Since Forever Ago (16 page)

“Still!” Riley shrieked, unable to come up with any other excuse.

“Still what?” Liz asked, an amused smirk on her face. “This is
Max
were talking about. Ugh, it’s still weird to say it aloud.”

“How do you think
I
feel?” Riley whimpered as she began to press the banana peel more firmly against her skin. “I’m so confused, I think I’m going to vom.”

“But you like him, right?”

“Of course she does!” Audrey practically yelped, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest and collapsing onto the couch next to Riley. “It’s just like a fairy tale! Or a really good romantic comedy.”

“I mean, of course I like him,” Riley sighed out, glancing over at Audrey with a tired expression. “I’m just not sure if I
like
like him.”

“You better figure that out soon,” Liz warned, slightly grimacing as she did. “There’s no reason to risk your friendship if you’re not even sure this will work out.”

“I think we can safely agree that it’s already been risked,” Audrey said, to which Riley let out another loud groan.

“Oh God, I just ruined an entire lifetime worth of friendship,” Riley wailed out.

“The best relationships start off as friendships, you know,” Audrey comforted her with a reassuring pat on the hand. “You can even Google it if you don’t believe me.”

“Can you just Google my situation and tell me what I should do?”

“How do you think Noah will react when he finds out?” Liz cautiously began. “He’s going to find out sooner or later, right?”

“What’s with the interrogation session?” Riley whimpered, propping her slimy, banana-scented acne treatment against a pillow before promptly smashing her face against it. “First, my chin gives birth to this
thing
. And now, you? Can ‘Lets Pick On Riley’ Day be over yet?”

“It
is
a legitimate question,” Audrey drawled out.

“And, seeing as how Noah’s practically Ms. Manners himself, you better figure out a game plan stat.”

No matter how much Riley wanted to avoid the topic, she knew very well that Liz was right. The fact that Noah would flip out was a given, and she didn’t even want to
imagine
how infuriated he’d be at the both of them. After all, Noah had screamed at her in the past for forgetting to cancel a stupid Netflix subscription. Who knew how he’d react upon discovering that his ex-girlfriend and his best friend were hooking up behind his back?

Seeing the stricken look on Riley’s face, Liz scrunched up her face in determination. “Okay, let’s approach this slowly but surely. We can take baby steps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still have feelings for Noah?” Liz asked in a straightforward tone.

“Oh, I have
tons
of feelings about Noah,” Riley began bitterly. “Feelings of hatred, feelings of resentment, feelings of—”

“You know what I meant. Do you still love him?”

“I... I don’t know,” Riley admitted, letting out a defeated sigh. “I mean, probably, right?”

“What do you mean by ‘probably’? You either do or you don’t!”

“I don’t know!” Riley cried out. “Probably as in I’ll probably
always
love him, you know? Six years worth of feelings don’t just disappear like that.”

“So now it’s six years, hm?” Liz asked with a grin. “Not rounding up to a decade anymore?”

“You know, Riley, there’s a difference between
loving
someone and being
in love
with someone,” Audrey prattled out. “And when you’re
in love
with someone, you just
know
. Like, does Noah make your heart beat faster and your head get fuzzy and your hands get clammy and your toes get tingly?”

“Uh... not really,” Riley muttered, exchanging a look with Liz. “Or... I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Does Max?”

“I—”

Just then, a loud knocking sound came from the other side of the front door, causing all three girls to look over in its direction.

“Who... who is it?” Liz called out.

“Did you order pizza?” Audrey whispered to Riley, who merely frowned in response from where she lay.

“Max.”

A sneaky smile adorned Liz’s face as she turned to glance at Riley, whose cheeks were now drained of any color. “Come in!”

“Liz!” Riley hissed out as the door swung open. “What the fuck!”

“Hey,” Max greeted them, grinning nervously at the three sets of eyes staring up at him. “I... I brought some... uh... stuff,” he added, lifting up the bag in his hand. “Soup and oranges and cough drops and shit. Because you’re sick... and, uh... yea.”

