Work Text:
Looking back on it, maybe Max should have put some clues together. Like every single thing that happens after Gary picks her up. That could have been a long list of clues.
But at the time, Max doesn’t think much of it. She’s too distracted because he honks the horn when he pulls up, and it’s a stupid-sounding horn, and she is trying really hard not to think it’s a little weird, that he’d honk, when she’s already out of the house to begin with. She can literally see him, and the grin on his face when he leans on the horn, like a performance, making a little hunk-hunk noise like the bicycle Max had when she was a kid. God, she misses being a kid.
Gary smiles as she gets into the truck – that’s the whole reason they’re meeting at Max’s house instead of the field, so he can show off a little, take it for a spin.
It quickly goes from weird to weirder. Gary asks if she’s gotta be back by dinner, and Max says no. Kind of a lie, but she really wouldn’t mind skipping. Max has already done her part to help out, so she doesn’t feel too bad about it. And really, she’d love to get out for a while. Her parents have been trying to talk to her about the salon, wanting her to be stepping up, doing her part, securing her future. Carrying on the family business. It’s a heavy gift, one she can’t decline and doesn’t want to hold, but she feels stupid and small when she tries to say so, because she can’t explain –
So the less time she spends at home today, the better. And if it’s with Gary, then so be it. At least she can get some good throws in and won’t have to pick them all up by herself. Clance deserves a break, working furiously on some editor letter, and Max hadn’t wanted to disturb her.
“So we got time to do something, then?” Gary asks.
“Sure,” Max agrees slowly, because they already have plans, don’t they? Maybe Gary forgot because he’s just really distracted about his truck. It’s a new truck – well, new to him, and he’s proud of it, has already told her about all the whosits and whatsits he’s fixed up with his uncle, using the skills he’s learned at the factory.
Although really, the only reason to get a truck like this is to keep equipment in it, so she doesn’t know what else he could be distracted by. She looks around and doesn’t see any baseball gear at all. Maybe it’s in the back.
“You’ve got balls, right?” she asks, but she doesn’t wait for the answer before she’s looking in her bag. God, Gary is such a doofus, but she’s prepared. How was he gonna practice? She vaguely registers that Gary makes a coughing noise, like maybe he has acid reflux.
Aha – it doesn’t matter if Gary forgot the baseballs, because Max brought at least three in her bag. Perfect.
“I got some too,” she tells Gary, so he can relax. It doesn’t look like it works. He’s probably really nervous about this truck.
They start driving, and Gary tells her all kinds of stuff about the truck as they go. Max listens with half an ear at most, just happy to get out of the hot sun on the way to the field. She might learn something that would help out with her dad’s truck, but she’s not holding her breath.
She tries to nod and smile, because she’s a good friend, but it’s harder than when Clance is stuck on one of her comics and asks what Max thinks. Max is often out of her depth there, but it always feels great, because Clance is brilliant and funny and kind and the best friend Max has ever had, whereas Gary is a guy she practices baseball with and finds a little boring, so Max mostly looks out the window.
Through the window, Max can see they're getting further away from where they play baseball. Gary must be taking the long way, maybe wants to go faster on the roads outside of town. Max sighs and rubs her thumb over the worn stitching on her glove, praying for patience.
“Oh look,” Gary says suddenly, and Max realizes he had stopped talking a while ago.
Max looks. Gary is pointing to the drive-in. “Starting in five minutes,” Gary says, and he pulls off the main road, checks his watch. “How ‘bout it?”
“Huh?” Max is just staring at him, and he blinks back, mouth opening and closing. Clance had a fish once, and it looked a lot like Gary at this moment.
“You said you hadn’t seen it yet, right?”
Max has to admit he’s got her there. Max also realizes he might have been planning this since he was rambling on and on about this movie last week, how funny it sounds, how cool the poster looks. How much he wants to see it. Whether she’s seen it. Fuck.
“Gary,” Max starts, but there’s nothing else to say. She just keeps getting stuck at what the fuck and that doesn’t seem appropriate. She ends up waving one hand a little, like she might find some words in the air, like they might land in her glove and solve all her problems.
It does remind her of a good point. “What about baseball?” Max asks finally.
“Plenty of time after!” he assures her with a big smile. “It’s not dark for hours yet. C’mon, help me take the truck to its first movie?” He looks at her for a few beats, and Max knows he really is asking. “Or we can just get to the field,” he offers.
