Maxed Steel

by Fields, MJ

  Holding up a hand, I curl my fingers. “Give me more on that.”

  “Dorks took bets on who would get stuck with you as a roommate. Not one of them thought Dean Christopherson would put anyone with the likes of me. Money got dumped into the next pool, and that pot of cash is for this semester’s beave contest. People are picking you to rack up the biggest numbers because you’re Max Steel.”

  “Pretty messed up, yeah?” I ask.

  He shrugs as he chuckles. “That isn’t shit. They bet on everything around here.”

  “So, who’d you bet on?” I only half-joke.

  “Me, of course.” He stands up from the bed. “Let’s you and I hit the festivities. I’ll show you around.”

  I get up and shove my phone in my pocket. “Thinking we should talk about some ground rules.”

  Walking ahead of me, he says, “Thought my new roomie was moving in tomorrow. Meant no disrespect.” We’ll hang a sock, cool?”

  Love that he said that shit. “Better than my ex-roomie did.”

  “Your old man?” He chuckles, and I nod. “Knew I liked his style. Just your mom, too, huh?”

  I look at him like he grew ten heads. “Of course, just Mom.”

  “Hey, that’s cool. Just thought that went out with the passing of the millennium.” Stepping out in the hall, he asks straight-up seriously, “You want that life?”

  “Won’t settle for no else,” I say, following him through the now empty hall.

  He turns his head back and looks at me. “But in the meantime?”

  I decide I like Cowboy, and it’s time to ditch the ’tude and embrace the mood. “If it has tits or tires, gonna do my best to make ’em squeal.”

  He holds up a fist. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

  I tap it.

  Watch Out

  Mila

  Ever since we walked out of our room and headed to the floors lounge to be “social”—Lindsey’s idea, not mine—the whole place has been buzzing with the news that Max Steel is now a student here at JU.

  These thirsty asses have been doing their digging. They found out about his accident. They found out his sister, Kiki, is married to country music’s golden boy, Brand Falcon, and that his older sister, Bella, and her husband are the producers and the stars of a reality show called Convicted Ink. They know his cousin, Amias, plays for the minor league baseball team, the Jersey Jags, and another cousin, Tris, is a pop star, the lead singer for Foreplay, The Band.

  They didn’t uncover that Tris was booted from our snobby-ass high school for flipping shit and hitting a teacher, and they didn’t find out Max’s “accident” and DUI … apparently printed with disappearing ink. Going to safely assume they didn’t know those things because stuff like that got swept under the rug for those born with a golden spoon awaiting them.

  They dug so deep in his social media content that they found out he had been accepted to Columbia, NYU, Brown, and Stanford. They watched his videos like it wasn’t yesterday’s news as he turned down every one of those schools, except Stanford, which he later deferred because he took Seashore to states and won. After that tournament, he was pulled to a pro team immediately after high school. Oh, and then he blew Stanford off completely to continue to ride the waves.

  All these colleges and universities, I had busted my ass to get into.

  Now, I’m not saying I would have gotten into all of them, but unlike golden boy, money was my issue. and I’m pretty damn sure there was no way I could have afforded it, no matter how many part-time jobs and “gigs” I took on for cash. But the reality is the likelihood of any college admitting two applicants from the same school is slim.

  All those schools were on my perfectly plotted-out spreadsheet of dream schools. In fact, Stanford was my number one, and it was well within my reach. So, basically, Max Steel has figuratively fucked me over … on more than one occasion.

  I left all that behind, and now … not only is he at my school, the one I applied to as a freaking “safe school,” but in my residence hall.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  “He’s rooming with Beau Boone!” one of the girls squealed then paused as everyone waited, their breath held for her to continue. “On our floor.”

  He wipes his ass with hundred dollar bills. His content is regaled to that of Biblical testament. These influencers are meant to keep people connected, but in fact, make us feel even farther apart while shoving ads and propaganda down throats.

  The reason behind my disconnect from social media isn’t because I am some conspiracy theorists, or frankly give a shit about any of that; it’s because, for me, it did become the holy grail. It is a place where high school bullshit and all that judgment led to self-deprecation—it was an addiction. And not completely unlike a drug, my addictions caused major issues in my life, and I still have guilt that plagues me from the dark days.

  Max Steel was here, and his presence has the betting tables full, adding even more to the unwon roommate fund. They were screaming like JU had just won the Orange Bowl.

  I stand up and walk the hell out of the room, taking the stairs to get some fresh air, because I think I’m going to vomit.

  “Hey,” Lindsey pants when she catches up to me outside and loops her arm through mine. “Why the hurry?”

  There is no way I’m telling her the truth, so I tell her a half-lie. “The freshmen welcome festivities. Free food. I’m starving.”

  * * *

  “Max Steel,” Lindsey hums right before taking a bite of her hoagie, chewing, swallowing. A moan suddenly erupts from her, as she swipes through what I assume is a dozen or so Max Steel usernames. I know the minute she sees him. How? Her jaw drops.

  The “Max factor” … Soooo freaking annoying.

