Chapter Text
“And what about the Zoey who sang “I’m Yours” to me?” Max asked with raised eyebrows.
He looked so hopeful, it made Zoey’s chest feel tight. Of course, Zoey was excited for Max; this promotion was a huge opportunity. When Joan had made everyone on their team interview for the team lead spot, Max had been nothing but supportive for Zoey.
How could she not show him the same support?
And yet, she knew she’d miss him. He made her days brighter. When no one else in the office was on her side, Max always was. And with movie nights temporarily on hiatus, she’d never see him if he worked on a different floor.
Icey cold dread washed over her with that thought.
But she didn’t feel it was fair to tell him to stay. Not only would it be denying him an amazing career move, it would also be giving him the wrong signals. Zoey wasn’t ready for anything to happen between them. She couldn’t look at his hopeful face anymore.
Looking down at her lap, she sighed before admitting, “She’s… gonna miss sitting across from you every day.”
Looking back up, Zoey realized the pain in Max’s almost smile. Her words were hurting him. Her words always hurt him. And she hated herself for it.
“But,” Zoey continued in an attempt to soothe his hurt, “you are way too important to her. She’d never stop you from going after what you want. Even if-”
Zoey trailed off, glancing down at her lap once more. In an attempt to replace that sad look with his usual carefree smile, she had talked her way into a corner.
“Even if?” Max prompted, his voice almost a whisper.
The space between them was charged. The time for backing out of serious conversations with Max about her emotions had ended when she sang to him. He deserved to hear how the sentence ended. He deserved to hear how she really felt.
She might not be ready to take the leap with him, but Zoey could no longer deny that she had feelings for Max.
Zoey’s eyes flicked upwards to meet Max’s wide, soulful gaze. Hope was back, this time in tenfold. He was leaning forward slightly, hanging on her every word.
She could barely whisper, “Even if she wants nothing more than for you to stay. Here. With her.”
Max rocked backwards on his heels. It reminded Zoey of old Saturday morning cartoons, like she was literally blowing him away with her words. She fought back a smile.
Max, on the other hand, didn’t. He grinned, starring just over her head in thought. After a moment, his hand came up to rub his chin. This time, Zoey couldn’t stop the smile at his goofy, cliché actions.
“Was that the right answer?” Zoey asked, unable to hide the mirth in her voice.
Max looked at her with so much warmth, it made her blush, “Yeah, I guess it kind of was. Well, it at least gave me mine.”
He drummed his fingers lightly on the edge of her desk in lieu of a goodbye and sauntered off towards the elevator.
“Wait, Max,” Zoey called out when he was halfway there. Max turned around with a smile still on his face, walking backwards towards the elevators. She felt silly having to nearly shout across the office, but she needed to know. “What’s your answer?”
Max chuckled and winked at her, but turned around without an answer just as Zoey heard the instrumental of a heart song start up. The notes actually sounded familiar, this time. For probably the first time since she got her powers, Zoey was thankful for them. Maybe this new heart song would help her understand what Max had meant.
Max spun around just as he reached the elevators and began to sing and dance.
I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I’m sure.
And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door
Now every time I go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down
'Cause I just can't wait 'til you write me you're coming around
Max charged straight towards her, spinning her in her chair before running to the middle of the desks. Zoey smiled- at the warmth of the song, at his joy, at his beautiful voice, at his entertaining choreography. She felt happier than she had since her dad was diagnosed.
Just as the chorus started up, the other brogrammers joined in the dancing.
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
And don't it feel good
Hey, alright now
And don't it feel good, hey
The brogrammers created a swaying semicircle behind Max as he continued the song alone. He stood right in front of Zoey, starring at her with so much love. She couldn’t look away and felt herself swaying along to the song with the brogrammers.
I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it's true
And I don't want to spend my whole life, just waiting for you
Now I don't want you back for the weekend
Not back for a day, no no no
I said baby I just want you back
And I want you to stay (Oh yeah now!)
Zoey felt a slight pain. For the first time, she really thought about what her indecision could lead to. Would Max grow tired of waiting for her and decide to completely cut her out of his life in an attempt to move on from her?
Lost in her thought, she hadn’t realized Max was approaching her until he grabbed her hand. He pulled her up and danced around her as he sang the chorus with the brogrammers joining in once more.
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
I'm walking on sunshine (Woahhh!)
And don't it feel good
Hey, alright now
Spinning her in a circle, Max lightly pushed Zoey back into her chair and danced his way back towards the elevator.
And don't it feel good (Yeah!)
And don't it feel good
Walking on sunshine
Walking on sunshine
Zoey blinked and the moment was over. The brogrammers milled around, headed back towards the desk unaware of the reason they were all congregated in the middle of their desks. The elevator doors closed on a still smiling Max.
Zoey spun back towards her desk and lowered her head into her hands with a groan. Everything was so much more complicated now with these powers. That song hadn’t even helped her figure out what Max was going to tell Ava. All it did was confirm what she feared, she was still giving Max mixed signals.
Why couldn’t the songs ever help her figure out her own heart?
In the back of her head a little voice- who suspiciously sounded a little bit like Mo- told her that the songs had given her insight into her own heart. She had sung “I’m Yours” to Max. That was telling of her feelings towards him.
Then why had she also sung to Simon? Zoey groaned again lifting her head to stare mindlessly at her screen.