He’s waiting, hasn’t pulled into the drive-in yet. They could still get back on the road. Max knows Gary, knows he would turn around if she asked.
She’s about to say they should just go back to the field, but then she thinks of how happy her mama will be if she says they went to a movie, and how this might buy her another week of proud little smiles. How nice it would be to have something she doesn’t have to lie about. A dream that’s possible.
“I guess,” Max says finally, “a movie with my buddy Gary.” She fixes him with a look like he better not get any ideas.
Gary whoops and pats the truck’s dashboard. “Hear that, bud, we’re gonna see a movie,” he stage-whispers to the truck, and Max laughs despite herself.
“You’re a goof,” she tells him, and it comes out fond.
“Hear that, bud?” Gary pats the dash again. “You’re a goof.”
Max rolls her eyes. “C’mon, goofs,” she says. “Don’t wanna miss the movie.”
It’s pretty full by the time they get in, so they have to park kinda far down the end. The screen will be at a funny angle, but Max doesn’t really mind, and worst case, it’ll be an excuse to get out of the truck, stretch her neck.
“Want some popcorn?” Gary asks her, but he’s already enraptured with the movie, so Max rolls her eyes.
“I’ll get it,” she tells him, digging out her coin purse. Max awkwardly hops out of the cabin and walks down the row of cars. She passes a big open truck bed and hears a little baaaa noise. What the fuck –
Max looks over and sees a wooly white head in the back. A lamb? Who the fuck brings a lamb to a movie? The lamb is eyeing her up matter-of-factly, and Max tries to resist wanting to pat this creature. It looks so fluffy, and calm, the exact opposite of how Max feels, probably because the lamb has never met Gary. Probably the lamb had no other plans for what to do today, and is totally fine to be here at a movie for God knows how long.
Max does not feel calm. Mostly she feels bored and a little hungry. The lamb is chewing something, and Max remembers her quest for food.
She heads to the back of the lot, where there are some buildings. She can see some people wandering around selling popcorn, but it seems stupid to wait for them, or to walk up to someone, now that she’s on foot too. She shades her eyes in the afternoon sun and spots a little concession stand, with a small fleet of popcorn boxes. Perfect.
There’s a little display next to the boxes, a little statuette of a kid made of popcorn and a sign that declares it SO POPPING GOOD. Max rolls her eyes a little and leans against the counter. “Hi,” she calls, and the woman turns around.
Oh.
The woman smiles, and says, “Hello,” and Max’s ears are ringing.
Oh no.
Oh no.
She’s gorgeous. Beautiful hair, and big sparkling eyes, and she’s looking at Max with a smile that’s on the edge of turning sly, now that Max is –
Just staring at her. Perfect.
“Hi,” Max croaks. Her mouth feels dry, and she tries to swallow. Tries to work out where to look, and she fixes her eyes on the countertop, like if she keeps looking at this woman, she might explode, like a popcorn kernel under high heat. But it feels like Max is drawn right back to her, as if she’s magnetic, and Max can’t look away.
“Hello,” the woman replies. Max watches her mouth move, the momentary flash of her tongue. She’s definitely smirking now, a deep curve tucked into one cheek, and her hand is on her hip, a little cocked. Her outfit is baggy, and yet, and yet, Max can see the muscle underneath, the strength of her arms.
Max’s gaze trails back up from the saleswoman’s hands on the countertop, up her bare arms and then the little uniform sleeve, the sunlight glinting off her nametag.
“Esther,” Max hears, as though Esther thinks maybe Max can’t read. And that’s not uncommon, plus Max is struggling to process any single thing that is happening, so she’s grateful for the help. Max just blinks, nods, tries to respond. Tries to think of what happens next here.
“Max,” says Max, because that’s how people introduce themselves, right? One after the other? She catches her breath, searches for something else to say. “Hi,” is what comes out, for what feels like the twelfth time, God help her.
But Esther just looks delighted, a wicked smile on her full mouth. She’s just watching Max, looking so amused, her eyes deep brown and glowing warm in the sun, her hair, her mouth –
“What,” Esther asks, her voice slow and sweet, “would you like?” And she’s looking directly at Max, who is somehow maintaining eye contact, until Esther smirks again, and then Max’s attention is drawn back to her mouth.