  Looking down at my hamburger, I wait for her to put two and two together as I attempt to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why I have yet to tell her that I know him. I’m sure I have a good twenty minutes. It’s been years since I have blocked him, but I overhear his name and hear his voice while others watch him on their devices. It’s unmistakable—that quiet, husky voice with a tough guy inflection. No one else sounds like him, no one.

  After I finish my burger, I wipe my chin then press my palms into the perfectly cut, manicured lawn. Leaning back, I watch her look over the screen as she scrolls through pages and pages, years and years of Max Steel’s IG page. Then it happens. She brings the screen closer to her face, her eyes narrowed, right before she gasps and looks up at me. “He’s the tee-shirt guy.”

  “I thought that was clear when the shirts got bought up after he graced us with his presen—”

  She cuts me off, screeching so loud I’m surprised the service dogs scattered around campus don’t come running. “He went to your bougee high—”

  I cover her mouth and look around to see if any of the twenty thousand freaking members of the student body heard her basically expose me like a newborn baby’s ass to the square littered with freshmen looking for free food and merch.

  Both of us look at each other, her green eyes as big as saucers, as if she’s seeing me for the first time again outside of the online group, which was the only reason I even have a Facebook account—to pick my roommate on the school’s intro group.

  “Do I even know who you really are?” she asks, looking all kinds of shook.

  “Of course you do,” I sigh exaggeratedly.

  “Then why are you hiding this?” She holds up her phone, showing me Max’s IG, an account I hadn’t seen in over two years.

  Fifteen squares cover the screen, all pictures of Max—all shirtless. The memories of the year I spent dreaming, wide awake and asleep, of what it would be like to be one of the many girls he dated all come back.

  His name, unlike any other Seashore manwhore or seducer, as they deemed him, was said with reverence. Not one girl he dated had a bad thing to say about Max Steel.

  Back then I was sure those dreams, those wishes, those … hopes of not leaving high schoo
l with my V card would come true.

  And Max Steel … and although he did in fact kiss me, I learned that the term fucked me without so much as a kiss wasn’t exactly literal.

  “I came here to get away from people like that.”

  It’s not a lie. Not the whole truth, but still not a complete lie.

  “Enough said.” She pulls the phone back with understanding in her eyes, and I fight the urge to grab her wrist, pull it back, and lick the damn screen.

  Eyeing me suspiciously, she takes another bite of her hoagie then glances around, not pressing for further information, thank God. She looks at booths and tables surrounding the square. Booths brightly decorated by clubs and campus retailers hoping to lure the freshmen in to join them, while each look around to see who will pounce first, not wanting to seem too eager, just like freshmen have for the past two years, just like we did.

  But not anymore.

  Lindsey smiles big, her eyes getting that same look she got when I taught her the art of couponing after her parents put her on a budget.

  The first time I met Lindsey, she was standing outside of a frat party that I worked, crying her eyes out. She was trying to order an Uber to take her just around the block but her card was declined. She was drunk, and the girls who were with her ditched her to catch a ride with someone else. Someone Lindsey wouldn’t ride with because, even though she was drunk, she had enough sense not to get in the car with local party attendees who she was sure were drinking.

  I had seen her around, knew she lived in Aldrich, one of the two freshmen dorms on campus, because that’s where I lived, too. So, as she rambled on and on about the fact that the two girls, her besties, had ditched her. I somewhat listened as I guided her back to the dorms, where she proceeded to vomit all over the statue of one of Jersey’s finest, Buzz Aldrin’s feet. Her “besties,” one in which was her roommate, skated past her, and I was left taking care of her. That’s how our friendship began.

  It’s kind of crazy thinking back on our school days, reminiscing about how hard I tried to fit in with any group, or to desperately find that one friend to share secrets and maybe even one of those heart lockets. You know, the one where half is inscribed with the word Best and the other with Friend? It never happened for me until I walked out of that frat house after working as a bartender for a bunch of privileged jocks —feet sore and brain fried from being surrounded by the utter stupidity. I had been forced to endure for four hours by supposed collegiate types—seriously, some couldn’t even string a complete sentence together—wanting to wash the smell of smoke from my hair and scrub what felt like an inch-thick of grimy film coating my skin from the offers of sexual promises they had made, and found Lindsey.

  I hear the crinkling of her wrapper, and then Linds stands up and extends her hand, asking, “Where are we going to begin?”

  I look around and see Sandra and Tonya waving at us from under the dozen flying tit balloons. “Not there. We already got the tee-shirt.”

  “Hell yes, we did.” Lindsey smiles. “Should we hit the frat booths first so you can see if they offer us gigs?”

  * * *

  “I love move-in day!” Lindsey exclaims, dumping her bags of merch on her bed. “One, two, three, four tees, and the one Tonya gave me is five new shirts. God, I love this day. Ten pens, a frisbee—”

  “Worthless,” I grumble.

  “Is not.” She picks it up. “We’re going to spend hours outside playing—”

  “Apparently not. First night here, and we have a party to work.”

  “We call them gigs,” she corrects me, because she thinks it sounds professional. “Making bank, right?” she asks, not expecting an answer as she picks up one of the three water bottles she scored.

