Perfect with You

Chapter 25 - Another Story

"But I saw him. I've- goddammit, I've seen him twice now" Max's voice shook along with her hands on the steering wheel, nearly forgetting to turn to the left as Ted had instructed.

"It couldn't have been his brother though" Leaning back in his seat, Ted shrugged before loosening the seatbelt on his chest.

"How the fuck do you know?!" The exclaim came out louder than she intended, immediately sensing the mistaken hostility in her voice, which both Ted and Jo reacted to. Ted shied a little away while looking puzzled as a dog getting yelled at without knowing its wrongdoings, Jo was, however, more upfront and pulled herself closer to Max with a dissatisfied expression on her face.

"Don't talk to him like that!" She replied defensively, her vocal pitch sinking.
"He's trying to help, so bag up your bitchy attitude"

Max instantly felt like a kid being scolded by a grown up and her first instinctive response was to yell back, but she clenched her body instead and bit down on her bottom lip as Jo leaned back in her seat while looking at Ted who was slowly curling into a ball. The silence that followed was painful, closing in around Max as she slowed down the car with a sinking feeling of shame and watched Jo in the rear-view mirror seeing her brush her black hair away from her blue eyes.

Max sighed and loosened her body, "I'm sorry" she apologized, being unable to stand the tension.
"Ted, I'm just confused. I've seen Ethan's brother twice now, so can you please tell me how you know that Ethan doesn't actually have a brother?"

Creating a few shuffling noises as Ted shifted on his seat while sweeping his long orange hair behind his back.
"It's because... well, I've done some info scrapping on Ethan and it was pretty easy to find out that he is an only child. Other than that, the man you said was Ethan's brother, the one at the mall, got arrested after the attack and the police revealed his name as being 'Nicholas Belardinelli' with Ethan's surname being Kestal" Ted informed Max quite marvelously, somewhat bewildering Max to get a read on his personality, given that he showed astounding bravery when he defended Max at the bar, but somehow still acting jumpy and confused.

He did mention he was high when he met Chloe, so maybe that's what's up with his weird behavioral changes. Jo reacted quite defensively, though, so maybe he's unstable?

The thought concerned Max to an extent, but given the situation, she decided to brush it off and focused on the salient question.
"So the attack has been on the news?"

"If they can call it a terrorist attack, then it will be the headline of anything related to news" Ted made a fair point and it should have been something Max should have thought about earlier as her thoughts went off the grid once more, wondering if she and Chloe had been identified, given the amount of witnesses that saw them.
"Not only that, but it's becoming a popular subject on TTF. At least among those who live in Idaho"

Again, Ted forced Max to ask an unenlightened question, bringing her ignorance into the light.
"What's TTF?" She asked through a breath, trying to randomly guess the acronym, but all she could think of was 'Timber Trade Federation' which was probably far off.

Instead of answering, Ted snapped his fingers and pointed at Jo, who quickly replied, "Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook" as if this was not the first time he had used that acronym in the presence of Jo.

"Ah," Max nodded derisively, not feeling so ignorant for not knowing the answer to that one.
"That's smart," she said with a forced voice.

"It's convenient, is what it is" Ted seemed oddly proud of his made up acronym as he looked for appreciation in all the corners of the car, but all Max could give him was a low-spirited smile, while Jo went for the casual thumbs up without even looking at him.