Cold Hard Truth

by Brown, Anne Greenwood;

  Even she, who knew nothing about hockey, knew it had been a bad thing. Bad enough to get him put on the work crew? She wondered if he was embarrassed having to spend time with actual criminals. Probably. Emmie straightened her spine and gave him a way to save face.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been to any hockey games.”

  “You were there. I saw you.” His confidence was unnerving. So was the way he looked at her. His dark eyes stared into hers, then dipped once to her lips. The tingly sensation on the back of her neck returned, but this time it tightened the muscles in her stomach too. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, but it gave her the urge to run. And run like hell.

  “You saw me,” Emmie said with a deadpan tone of disbelief. She leaned her back against the wall and folded her arms. It was impossible that he could have picked her out of the crowd. The bleachers had been packed.

  “Yes.”

  Dammit. This guy could not be shaken. She raised her eyebrows. “In the middle of all those people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar.”

  “Well, let me put it this way,” he said. A smug grin played at his lips and made Emmie want to slap it off. “If you weren’t at the game, how would you know there were all those people there?”

  Emmie muttered “dumb jock” under her breath and started to walk away.

  “I’m sorry?” Max said, getting in front of her. There was a humorous sparkle in his eyes. “What did you call me?”

  Emmie stopped, and her temper flared. “Let me talk slowly for you. It. Was. A. Hockey game. They draw a crowd. I made an educated guess.”

  “No, you were there. I remember your pink hat. I also remember because at the beginning, you were the only one sitting down, and at the end, you were the only one on your feet.”

  Wow. He really did see her, but he could keep his machismo to himself, thank you very much. “Maybe I don’t like to cheer for a bunch of douchebag Neanderthals that nearly kill each other for the sport of it.”

  “So you were there,” he said. He placed his palm on the wall beside Emmie’s head, and her conflicted feelings flared—a strange combination of annoyance, flattery, and fear. It was like walking on a boat that was traveling over choppy waters. With each step, she wasn’t sure where her foot would land. “Please,” she said, “please, back off.”

  Max dropped his chin and took a step back. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sorry.”

  Emmie pushed her palms back against the wall for support and reclaimed her calm. “It was a dick move what you did to that kid.”

  “Agreed,” he said, and if Emmie didn’t know any better, the look in his eyes told her that she’d made him sad. Not offended. Not embarrassed. But legitimately sad. “That’s why I’m here. It was either community work service, or I was suspended.” He glanced around all the racks of used clothing. “Kind of a no-brainer, though my parents are pretty pissed. At me, you know. Not about the punishment.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to say…” He paused, as if he didn’t know how to put his thoughts to words. “Back there…” He gestured with his head toward the broken refrigerator, still lying like roadkill on the showroom floor. “It was cool how you kept it together like that. I was wondering if you were on some kind of antianxiety meds because I haven’t found anything that—”

  “Shepherd!” Dan called. “Help me with this bed frame.”

  “Oh. I guess…Well, I gotta go.”

  “Excellent idea,” Emmie said, her words as stiff as her body. “Just, please, go.”

  Max didn’t go. Instead he stared at her, his eyebrows pulled together in puzzlement. “I’m sorry. Did I scare you or something?”

  Emmie about choked. “Hardly!” After Nick, or Jimmy, or Frankie, or really any of Nick’s other junkies, Max Shepherd was comparatively benign.

  “Good,” he said on an exhale, “because people tell me I can come on too strong.”

  Emmie didn’t know how to explain how he made her feel. Not afraid, but maybe…uncomfortable? She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine.”

  “Shepherd!” Dan called again.

  Max glanced at Dan, then back to Emmie. His expression returned to his earlier cockiness. He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Damn straight I’m fine.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Emmie rolled her eyes and moved away. “Do you ever quit?”

  “Never. So if you’re not afraid of me, is there something else wrong?”

  “No.” Yes.

  “Do I smell bad?” Max made an exaggerated motion as if he was checking out his pits.

  “Probably not at this moment.”