  I pull my I’m too clumsy to live amongst fragile masculinity tee off, toss it onto the floor, and then grab a tank top off the pile of clean clothes that I dumped on my bed when I got in today so that I could use the hamper for dirty clothes.

  “And tomorrow, at the pre-pre-kick-off barbeque at Baller Hall, we should make even more.”

  I have officially created a monster. She’s addicted to this money saving lifestyle now.

  “Wait—why don’t I know about Baller Hall?”

  “You were busy negotiating with Tyler about The Brotel fee for tonight’s gig. I told him two hundred for four hours and—”

  “For Baller?” Stepping out of my jeans, I try to keep my annoyance at bay. I mean, she is trying, but Baller always has more people, the crowd is twice the size, and it’s full of all the jocks.

  “Are you mad?” she asks.

  Lindsey is one of those people who has to make everyone happy and would likely slip down that slippery slope she’s desperately trying to avoid if I tell her I am.

  “Nope, like you said, it’s a gig. But, let’s you and I discuss it next time, okay?”

  “We only have until our birthdays to do this, right?” I hear the anxiety in her voice, her need for approval.

  I grab a black mini skirt off my pile. “That’s right.”

  “We have to make the most while we can.” She’s knotting her hands together. “Because after we turn twenty-one, we could be held responsible if—”

  “We got this.”

  “I also booked us Saturday at The Stable.”

  I swing my glance at her, and she holds up her hands defensively.

  “Two fifty for four hours.”

  “Lindsey—”

  “I know, I know, but we can handle them, right?”

  I can. You? I’m not so sure.

  “Of course. You gonna get ready?”

  She drops the cup and turns. “I need a shower.”

  Not My Thing

  Max

  “You don’t look pumped, man,” Beau says as we walk up the path to what he called The Brotel. “You need me to hold your hand, Steel? Give you a pep talk? Promise to stay close all night?”

  “You need me to kick your ass?” I joke.

  He chuckles. “Taking it easy on you tonight. Just the tip, man.”

  “Getting me ready for what’s to come?”

  “Tonight’s gonna be chill. The Brotel is mostly stoners and hippy—”

  “You told me back at the dorm it was the surf crowd. Now you’re saying—”

  “One in the same, man.” He grasps my shoulder and laughs. “One in the same.”

  I shrug off his hand. “Uh-huh.”

  “Boone, Boone, Boone, Boone,” a group of guys holding red Solo cups and wearing board shorts chant from the porch.

  He holds his arms up in the air. “Let the fucking party begin!”

  As soon as we walk inside, a guy about our height approaches us and gives Boone a bro hug as he says, “I owe you a Grant.”

  “And two red cups, man.” Boone steps back and makes the introductions. “Max, this is Oakley. Oakley, Max.”

  “No introduction needed.” Oakley extends his hand to me, and we shake. “Been a fan for a couple years. Got a lot of questions. But tonight, let’s party.”

  “Anytime, but I straight-up got lucky.”

  He laughs as he waves us into the house. “Heard your old man used to surf.”

  “Still does.” I smirk as I shift my gaze over to look at Boone. “It’s not like football, not just for testosterone-filled meat heads; it’s a lifetime sport.”

  “Not gonna lie, Steel, I was pissed when I found out I got you as a roommate, but I think it’s gonna be a good match.”

  “For this semester, yeah.” Oakley chuckles. “You’ll get off probation after this semester and be back at Baller.”

  Boone lifts a shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “The hell did you do to get put on probation?” I ask quietly as we follow Oakley toward the bar made from old surfboards.

  “Long story,” he grumbles.

  Oakley yells to the chicks behind the bar, “Two cups for our guest of honor and this guy.”

  “I’m the guest of honor, right?” Boone lau
ghs.

  “Even if I wasn’t, you’d take it as such.” Oakley hands us each a cup. “Kegs behind the bar, and so is the heavier stuff. If you’re drinking that, just lie and say it’s beer. Only Brotel boys and their babes drink the good stuff.” Someone yells his name, and he nods. “You two have fun. We’ll catch up soon?”

  I nod.

  “You have a Grant for me,” Boone says.

  Oakley reaches in his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash, handing him a fifty. “Next time you come, you pay.” Then he looks over at me. “You drink for free anytime, man.”

  “Appreciate it. Catch up soon.”

  Then I look back at Boone. “You just make fifty bucks off bringing me here?”

  “Hell yes, I did.” He chuckles.

  “Gotta make it any way you can, huh, Boone?” one of the girls behind the board bar asks.

  “Do I know you?” he asks in a dick-ish tone, and her freckled face turns red.

  “Um, no, but—”

  “Then how about you get me a drink and mind your business, doll.”

  “Boone, man …” I begin.

  The other girl, the brunette with the faded blue highlights and her back to us, whips around. She looks familiar. “How about you ask for a drink or piss off, Boone?”

  The redhead starts to stammer, “I shouldn’t have … I was … I tried to be funn—”

  “Do not dare apologize to any asshole like these two,” Blue interrupts her and points at Boone.

  Okay, so maybe she’s pointing to me, too. Yep, there she goes, pointing right at me.