“I,” she starts.
“You,” Esther repeats.
“Me,” Max echoes. Then, “Max,” she clarifies, and Esther laughs now. Looks like she’s having fun with this.
Distantly, from the part of Max’s brain that is recording this series of events like a disaster she can’t look away from, she can understand why she’s being laughed at.
“I know,” says Esther. “You told me what your name was, when you started staring at me before.”
Oh – “Fuck,” Max adds, as though that’s supposed to help anything, and then Esther’s mouth twitches and Max remembers the question, what would you like, which Max feels like maybe she has just – so eloquently – answered.
A shiver of panic races down her spine, but Esther just raises one eyebrow. Licks her lip. Looks her up and down.
Max spares two seconds to hope she’s wearing something decent. Can’t even remember. She was just supposed to be practicing all afternoon; she wasn’t expecting –
“Something to eat?” Esther offers mildly, a look of absolute innocence on her face. Max is halfway to choking when Esther gestures grandly to the little popcorn boxes between them.
Max should nod. Max starts nodding. Max keeps nodding for too long, and Esther looks deeply amused, like she can see inside Max’s head. Fuck. Stop nodding.
Max stops nodding.
Esther is just waiting now, expectant. Patient, like there’s nothing she’d like more than to watch Max tripping over her tongue like this. Still with that little twist to her mouth, an appraising look in her eyes, like she might like watching Max getting flustered, might like to fluster her more later. No, fuck. Focus.
Whatever happens after this is none of Max’s business. She’s fine, this is absolutely fine. This might be the pinnacle of her life, here, at the concession stand of a drive-in movie.
“Plea – ” Max starts, but it catches in her throat, and she has to finish the word, “please,” tossed out like a cough. She holds her hand out to Esther, but the coins are still held tight in her fist.
Esther’s smile is so beautiful, and the way the ends of her curls trace over her shoulders, like a caress across her collarbone, like Max herself would like to –
Stop. Stupid.
If every woman was like this, Max might not mind working at the salon.
If every woman was like this, Max would make catastrophic errors all day long and get fired immediately.
Esther reaches out, slowly. Max tries to inhale, but nothing happens. Esther looks up at Max’s face, then down to Max’s hand, which is still suspended between them. She brings one finger up, traces along the side of Max’s hand, and it tickles, sending delicious sparks up her arm. Then Esther cups Max’s hand in her own, and her fingers are strong and gentle as she turns Max’s hand over, warm in the cradle of Esther’s own palm. Esther looks back at Max’s eyes again, and Max realizes she must have inhaled, somewhere along the way, because the air comes out of her lungs in a rush.
Esther smiles.
Max feels like she might be floating, a helium balloon tethered only by Esther’s fingers against her own. She somehow finds the concentration to smile back, or maybe she already was. Max’s cheeks are aching, so maybe she should stop smiling. She has to think very hard about it, eventually relaxes her cheek muscles, lets them fall, but then –
Esther taps lightly on Max’s fingers, peels them back gently.
Max is smiling again.
“Nice hands,” Esther says, that same honeyed voice, slow and careful, measured out in deliberate eye contact, like she’s uncorking something between them.
The thought of Esther doing any of this deliberately, strategically, sends Max’s blood pounding. Her heart is racing fast enough that she loses the capacity for conscious thought, apparently, because “I’m a pitcher” is what comes out of her mouth.
At that, Esther coughs, looks back up at her with a flash of heat in her eyes so immediate that Max doesn’t even have time to feel stupid.
And that’s really saying something.
“Oh?” Esther murmurs, tracing her thumb across the back of Max’s hand now. “Maybe you could show me sometime.”
Max starts doing the thing where she just nods, again, and Esther laughs as she picks pennies out of Max’s cupped palm.
“It’s a date,” Max says, and Esther looks at her, head tilted a little, like she wants to see Max at all angles –
God, stop thinking immediately –
“A date, huh?” Esther repeats, like a challenge, and Max is still nodding, so that’s convenient.
“Enjoying your afternoon?” Esther asks, and Max is still nodding. She manages to stop nodding, because she is not, really; she has not been enjoying this afternoon, but then she starts nodding again, because she is now –
It starts to feel like she should say something else. Max thinks, trying to corral herself into having any game at all. There are noises from behind her, the movie tinny and echoing from people’s cars. People’s cars.