“Oh, how sweet of you!” Liz sang out, grabbing Audrey by the arm and shooting up from the couch. “And what
perfect
timing. We were just leaving!”

“We were?” Audrey asked in confusion before Liz promptly nudged her in the ribs. “Ow!”

“You guys can stay,” Max mumbled, his cheeks turning pink. “I mean, you don’t have to—”

“Already leaving!” Audrey practically shrieked out, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence.

What the fuck,
Riley grumbled to herself as she watched her two supposed friends grab for their bags, the both of them keeping their heads down so as to avoid her menacing glare.
Are you motherfuckers really abandoning me right now?

“Clammy hands? Tingly toes?” she heard Liz mutter to Audrey as the two began sauntering past Max. “Did you pick up that load of crap from
Cosmo
too?”

“
Teen Vogue
,” Audrey’s voice chirped back as the door slammed shut behind them.

“H...hi,” Riley squeaked out, positioning herself upright and immediately placing her hand in front of her chin.

“Is... is that a banana?” Max asked with a frown, glancing down at the browned peel that had fallen into her lap.

“Oh... haha... it’s nothing!” Riley mumbled, frantically shoving it into the crevice between the two seat cushions.

“Uh, you sure you want to do that?”

“So, you brought soup, you said?” she quickly asked before letting out a series of coughs and loudly clearing her throat. “Butternut squash?”

Note to self
—
retrieve banana peel once he leaves.

“Yea,” he replied slowly, eyeing her with suspicion. “You don’t look very sick to me, though.”

Riley made it a point to cough quietly once again, though Max merely rolled his eyes at her lame performance. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you just make the whole flu thing up so you wouldn’t have to come out?”

“No! I mean... no!”

“Riley, you should’ve just told me if you’re uncomfortable with...
this
,” Max said, a tired look clouding his eyes as he set the paper bag on the table and took a seat on the floor. “You didn’t have to pretend you were sick.”

“Who said I’m pretending?”

“Dude, you’re not sick,” he pointed out in a flat tone.

“Okay, fine, but—”

Max shot her a crooked smile, his shoulders visibly drooping in disappointment. “You could’ve just said so if you didn’t want to—”

“It’s not that, Max!” she groaned in frustration, her fist still firmly planted against her jawline.

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t want to tell you!”

“Just tell me!”

“I said I don’t want to!”

“Riley, whatever it is, you can just
tell
me,” Max insisted, shooting her a bored frown as he took a seat next to her on the couch. “You don’t have to make up stories about being diseased and shit.”

“Fine. But you promise you won’t laugh?” she quietly asked, her nostrils slightly flaring as she let out a shaky breath.

“Sure,” he agreed with a smirk, rummaging through the shopping bag and placing the contents onto the table in front of them.

“All right,” Riley sighed out, slowly lowering her hand from her face. “There.”

“What?” Max asked, glancing at her curiously as he opened his bag of chips and leaned back against the cushion.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?”

“I don’t get it,” he replied with a shrug. “Your pimple?”

“Yes, my pimple! My fucking huge ass pimple that’s taken over my entire face!”

Max let out a snort of laughter. “Seriously? You cancelled because of
that
? Who cares?”

“
I
do!” she cried out in exasperation. “
I
care!”

“It’s not even that bad, dude.”

“Stop staring at it!”

Max cocked an eyebrow at her before leaning forward and grabbing an orange. “Fine,” he said, fighting back a grin as he peeled the produce sticker off of the bumpy rind and stuck it atop her reddened bump. “Problem solved.”

“Are you kidding me?” she blurted out, unsure of if she should burst out into tears or laughter.

“Organic,” he mused, observing her chin with interest. “Fancy.”

“Max—”

“Riley, we had
chickenpox
together. Fuck that, you gave me
poison ivy
after camp that one time, and we were covered in
hundreds
of spots,” he said, grinning as he thought back on the miserable summer during which they had gone through entire bottles of calamine lotion. “I don’t really care about a stupid pimple.”

