Chapter Text
“No.”
The word came out louder than Max intended. It resounded with an echo off of the nearby bookshelves. He earned several judgemental looks from other students in the library and a pointed “Shh!” from a girl with thick glasses at the study table adjacent to his. Bobby and PJ, who sat across from him without much regard to their Spanish 201 readings, both took this as permission to ignore their assignments and continue arguing.
“But we’ve been stuck in our dorm every Friday night this semester,” PJ groaned dramatically, as if Max had personally blocked him from exiting the room.
“Just one time, dude.” Bobby implored, while confidently holding up two fingers.
“Since when have either of you ever wanted to go to a frat party?”
Bobby stuffed a hand into his backpack and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, slamming it with force onto the table as though it was incriminating evidence of an egregious crime. “Who was going to tell me that these frat boys have rich parents that buy 100 pizzas for everyone who comes to their stupid parties?”
Max caughed to stifle his oncoming laugh, and tried to reduce his voice to a whisper. “You’re telling me that you took one look at the Gammas and didn’t instantly know that they were just a group of spoiled trust fund pricks?”
“Spoiled trust fund pricks with free food.” Bobby corrected.
“Exactly!” PJ agreed. “When are we going to get a chance like this again?”
“PJ, your dad pays for your meal plan. You get free food every day.”
“That’s beside the point,” PJ mumbled, suddenly looking elsewhere.
“You know,” Max sighed, “most of these frat houses only throw these parties so sorority girls will show up. They probably won’t let us in, especially given our …recent history.”
“Let’s just show up and see where the night takes us!” Bobby encouraged, getting a hopeful thumbs up from PJ.
Max weighed his options while looking at their pleading expressions. With another begrudging sigh, he finally held out his hand to the middle of the table. “We’re stealing a box of pizza and leaving. That’s my compromise.”
“Deal!” They both shouted in unison, stacking their hands together before promptly being kicked out of the library.
-
Max’s hair was generally quite easy to work with after a shower, but for some reason it was vehemently determined to look terrible no matter what, which resulted in him asking himself why he even cared to freshen up for this event. He resolved to ignore that line of thought. After some time working with PJ’s jar of pomade that he generously let Max borrow, he finally got it to look decent.
Then came the problem of clothes.
What does one wear to steal a pizza from a frat party?
Again, he thought, why do I care what I wear to this? It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.
Unfortunately, this was the exact moment that a certain pompous brat jock’s face was brought to the forefront of his mind. Admittedly it was a fine looking face, as far as faces go, anyway.
The competition ended a week before, so why did he still care what Bradley thought of him? And why had Max wondered all week if he would see him somewhere on campus?
His thoughts were drowned out by Bobby’s cries of despair after losing a third round of Mario Kart to PJ, who was by all metrics the reigning champion of the apartment, other than when his girlfriend came over and utterly destroyed them all (in rainbow road nonetheless).
Max opted for his black jacket and t-shirt with a pair of jeans that were starting to fade in the knees. PJ gave him a nod of approval and Bobby whistled as they were walking out the door with their skateboards.
-
Rolling up to the Gamma house with the intention of actually going inside it became much more intimidating to Max when they actually arrived at the residence. It was just past midnight, and the party had already been going on for a few hours. There were people hanging out around the yard and the front door, and loud voices and deep base were coming from the inside.
Anxiety swelled up like a balloon in Max’ chest, and he secretly hoped that they wouldn’t be allowed in.
To his utter dismay, the three of them walked through the front door without a single issue. If that wasn’t enough, Tank (who’s life Max had saved in the final event of the X games just one week ago) barreled through the crowd to give Max an excruciatingly painful slap on the back that was somehow meant to be friendly.
“Good to see you, Tank-“ he smiled through a cough while trying to regain his breath.
Bobby and PJ had already made a beeline to the table with stacks of pizza boxes, but they were stopped by a group of people eagerly asking about the accident at the X games. Max had already expected that his plan to come and go without being seen was fruitless.
“So,” he turned back to Tank, resolving that it was going to be a long night. “how have things been between you and Bradley since…?”
“Oh. Well, he’s stupid, and there’s not really much else to say but that he’s my friend. He deserved it when I knocked him into next Tuesday, but we talked it out.”
Max laughed out-loud, and strangely felt a sense of relief that their friendship had endured.
“He’s not doing great tonight though,” he added with a roll of his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“You should go see him.” Tank gestured to the next room, “He’ll be hard to miss.”
Max didn’t like the sound of that.