“Sheep,” Max says.
Jesus Christ.
“There’s a.” Max thumbs vaguely behind her. “Someone. Brought.”
Max breathes in, and then out, and then in again. “A sheep,” she finishes. “A lamb.” And she shouldn’t sound triumphant that she managed to clarify, but at this point, even basic recall is a stretch.
“Do you always talk this much?” Esther asks now, a teasing look that Max feels like a blow to the chest. “That was maybe eight whole words.”
Max manages to breathe in again, feeling the sparking energy between them, basking in it for a moment. She might be having an out of body experience, as she leans in towards Esther, and then Esther comes closer too, right up close for Max to murmur into her ear, “But who’s counting,” and she can’t tell if that makes any sense, but her voice is steady even as the heat and spice of Esther fills her lungs, dizzying.
Somehow, Max pulls back and she holds Esther’s gaze again, watching as Esther’s eyes drop down to Max’s mouth for a long moment. Max licks her lip, slowly.
“Countin’ on it,” Esther replies after a long pause, and she sounds a little breathless, and Max knows that makes no sense, so that means Max is winning. Ha. Tables successfully turned, better late than never.
“Guess I’ll get going,” Max drawls, gesturing with her thumb over her shoulder. She takes a step back, and Esther twists her mouth theatrically – a little rueful, a little resigned – and then Esther winks as Max takes another step.
“See you around,” Esther calls, and Max walks away backwards, watching Esther watch her, gravel crunching gently underfoot like a reminder that Max is not floating, despite how she feels completely weightless.
Esther waits until Max is almost fully out of the concession area, about to turn around and fully walk away, still watching her. And then Esther says, “You forgot something.” She’s smirking again, and Max is thinking of asking for her number, or her address, maybe, or making a time to see her later –
But Esther holds up a box of popcorn.
Max’s popcorn, which she bought, paid for, and has entirely forgotten to take with her.
Fuck.
Max thinks about it for a split second, and decides it’s simply too much to walk all the way back again, especially under these conditions. Not with the way Esther is playing with her. There’s no way to come out of this looking cool.
“Guess I’ll see you around,” she calls instead, gives Esther a raised eyebrow and then she follows it up with a salute, good Lord, and walks away.
Max dawdles as much as she can on her way back to the movie. It’s not even that bad – Gary is being a gentleman, a buddy. She just wishes they were at the field, or that she was at the popcorn stand, or that Gary wasn’t here, or that she was far away, in general. She’d even take being at the salon, the mindless happy chatter or the quiet swish of the broom to keep everything tidy. God, that part is always nice, to sweep it all away, heralding a new day, a fresh face, a clean slate.
Instead, Max gets back to the truck, climbs in and has to deal with Gary, and this movie. She sure does not have the focus to process any of the crackling soundtrack she hears as she settles herself back on the bench seat, especially not with the way her brain is already buzzing.
Gary looks over, a little distracted. He smiles when he sees her, then frowns.
“Did you get any?” he asks, and Max bites her lip to keep that stupid smile from spilling out.
Popcorn. Right.
“Long story,” she mumbles instead, and Gary gives her a quizzical look.
“I, uh, I gotta go back for it,” Max explains. Gary looks confused, but he nods and turns back to the movie, leaving Max alone with her thoughts. She looks out the window, down the long row of cars. Some of them don’t have anyone visible sitting up, which probably means the people inside have found other ways to spend their time.
Max takes a slow breath.
She looks at her hand, still closed tight around the coins. First things first. She releases the coins back into her purse, and drops it into her bag.
Max flexes her palm against her thigh, feeling it a little sweaty. God, she hopes it wasn’t when Esther held her hand –
Again Max feels like she's about to start smiling uncontrollably, so she puts her hand to her mouth and leans against the window casually. Gary looks over and smiles, then fiddles with something on the dashboard, and drops his hand on the bench seat. Max doesn’t know what to make of this. Can’t take the risk that it’s an intrusion into the space between them. An attempt.
Oh, no, not happening.
Max flings the door open again. “You know what, actually,” she exclaims, jumping out of the car, “I’m gonna go see about that popcorn! Bye!”
