let you take it." Lucas groaned.

"I can drive," I suggested. "Kind of."

"Just ride on the back," Lucas muttered.

"Okay."

After walking through the woods for a while, we came over a sunny hill, facing a small flat part. It had an old bus, and a few cars, with a ton of scrap metal and wood. 

Two figures were dumping buckets of something on the ground. Dustin, and Steve. Steve?

"Hello?" I asked.

Both turned around and stared at us. 

"Hi!" Dustin waved his arm in a big circle, so we could see it.

"Hi!" Lucas replied.

I glanced at Max. She was smiling. Her freckles were faded in the bright light, but there was a little redness on her cheeks. Must have been the cold air.

"Well, what're you shitheads waiting for?" Steve shouted. "Come on, help us!"