  He grinned. “Then why do you want to get rid of me so bad?”

  She picked up a pair of tiny overalls and slipped them onto a hanger. “I’m just not interested. It happens. Apparently even to you. Get over it.”

  Max paused, as if considering the possibility.

  Emmie rolled her eyes and made a sound of exasperation at the back of her throat. She hung the overalls on the metal rack with an emphatic clank.

  That elicited another toothy grin from Max. “Prickly.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a prickly one, but I still think you’re cool. Just thought we could be good friends. No worries. See you around.”

  Emmie moved over to the table she had been working at and watched Max Shepherd jog over to Dan with the typical confidence she recognized in all his hockey crowd. She didn’t need him as a friend. She had Marissa, and one good friend was good enough.

  Still, she couldn’t help but acknowledge that Max was right. She had developed a prickly side, and she’d come to appreciate the people who were willing to put up with it. Right now, she could count those people on one hand. One hand with a few amputated fingers.

  Just her luck that the one person who really seemed to get her would be someone like him. And he wanted to be her good friend? What the hell was that all about?

  The fact that he was willing to overlook her thorns probably meant there was something seriously wrong with him. But who was she to judge? She looked down at the JPWC sticker on her T-shirt, subtly proclaiming her to be with the juvenile probation work crew, and had a sudden surge of humility. Right, she thought. Who was she to judge?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  M&M’S

  “So how’s our little juvenile delinquent?” Jordy asked when Max climbed into the back seat of Chris’s Subaru.

  Chris glanced over his shoulder and gave Max an apologetic look. Obviously he was feeling guilty that Max had got in so much trouble seeking vengeance on his behalf, but he didn’t need to feel bad. Max had been assigned to the work crew because he had no self-control. Pure and simple. It wasn’t like Chris had asked him to be an idiot.

  “Never better,” Max said, pulling off his knit cap. His hair was practically standing up, and it snapped with electricity. He ran his hand through it to get it back into some sort of order. “Burger King?”

  “Yeah,” Chris said, “Brady is meeting us at the theater.”

  “Brock, too?” Max asked. Brock’s girlfriend usually claimed him on Saturday nights.

  “So whipped,” Jordy said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

  Max chuckled and caught Chris’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They knew Jordy was as into his girl as Brock was into Quinn. Jordy was only out with them tonight because Lindsey was working.

  A few minutes later, Chris pulled into the Burger King parking lot and found a spot away from the other cars. Not that his car was mint or anything, but he was paranoid about scratches. Outside, the perfume of salt and grease hung heavy on the air. They all went in and ordered the usual, pumping a quart of ketchup straight onto their trays.

  “So how was the work crew?” Chris asked, sliding into a booth. “Anyone pull a shank?”

  “I think it’s called a shiv,” Jordy said.

  “No one’s that hard core,” Max said. Except for maybe one. Emmie O’Brien was seri
ously tough as shit. She’d never told him why she was on the crew, but from the comments he’d heard Dan make over the course of the morning, it sounded like she was going to be on it for a lot longer than he was. He wondered what the hell she’d done.

  Max shoved several steaming-hot fries into his mouth, then quickly spit them out. Cursing, he took a big guzzle of Coke and swished it around in his mouth to put out the fire. “Either of you know a girl named Emmie O’Brien?”

  Chris and Jordy shook their heads without looking up from their food. “She hot?” Chris asked, his typical question about any girl in any conversation.

  The question gave Max pause, maybe because that word—hot—didn’t quite fit. Toward the end of their shift at the Goodwill, this one girl had walked in. Hot in the way Chris meant: black yoga pants, T-shirt, tits out to here.

  This Jerry kid who was on the crew kept making crude gestures behind the girl’s back. He made sure Emmie saw him, too, like he wanted her to react—laugh or go ewww, or smack his arm or whatever. But Emmie never gave him any satisfaction. It made Max want to give her a fist bump for being so damn chill, which wasn’t as lame as what Jerry was doing, but nearly.