“But—”

“Here,” he continued, peeling the sticker off of another orange and sticking it to his own forehead. “Twinsies.”

Riley couldn’t help but laugh as she came to the realization of how crazy she had been acting. Of course Max didn’t care. Why had she thought he would? Was it because she had become so accustomed to needing to appear perfect from when she was with Noah?

But Max isn’t Noah
, she reminded herself as she peered at his sticker-adorned face.
They actually couldn’t be
more
different from one another.

“So, since you basically
sabotaged
our whole night, let’s just take it easy today,” Max suggested as he reached for the remote and turned on the TV. “It can be a typical Max-and-Riley day. No pressure.”

“Sounds good to me,” she sighed out, settling into her seat and turning her gaze to the screen.

“
Law & Order: SVU
marathon?” Max asked, glancing over at her for approval as he switched over to that channel.

“Um, duh,” Riley replied, grabbing for the tub of soup on the table. “We really
are
meant to be friends, what with our excellent taste in cable programming.”

Max let out an appreciative laugh as dramatic music blared out from the speakers. “Yup. So, BFF, let me tell you
all
about this shitty girl who totally flaked on me at the last minute today.”

“She sounds terrible,” Riley played along, rolling her eyes in embarrassment as a big grin spread across her face.

“The worst,” he drawled out before throwing a chip at her. “Ruined all of the epic things that I had planned.”

“What a bitch.”

“Uh-huh. And not only that, but she has this really ugly tattoo of a sticker on her face and totally smells like bananas...”

––––––––

“D
id you know that ‘dog food lid’ spelled backwards is ‘dildo of God’?”

Max turned to Riley with a perplexed look on his face. “Huh?”

Approximately forty-eight hours had passed since The Great Pimple Incident of Thursday Afternoon, and Max and Riley were finally out on their first official date. The two were seated at a patio table in the secluded corner of a trendy restaurant, a far cry from the beat-up sofa from which they had sat through six entire hours of twisted crime drama episodes just a few nights prior.

Though being there with Max should have allowed Riley to feel relaxed, the romantic setting caused her anxiety to go into overdrive instead. The waiter had barely cleared their plates before Riley had proceeded to nervously talk out of her ass now that they had exhausted most everyday conversation topic options, her mind preoccupied with sorting out the rules of attraction that Evan and Max had taught her over the past few weeks.

Fuck, should I not have said that?
Riley frantically wondered as she analyzed Max’s confused expression.
You’re such a dumbass, Benson! Quick! Say something clever! Or tell him something to impress him! Say something! Anything!

“I ate, like, three entire burritos this morning.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

“What?” Max asked as he held back a snort of laughter.

“I mean, I needed my carbs. To go to the gym. To lift weights,” she babbled on, forcing a pained smile onto her face. “Bro.”

For the love of all that is good in the world, please rip your voice box out.

Just fucking rip the entire thing out.

NOW.

“Are you... are you trying to impress me right now?”

“What? No!”

“Then why are you telling me all of that?” Max asked, failing miserably in his attempt to stifle another laugh.

“I just... er... um...”

“You know that everything we told you was bullshit, right?” Max divulged, breaking out into a goofy grin.

“What?”

“All that crap on how to attract guys? Bullshit.”

“So you
lied
to me?” Riley demanded, her mouth slightly agape.

“Did you really eat three burritos this morning?” Max countered, shooting her a pointed stare. “And when was the last time you even
went
to the gym?”

“Stop trying to change the subject!”

“I... I didn’t want you to meet someone else,” he confessed, looking at her with an amused expression. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

What?

“It obviously worked out, though, didn’t it?”

“Why would you do that!” Riley hissed, her face growing hot in mortification.

No wonder all of those guys had stared at her as if she were crazy! There she had been, telling them all about her cardio routines and beer-chugging abilities, swearing like an inmate and belching like a drunk homeless man, patting herself on the back for being so relatable and easygoing when they had probably been thinking to themselves that she was a gross slob. Were Max and Evan insane?