"Max!" I exclaimed, fighting to suppress the grin that threatened to inch at the corners of my mouth. "Hskjuge, isn't a word. You know, you might be one of the worst people I've ever played scrabble with and that's saying a lot, because I've played this game with Josh before and he's probably the worst speller I know."
After the party last Friday (now being Monday) Max had insisted he kept me company for the remaining days in winter break. Once telling him on Saturday morning that Trevor O'Connor's hand was the one that caused the mark on my cheek, I had somehow persuaded Max to refrain from doing anything stupid. He instead decided to contact his coach, demanding for a rain check on Trevor's recent behaviour. Long story short, turns out the blond boy who had hit me was high on some foreign drug that night and was kicked off the team yesterday morning. And that's how I ended up in Max's living room playing a game of scrabble.
"This game isn't fair!" He protested with a crease in between his eyebrows as he stared down at our current scrabble game with narrowed eyes. After swim practice ended this meaning, Max insisted on doing something with me and due to the current rain outside, I suggested scrabble. After I won by a solid forty points twice in a row, the brunette had demanded we played a third round. Only I was in the lead now by fifteen points.
"Please, Mr Elliot, do explain to me the unfairness of this situation," I pressed, staring at him with an amused expression because there was obviously nothing inequitable about me being a better Scrabble player than he was.
He leaned back against his living room couch, folded his arms across his chest and let out a huff of annoyance. "I don't want to play this game anymore."
I refrained from laughing at his childishness because I knew too well that Max was getting bored, therefore he wasn't thinking. Due to his competitive nature and my stubborn personality, games often didn't work out between the two of us. Max Elliot would do anything to win and I would do anything to be right.
"Alright big guy," I gave him a light shove and laughed, "how about we do something else?"
I came over and sat next to him, my back pressed against the edge of his couch for support. He immediately turned to face me, the familiar look of pure curiosity taking over his facial expressions. Despite the oddity to his deep look of confusion—the furrow in his eyebrows and the frown etched upon his lips—I was beginning to grown accustomed to his constant thinking. Max had always been the one to hold the answers and because of it, I never felt obligated to probe into anything because I knew too well that he would be able to offer me the information I needed. Except for the past couple of months I've noticed the fact that there was something pestering my best friend's mind—something he was incapable of figuring out and I was fairly sure it held some relation towards me, because I only saw his oblivious state of mind when he studied my stance.
"We could try and bake cookies?" I offered, stretching my legs out in front of me as I let a small laugh escape my mouth. "Maybe I could teach you how to cook something without burning down the house."
The boy flashed me a small, faraway smile that somehow made a sudden warmth and comfort filter through my body. "Yeah I'm in. Well, as long as you don't try and put the potential fire out with a broom because as we've seen before, that doesn't work out so well for you."
Nodding my head in confirmation with a light laugh, I stood up from my position on the floor. "Let's go make cookies!"
YOU ARE READING
The Bus Stop
Teen Fiction'Except it meant Max's life crashed with mine and it was as If the sun faded and the night never left. It was a dark tunnel with no light at the end of it because everywhere Max went, darkness followed.' Clara Anderson and Max Elliot were acquainta...