  But, yeah, Emmie was kind of hot. Not the kind that made him think about sex, at least not very much. She was the kind of hot that came from being totally above the plane. It didn’t bother him at all when she called him a “douchebag Neanderthal” because she didn’t seem to care what he thought about her either, and that was pretty damn cool, and she was cool in all these other interesting ways, like how she didn’t react to Jerry’s sleazy jokes, or cry when she was nearly killed by a falling refrigerator, or how, when the store manager read Emmie the riot act for putting things in the wrong place, she stared the guy down and never said a word.

  Seemed to Max that the manager was an idiot. Emmie could probably sue the store for having an untrained volunteer nearly drop a refrigerator on her. Why rile her up? The man should have been buying her an apology breakfast or something instead of yelling at her. But Emmie barely acknowledged him, and not like Max had been staring at her chest or anything, but her breathing had never even fluctuated. How did she do it? Was it that she didn’t care about anything?

  Obviously, she’d been through more serious shit than any of that—shit that made her cringe when anyone got too close—but she’d still made it through alive. Maybe making it through alive was how she was now able to give the world a serious F-U.

  That meant there was hope for Max, and he found that possibility very, very attractive. Hot even.

  “He’s not answering your question, Chris,” Jordy said, jerking Max out of his head.

  “She must be hot,” Chris said through a mouthful of food. “Sounds like Max Shepherd is back from the dead.”

  Jordy kicked Chris’s chair, throwing Chris’s chest forward against the edge of the table. Chris looked up at Max, eyes wide. “Ah, shit. Sorry, dude. My bad.” Died, dead…these were words his friends usually avoided whenever Max was around.

  “What did they have you do on the crew?” Jordy asked, not so smoothly changing the subject.

  Max was grateful for the veer. “Not much. It wasn’t too hard.”

  Chris rebounded from his faux pas and tossed his mane of blond hair back. “That’s what she said.”

  Max shook his head at Chris. “We folded clothes.”

  “Seriously?” Jordy asked with an edge of disappointment.

  “Yeah,” Chris said, “we thought you’d be breaking rocks with a hammer.” He reached across his tray, dragging his sleeve through the pile of ketchup. Chris lifted his arm and checked out his sleeve. Then he drew the fabric into his mouth and sucked off the sauce.

  “That’s nasty,” Max said, looking away.

  “Nah,” Chris said, smacking his lips. “You guys know what you’re planning to say at the pep rally on Thursday?”

  Max grimaced. He hated getting up and talking in front of the school, but this coming week it was the guys’ hockey team’s turn to lead the rally. He was comfortable on the ice, guarded by his pads and helmet. He could face an army like that. But standing on the gym floor in front of fifteen hundred students? Yeah, not so much.

  He swallowed hard. It made him feel like those dreams where you show up at school naked. He needed to figure out some way to soldier through.

  “You know,” Jordy said, “since it’s come up, maybe we should talk about our next game.”

  Max gave his cup a shake to make sure there was only ice left. “You mean, since you finally found a way to work what happened last game into the conversation?”

  “Shut up,” Jordy said while pushing up his glasses. He took a couple fries and folded them into his mouth. “I think it would be good to talk it through. Maybe we should have a plan, a signal, or something. If things get hot, something to say to calm you down. We can’t afford any mistakes. You can’t afford another major.”

  Max laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. “You make me sound like a crazy person.” And maybe that’s exactly what he was. Maybe that’s exactly how his two best friends saw him, and could he really blame them?

  Chris and Jordy exchanged a look. “Listen,” Jordy said, “we all know you’ve been going through a hard time, what with Jade and all. It’s too much, Shep. It would be too much for anyone. No one blames you for how you’re feeling. I’d be the same way. We just need to find a way for you to deal with it.”

  “Yeah,” Chris said, which Max knew from experience was going to be Chris’s most profound contribution to this conversation.

  Max hadn’t been prepared for Jordy to mention Jade. His stomach constricted, shriveling down to a hard, little pellet. “You talk like my shrink, Jordy.”

