Mixing Paints

S E V E N

The beautiful Adonis Bosso as Max Barker

L U N A

Day after day had gone by and still no sign of Mick. It was already half way through the week and not even a single stop by at the diner or even a meet up for a study session.

"Did you see Mick in Math today?" I questioned Dani as she stuffed her mouth with spaghetti. I stared at her wondering how anybody could eat spaghetti without covering their cheeks in sauce.

"Nope," she shrugged her shoulders.

I chewed on my lip more as I anxiously tapped my fingers on the table.

You know that feeling when your mom takes long to fetch you from school and your brain falls into a deep hole of worst case scenarios like that she might have gotten into a car crash or was abducted?

Take that thought, multiply it by 10 and that's how I was currently feeling.

"You've been tapping at the table for so long now you probably have calluses," she squinted down at my shaky hands. "What's wrong?"

I ran my hand through my head of curls in frustration. "I'm just worried about Mick. He hasn't been at school and has missed all of our tutouring lessons."

"People ditch school all the time," she reminded me.

When I explained the problem out loud it sound silly, which it probably was, but I couldn't stop the uneasy feeling in my stomach.

"Look, if you're so worried about Animal Boy then go talk to his best friend, Max," she nodded her head in his direction. I singled out the tall dark-skinned boy with the septum ring and constant scowl on his face. The only time he ever seemed to smile was when he'd discuss his theories about the illuminati and the end of the world.

"The guy will bite my head off if I even breathe around him," I joked, only partially. The thought of speaking to Max made the lunch I just ate want to hurl back up, he imitated people twice his size. "He hates everyone except Mick."

"Fine, I'll go by myself." Before I could stop her she was confidently strutting towards him, while still holding her plate of spaghetti because heaven knows Dani can't let her food go for one second. I immediately ran after her before she caused the conspiracy theorist to presume that we wanted to know for some part of our evil alien mission.

"Hey there Max, how's it going?" she greeted in her unintentionally flirtatious voice.

In his cool uninterested way, he glared down at us. "Great until about two seconds ago."

The smile on Dani's face remained, nothing could make it falter. "Well Luna's day hasn't been going too good-"

"Aww," he cooed in fake sympathy. "That sounds like a you problem, therefore I don't care." He pulled out his pack of cigarettes to draw one out, as if to show us that the only way he'd be able to get through this painful conversation would be through smoking a cigarette.

A part of me wanted to tell him he couldn't smoke on school grounds, even if it's outside but I chose the safer option by keeping my mouth shut about it.

"It's actually an us problem because it's about your friend, Mick," I explained, the second I mentioned his name he shot an annoyed look at me. "He hasn't been at school or any of our study sessions, so I was wondering what was wrong..."

A deep laugh erupted from his mouth, there was no humour in it though. "You were wondering because you two are study buddies now so you're suddenly the closest of friends, how cute," He gushed sarcastically before he crouched down to my height. "How about you take your little crush someplace else and stop snooping in Mick's personal life. He needs a tutor, not a girlfriend." He rolled his eyes before inhaling more from his cigarette and throwing the butt on the floor.

* * *

Yikes, well Max is a bit of  a jerk huh? 

I guess we have to wait and figure out why..

-Monique xx