She had gone around in circles like this for weeks.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Zoey had talked to Simon to clear things- that wasn’t even an option to consider anymore. Not that it had ever really been; Simon was engaged and totally off limits.
She had sung a love song to Max, not Simon.
And no matter what she sang or felt, Zoey knew she was not ready for a relationship right now. Things with her dad were too fragile to be getting into anything romantically speaking. She spent almost all of her free time at her parents’ house these days and she needed to be available at the drop of a hat, just in case anything happened.
Max would understand that.
Zoey shook that traitorous thought away and made herself focus on the code in front of her. She pulled her headphones back on from around her neck, the podcast still playing from when she had hastily tugged the headphones off to talk to Max.
Max knew about her dad’s condition- knew and admired her dad. He would spend his free time at her parents’ house, too. He already had, multiple times.
Zoey pinched the bridge of her nose and focused on her breathing. These thoughts would get her nowhere. She couldn’t risk her friendship with Max and that was the end of it.
She turned back to the code, determined to get some work done. After about 10 minutes of scanning the same 3 lines of code for errors, because she kept getting distracted with thoughts of Max and wondering what he was saying to Ava, Zoey decided to take a snack break.
Zoey stood by the cereal bar, empty bowl in one hand and a spoon held in the other, pressed to her pursued lips. Her foot tapped out the beat of Walking on Sunshine as she surveyed her options. Truthfully, she was having a hard time focusing on even this mundane task while she had no idea what was happening with Max up on the 6th floor.
“You’ve been starring at the cereal for almost 5 minutes,” Max’s voice behind her made Zoey jump. The bowl nearly flew from her hands.
She whirled around to find Max leaning casually on the stair railing, right where he had ended his first musical number in which he had revealed that he loved her. Zoey shook her head in an attempt to push that memory aside.
“You scared me,” Zoey’s voice was breathy, as the hand with the spoon came to rest on her chest. “Wait… how long have you been there?”
Max only smiled at her question and walked towards her. He stopped beside her, but faced the cereal bar.
“Hmm, what to do, what to do,” Max murmured contemplatively, as he eyed the cereal option.
Zoey turned to do the same, resuming her earlier position. The air around him hummed and out of the corner of her eye she could see him rocking up onto his toes every few seconds. Obviously, neither one of them was focused on the cereal.
Her heart felt heavy. Max was nearly bursting with uncontained joy. He must’ve taken the job. There was a part of Zoey that was genuinely happy for him, so she couldn’t be faking it when she congratulated him on the news. Well, she would be partially faking it. Work just wouldn’t be the same without him to brain storm with or tell bad jokes to or make funny faces at, just to break the monotony of starring at code all day.
Zoey took a big breath and then turned to Max with the biggest smile she could. “I’m really happy for you, Max. You are such an amazing person and dedicated coder; you deserved something amazing like this. Just promise me one thing, will you?”
Max was looking at her with furrowed eyebrows, but when she asked that question they raised out of curiosity. “Anything, Zo, you know that,” he said softly.
Zoey had to look away. She didn’t know how to look at him when he spoke to her so tenderly like that. It made her heart race and her palms feel clammy.
“Promise me we’ll either reinstate movie night or… or make a new thing,” Zoey scrambled for the right words. “Like maybe we could make lunch our new thing. Not that you have to get lunch with me every day, because that’s crazy and you might make new friends that you want to go to lunch with. But maybe like once or twice a week. I just don’t want you moving to the sixth floor to mean that we never see each other anymore.”
Zoey’s voice trailed off at the end of her little speech. Her cheeks were warm with blush. She felt like she revealed way too much with that declaration. The last thing Zoey Clarke was good at was being vulnerable.
“Zo,” Max said in a low voice. Zoey felt her heart clench for two very opposite reasons; the way he said her name, and the way it felt like an admonishment. Like he was about to tell her he wanted space from her. “I didn’t take the promotion.”
Zoey’s head snapped up and she met his gaze. “Wait, what? Max-”
Max shook his head and cut her off, “No, Zoey. Don’t give me some lecture on how I should have taken the job and it’s a great career opportunity. You have to know by now that you are way more important to me than a job.”
Zoey stood there in shocked silence. She searched his face, as if trying to find some sort of explanation there. All she saw was love and determination. Zoey didn’t know how she felt about this new development, but she did know that the way he was gazing into her eyes was making her feel light headed.
Zoey set her bowl and spoon back on the cereal bar and turned around to face Max. She leaned backwards onto the cereal bar to steady herself and crossed her arms.
“Okay,” Zoey started, but didn’t know how to continue. They stood in silence for a few minutes, before Zoey thought to amend, “Okay, that was a lame response. I have more to say than an indifferent ‘okay,’ but I just don’t know how to say it. I think I’m relieved?”
The last sentence came out a little higher than the rest, forming a question more than a statement. Max responded with his lopsided smile. Zoey’s heart panged, oh how she’d missed that smile. It had been a few days since she had last seen his genuine smile and now she’d earned three of them in less than an hour.
“It’s okay if you don’t know how you feel yet, Zo,” Max reached out to brush an errant curl back behind her ear. His touch lingered on her cheek and she felt hot from head to toe. He winked at her as that lopsided smile grew, but pulled his hand away. “I know how I feel and it’s strong enough to give you all the time you need.”
Zoey stayed where she was, long after Max retreated back to his desk.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!!
Also, what the heck is up with having to wait TWO WEEKS for episode 10??