She slams the door a little louder than technically necessary, and gets as far away from the truck as possible, as fast as she can. Ugh, what was she thinking. This is gonna take forever before they even get to practice, and Gary better not get weird after this, swear to God –
Max takes a deep steadying breath and concentrates on how happy her parents are going to be about this. That’s what she’s here for. That’s enough.
That, and –
She’s getting close to the popcorn stand again, but Esther is gone. There’s just a white girl now, and Max gets halfway there before she remembers that she doesn’t have her money this time.
A wave of frustration bursts through her, even though she doesn’t even want the popcorn that she can’t afford, and she can’t have the popcorn she already paid for, and Esther isn’t working anymore, and Max is going to have to spend this entire stupid movie avoiding Gary, just to tell her parents about it, and then her mother will be so happy she’ll have to spend even more time with him –
Max takes a breath. Then another breath.
There’s not much to do except for going back to the truck, but she takes her sweet time getting there. She’s passing the sheep truck now, and the lamb is lying down on a bed of straw and everything, just like in the Bible stories. The lamb is chewing contentedly, looking completely relaxed, as if this is an everyday occurrence. Maybe it is. Maybe this lamb has seen more movies than Max has.
Max looks closer. The lamb is eating popcorn. Fuck’s sake.
This lamb is having a better day than she is, possibly.
The lamb’s truck is starting to rock a little with whatever its humans are doing inside, and Max grimaces, backs away. Time to go. Time to get her money from Gary’s truck, if nothing else, and then head back out for another field trip to get this popcorn one way or another, because she’s actually starting to get hungry.
Max gets back into the truck, and Gary looks over quickly, then back to the movie, then back to her. “It’s a little boring now,” he says, and Max isn’t sure what to do with this information.
“Uh,” she starts, “gonna go get – ” and she grabs her purse.
When she looks up, Gary is looking at her, like he’s nervous, and he starts to open his mouth again, just a little –
Max is startled by a tapping noise on the window behind her. She turns quickly, and sees –
Esther.
What –
Max rolls down the window.
“Knock knock,” Esther says mildly, looking between Max and Gary, then directly at Max, her eyebrow up. Max makes a face at her, something that conveys God knows what, but it seems to answer Esther’s question.
“Consorting is prohibited on cinema grounds,” Esther tells them, sounding deeply apologetic.
Max nods quickly, and Gary does the little goldfish routine, looking like he’s trying to say what the hell are you doing here, but he doesn’t know how. Max wants to disappear, away from this conversation, the insinuation, how at least three cars around them are actively lurching, and the one next to them has foggy windows. Max can see the lamb, now lying down fully in the back, probably rocked to sleep.
Before Max can get distracted, wishing she, too, was asleep or unconscious or somehow not involved in this experience, Esther looks down at her little tray of popcorn. “Delivery,” she says, “for Max?”
“That’s me,” Max murmurs, and she can see Esther’s hiked-up eyebrow, the way she’d drawled you told me your name. Max flushes a little, but has no choice but to take the box as Esther passes it through the window.
Esther, it seems, has no choice but to trail her fingertips over Max’s hand again, like some kind of rapidly-forming habit, designed to make Max as flustered as possible.
It is absolutely working.
“Thank, thank you,” Max starts, “Es – ma’am.”
Esther gives her a look like she’s going to give Max shit for that one later. Max can only hope so.
“For the,” Max continues, still talking, for some reason. She needs to stop doing that.
Max trails off, holds up the box of popcorn like the end of her sentence. Great. Excellent. Social interaction completed. But then she must get high on her own success, and she has some kind of mental accident, crossed wires or just a complete shutdown of higher thought, and she – she cheerses the box against Esther’s hand, still curled over the window.
God.
Luckily, Gary seems to be absorbed in the movie.
Tragically, Esther has been fully attentive to the entire thing. She’s making a face that Max doesn’t quite know how to interpret, but it looks a little encouraging, the way her eyes are crinkly like she’s smiling, even though she’s biting down on her lip so hard that Max can’t tell if she’d actually smile, or maybe even laugh at her, if she let herself.
Max hopes for the best.
Esther leaves, because there is simply no viable form of response to any of this, and Max respects that she doesn’t try.
Max rolls up the window and looks back at Gary.