  “You got a shrink?” Chris asked.

  Max nodded. He’d been seeing Dr. Linda for several months. His dad called her “the quack.” The only reason his dad was still paying for Max’s sessions was because his mom thought it was important.

  Chris bent over his tray and finished off his fries. No one ever knew what to say when someone announced their head was so messed up they were seeking professional help.

  “Okay, so brainstorm,” Jordy said. “Tell me something that mellows you out. Like…I don’t know…the sound of the ocean, or…”

  “Getting mind-blowing head,” Chris suggested.

  Max smothered a smile, and for some awkwardly inappropriate reason, that girl Emmie popped into his mind.

  Jordy leaned forward with a confused look on his face. “M?”

  “What?” Max glanced up in alarm. Ah, hell, had he said her name out loud? “Oh, yeah. Um. M&M’s. M&M’s calm me down.”

  Chris laughed and rolled his eyes.

  “Okay,” Jordy said, shooting Chris a nasty look. “That’s it then. Things get hot, we’re going to start talking about M&M’s, and that’s your signal to cool your jets. You don’t listen, and we’re going to start pelting you with them. Right there on the ice. Red, blue, yellow—they’re going to come raining down on you. Got it?”

  Max laughed. Jordy always had the most elaborate plans. “Got it. Sounds like a fantastic strategy. I can feel it working already.” Max shoved the remains of his chicken sandwich in his mouth. “You girls done? Let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  BAD REFLECTION

  Brady was waiting for them outside the movie theater. As expected, Brock was a no-show. Most of the girls’ hockey team was hanging out in the lobby, too, though the guys hadn’t expected to see them. The girls were monopolizing a cluster of tables by the concessions with their letter jackets draped over the backs of the chairs.

  Katie Hines stood up from her chair and waved them over.

  “What does she want?” Brady asked. Max’s skin got this weird buzzy feeling, and not in a good way. Katie was Jade’s cousin, so Max did his best to avoid her. Every time their eyes met, it was like looking in a mirror, and it doubled his pain to see hers.

  When Brady and Chris went over to say
hi, Max lagged behind and pretended to be interested in a cardboard cutout of Denzel Washington holding an assault rifle.

  “What are you guys seeing?” Katie asked. She pulled a rubber band out of her long, red hair and picked apart the braid.

  “Night of Tigers,” Jordy said, adjusting his glasses. “How ’bout you guys?”

  “The Last Walk.”

  “Chick flick,” Chris said with an eye roll and a condescending tone.

  That, Max thought, was one of the many reasons Chris was never going to get a girlfriend. Not that Chris wanted to get with Katie, but talking to girls always made Chris nervous, and his words came out in asshole-speak. Every. Single. Time.

  “What? You don’t like girls?” Katie asked, insinuating.

  “Let’s go get our seats,” Jordy said, shoving the back of Chris’s shoulder.

  Max followed, but before he’d gone two steps, Katie reached out and touched his arm. He froze and looked down at his sleeve before looking up at her. Mirrors, he thought. Freakin’ mirrors.

  “I’ve missed talking to you,” she said quietly so no one else could hear.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we could fix that?”

  “Yeah,” Max said, not really meaning it. “See you later, Katie.”

  “Yeah. See ya.”

  The guys found their seats toward the back of the theater. Brady sat the farthest over in the row, then Jordy, Chris, and Max on the aisle. The previews went on forever. As in forever.

  Brady, Chris, and Jordy joked back and forth and gave each other shit. They threw the occasional piece of popcorn at each other, or at a group of girls from West Champlin who were sitting a few rows up.

  Max sat quietly, thinking about Jade. Even Katie. And how it was all an incredible waste. It didn’t take long for his thoughts to fall into their typical pattern of how it was all his fault for being a dick. These were thoughts Dr. Linda had been trying for months to get him to overcome. Step back, she’d say. Look at the situation from the perspective of an outside observer. Can you see how you don’t deserve to beat yourself up the way you do?