Six Things Before Breakfast

15

Maxon doesn't move things higher up the shelves anymore. He still teases Becks. A lot. Calls her ugly. But he's not as touchy, as affectionate, as I-see-her-as-a-little-sister as before.

And Becks...Becks doesn't mind. Her room is cluttered with her boxing equipment, she steps out in the hallway in her neon joggers and with drool on her cheek, and...and she still looks at Maxon when he laughs. Just not as much as before.

Maxon runs with Sanders TTH mornings.

"Are you telling me Cal has been losing on purpose to me?" he screeches, pushing Sanders's shoulder. "What? So I'm not as good as I think I am? She can beat me?"

Sanders grins. Keeps running. "She can beat me. Not often, but. She can. Dude, come on. Becks is a sore loser. How dense were you?"

"I don't know, I was dense about a lot of things!" Maxon says, scrunching his eyebrows together. "I'm asking for a rematch. And no way is she losing on purpose."

So they do. Becks wins. Hands over the controller to Sanders and raises an eyebrow. "Can we get food now, please?"

Maxon is sulking on the couch. "I can't believe you've been holding out on me this entire time, Cal. I hate you."

"No, you don't," she answers lightly, shrugging, and Sanders can't believe her hair isn't straightened and she's wearing his shirt and she just crushed Maxon in a game, and she's asking him to go with her to get some food. Him. Not Maxon. Sanders. "Sanders?"

"Yes, yeah." He clears his throat and grabs his keys off the counter. "We're getting food. Text us what you want, dude."

"Fine," the soccer player grumbles.

Becks laughs. It fills Sanders's ears.

*

"You're not allowed to come home yet."

"Let me guess. You killed Lucianna's dog."

"No!" Becks huffs incredulously over the other line, and Sanders just knows she's rolling her eyes. "It was one time I tried to feed her grapes, okay? She was looking at me with her cute puppy eyes and I couldn't say no. How was I supposed to know they're poisonous?"

Sanders grins, pressing the phone in between his ear and shoulder as he ties up his shoelaces. "You sent her to the emergency room. And I had to chip in to pay for the fees. We were almost homeless. Homeless, Becks."

"I paid you back," Becks grumbles. "And please, don't be so dramatic, we were almost homeless countless times."

"True," Sanders agrees. "Which is probably not good for our track record with our landlady. I still think she finds me cute."

"Cut it out with that cute bullshit. Anyway. Not what I was going to say. Don't come home yet, you're not allowed to."

Sanders stands straight and puts down his foot from the bench. "Last I checked, my name was on still on the contract, and I still live with you and with dear Maxon Finlay. So why not?"

Becks is silent for a moment.

Rosen looks at him, raising an eyebrow, jutting out a thumb towards the exit of the courts. Sanders ignores his impatient ass and looks at his screen, wondering if she hung up on him, but she didn't, she's still on the call, and Sanders puts the phone back to his ear and asks, "Becks?"

"You forgot."

Sanders's brain freezes at those two words.

Oh, no. Oh, oh, no. What did he forget?