“Well,” she says. “Gotta eat.” She quickly sets about shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth, and then offers the box to him as an afterthought. “Is popcorn okay for acid reflux?”
Gary gives her a weird look as he takes a handful. He watches the movie and Max tries to watch Esther, seeing her head bobbing between the rows of cars, further and further away.
“You know,” Max says as soon as she’s halfway done chewing her first mouthful of popcorn. “This is real bland. I’m gonna go see about butter.”
There’s a quiet scene in the movie, empty air aside from the sound of Gary’s hand scrabbling around in the popcorn box, and then there’s an extremely loud baaa that Max knows is the lamb next door. Gary’s hand jerks, spilling popcorn all over the car.
“What the hell,” he sputters. “Is there a goat in this movie?!”
But Max doesn’t have time to explain any of this to him, because with every passing second, Esther is getting further away, and the box is half empty now.
“The popcorn!” Max groans, sounding equally affronted. “Now I gotta get more popcorn. Better popcorn. Better buttered popcorn. Bye!”
With that, she jumps back out of the car again, taking the popcorn and her purse this time, and hotfoots it back to the concession stand.
“Excuse me,” she calls, catching up to Esther a few yards away from the little building.
Esther turns around, looking a little happy when she sees Max. She pivots slowly, keeps walking backwards, over to the side. Max follows, until they’re behind the concession stand, off the path and out of view from most of the cars.
“Well, hello,” Esther says, slow and pleased, and Max resolves not to get stuck in another hi-hello-hi cycle, no matter what.
Apparently, that means she stares at Esther for another few seconds, saying absolutely nothing at all. But Esther seems amused that Max is tongue-tied yet again, and she torments her a little more.
“Is there… something else you want?” Esther asks, and Max nods slowly.
“Yeah, this popcorn is, uh.” She pauses. “It’s just not...”
Max is stuck, trying to explain how she’d like some butter, but also half of it is already missing, like she’s eaten half of the box she’s complaining about.
“Oh,” Esther replies, smiling a little, “do you have a complaint about the popcorn?”
And something in Esther’s response, whether it’s the mischief or the interest or the amusement, the low timbre of her voice or the lilting pace – somehow, Max remembers that the popcorn is not actually relevant here.
“Mm,” she says instead, matching Esther’s slow and thoughtful tone, “it’s gotta be just right, you know?” Max holds Esther’s eye contact, her whole body feeling alert and urgent like they’re almost touching, even though they’re several feet apart.
“Oh, it’s gotta be?” Esther repeats, imbuing a smirk into her voice, somehow. Esther squares up to Max now, tipping closer to her, close enough that Max could reach out and touch, if that’s what they’re doing here.
“Maybe we can solve this problem,” Esther says, an expression on her face that Max thinks might be a smile, if she were to let it out. “Together.”
Esther lifts her hand, slowly and solemnly, and Max takes a second to gaze at the fine bones of Esther’s wrist as she looks at her watch, narrow leather band with the small gold face shining in the sun, nearly as bright as Esther’s smile –
God, Max is so fucked.
“I guess I could help out,” says Esther, very casually, dropping her hand back to her side. She watches Max for another moment, pursing her lips and then looking away, as if to offset the sincerity of her next statement. “If you’re looking for something a little more…”
And she looks back at Max, leaving a long pause. A pause that Max can’t help but fill with all kinds of adjectives, as she takes a slow breath, holds it, exhales gradually, because she doesn’t know when she’ll get to breathe again, depending on the end of this sentence. Esther’s looking at her again, intently, with her eyebrow arched like she knows exactly what Max has been thinking, like she’s thinking it too, as she finishes, “…than popcorn.”
Max is feeling a little breathless, like Esther is pretty much making Max run laps around her at this point, so she doesn’t feel too bad about keeping Esther in suspense for a minute.
“You got some ideas?” Max looks back at Esther, sounding skeptical.
Max drifts closer, watching Esther’s gaze track her movements, the way she flicks down to look at Max’s mouth.
Max picks up a piece of popcorn, looks at it this way and that. She puts it in her mouth, licks her lip, chews slowly. Licks her lip again. Esther is watching her very, very intently, and Max tries extremely hard not to smirk, since Esther is staring at her mouth and would definitely see. She tries not to ruin it all, this game of words and glances, dropped on her in the middle of nowhere, like waking up on the pitcher’s mound mid-inning, a full count with the bases loaded.
Instead of saying anything else stupid, Max looks very thoughtfully at the box she’s holding, half-full of popcorn, as if it might have any relevance, as if it might hold one smidgen of her attention. The pieces are fresh as snow and shimmering a little in the sunshine, little clouds dotted with their kernels, proof that something magical can spring from the dry earth, time and time again.
“Admiring my handiwork?” Esther’s drawl breaks into Max’s attention, and she’s close now, close enough to look into the box with Max, their heads tipped together like they’re admiring something precious, a piece of art.
“Oh, your handiwork?” Max looks down at the hands in question, as Esther reaches into the popcorn box, plucks up a piece of the popcorn she herself apparently made, and brings it to her mouth. She holds it between her teeth for a second, her smile bright and calculating, and then she winks at Max and bites.
Max bites, too, hard on the inside of her cheek. Can’t hurt to make sure she woke up this morning.
Esther’s chewing, deliberately, and then she hums. “Pretty good,” she says. “But it could be better.”
“Oh,” Max says again, and Esther is so close that Max can barely think. She takes a quick steadying breath. “You have better handiwork?”
Esther shrugs a little, that same smirking twist to her mouth that Max wants to bite at, and she keeps looking at Max like she’s issuing a dare. “You can be the judge of that,” Esther murmurs.
“How can I,” Max responds, just as low and soft, “when I don’t have any evidence?”
“Oh, you want evidence?” Esther’s eyebrow is up again, and Max takes half a step sideways, closer to the wall. Esther follows, keeping eye contact, until they’re both leaning a little, Max’s popcorn box still between them. The wall is warm against Max’s arm, but it’s grounding, until –
“More evidence?” Esther asks.
Now Max is thinking of all that hand holding earlier, when Esther plucked the coins from her palm, fingertips circling against the back of Max’s hand.
“More evidence,” Max agrees hoarsely. “It’s the rules.”
Esther keeps looking at Max, shadowed here against the wall with her like they’re in their own world, like she hasn’t a care about anything other than how close they are and the way she’s tracing her fingers along Max’s arm.
“Well, if it’s the rules,” Esther says, so soft it might be a whisper, “might as well get it over with, then,” and then she’s cupping Max’s cheek, drawing her forward a little, one finger under Max’s chin, gentle, like a suggestion.
Max accepts, moves with her, into her, and their mouths brush for just a breath, salty and a little perfumed from whatever Esther is wearing, and Max barely has a chance to sink into it, one hand on Esther’s waist and one at her neck, fingers brushing against her hair, before Esther is pulling back.
“Oh, you’re right,” Esther murmurs, and Max’s head spins for a second, trying to keep up with the change of pace.
“Isn’t that my line?” she asks, but Esther chuckles, and Max feels it move through her, both hands still around Esther. Quickly she drops her hands, looks around, but Esther’s still holding Max’s shoulder like she still wants her attention, still wants her.
“You’re right, you’re gonna need more popcorn,” Esther clarifies, and she’s smirking again, but Max is missing the joke. Then Esther tips her chin down a little, to where Max’s popcorn box has fallen in the dirt.
“Dammit,” Max crouches down and scoops up some of the spilled pieces. She wasn’t raised to leave a mess. “Guess I can give ‘em to the lamb,” she hedges, and Esther laughs now. “Is that even safe?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s Bette,” Esther agrees. “They bring her every week. Yeah, she’s a big fan of my handiwork.”
Max guffaws, and Esther tugs her back up to standing. They’re face to face again, so close Max can feel Esther’s exhale warm against her cheek. “Come on,” Esther murmurs, “let’s get you some…”
She trails off again, another one of those long pauses Max’s mind wants to fill. But it feels light, this time, Max’s breath coming slow and easy. The sky is blue, and there are still hours left to get to practice, and Esther is smiling at her, and Max can’t remember the last time she felt this happy.
“Let’s go,” Max agrees, and she squeezes Esther’s hand, warm in hers. It’s like sunlight, the heat of Esther next to her, leaning into her just a little, jostling against her as they walk, like they’re destined to intersect.
Max is still not entirely sure she woke up today, but she’s going to enjoy this for as long as she can. Somehow, she hopes, that might be a long time.