Since Forever Ago (2 page)

“You don’t even like cats,” Max reminded her with a lazy smile on his face.

“Doesn’t matter! You don’t really have a choice when you’re destined to die alone. They come with the territory!”

Max let out an incredulous laugh. “Tell you what. If you’re not married by the time you’re forty,
I’ll
marry you.”

“Oh my God, do you really think I won’t meet someone new for the next eighteen years?”

“Riley, look on the bright side,” Max began, trying not to acknowledge the fact that his tiny friend was literally shaking. “Maybe it’s a good thing that it all went down this way! Whatever you guys had wasn’t healthy. You two were
way
too dependent on each other.”

“That’s what a relationship is!” Riley yelled out in frustration. “Just because a social transaction doesn’t smell like weed or taste like vodka
doesn’t
mean that it’s unhealthy!”

“Okay, fine,” Max mumbled after letting out a long sigh. “Your relationship was the picture of sanity. But Noah was a dick. Good riddance, right?”

“How could you say that?” Riley shrieked, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “He’s your best friend!”

“Whose side do you want me to be on right now?”

“Mine!” Riley blurted out, staring at him as if he had just sprouted another head. “Noah’s a total dick!”

“Riley...”

“He said that he needs time to
think
,” she said in a hollow voice. “What do you think he meant by that?”

“Uh... that he needs time to think?”

“What is there to even think about? Either you want to be with me or you don’t. And he obviously doesn’t!”

“Who knows what he’s thinking,” Max said with a sigh.

“I don’t know what to do right now,” she moaned miserably. “I feel so lost.”

“You’ll be fine without him,” Max calmly assured her.

“No,” she quietly replied. “No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will,” he firmly insisted.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” Max said, jumping up from his seat and holding his hand out to her. “Come on. I’m going to help you charge through this.”

“Promise?” Riley squeaked out as she placed her hand in his, looking up at him with a weary expression.

“Promise,” he confirmed, pulling her up from the sofa. “Just think of me as your breakup spirit guide.”

“All right,” she grumbled in response as he placed his hands on her shoulders and began pushing her in the direction of the front door. “Where are you guiding me first, oh breakup guru?”

“You know what they say,” Max began with a laugh. “Alcohol might not fix a broken heart, but it’ll help you forget the asshole who broke it.”

––––––––

“Y
ou should have just, like, told me, you know?”

Max stared at Riley with a blank expression on his face, just as he had been doing for the past two hours.

“I always thought that we were so close, like, you know what I mean?” Riley continued to slur, pausing her blubbering to let out a low burp before maneuvering her straw back into her mouth and taking a long sip. “I would have told you if I knew something shady about one of
your
girlfriends.”

Max cocked an eyebrow at her, both of them knowing very well that the term “girlfriend” didn’t exist in Max Fletcher’s vocabulary.

“Or girl friends. Whatever,” she muttered with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But still. I would have told you. I guess that I’m just a lot more appreciative of our friendship than you are, you know? I mean, you’re like a freakin’ brother to me.”

Max tried his best not to wince as the “b” word escaped her lips so easily, nonchalantly clearing his throat before taking another sip of his beer. As Riley proceeded on with her drunken tirade, both criticizing him for his insensitive betrayal and condemning the entire male race in general, he couldn’t help but think that she was the most adorable thing in the entire world, even with all of the intermittent burping and guttural groaning that dotted her speeches.

“I mean, doesn’t this all mean that there’s something wrong with me?” Riley squeaked out, snarling in distaste as the words left her mouth. “Why would he feel the need to hunt down girls on the Internet unless he was unhappy?”

“No way,” Max reassured her as he snatched the empty cocktail glass from her hand. “None of this had anything to do with you.”

“Obviously, it did!” Riley responded, letting out a theatrical sigh. “What did I do wrong?”

“You? Nothing!” Max replied as he shot her a disbelieving smile. “Trust me.”

“Did he ever say anything to you?” she suddenly asked, staring him up and down with a suspicious look on her face. “He must have said something. None of this makes any sense!”

Yea, he asked me what he should do about the urge to cheat, and I told him to just go for it
, Max grumbled to himself as he shook his head.
Not that I’d ever tell you that. Not ever.

“Why does everything bad always happen to me?” Riley whimpered out, prompting Max to roll his eyes at her dramatics. “Good things are supposed to happen to good people!”

“Wow.”

“We need to drink more,” Riley muttered, leaning over the edge of the marbled counter to whine out her order to the hipster mixologist working the bar. “I just need to drink myself stupid until nothing makes sense anymore,” she added, the corners of her tiny lips turning downward into a giant frown.

“You just said that nothing made any sense anyway,” Max said as he let out a snort of laughter.

“Why are you so against me today?” Riley grumbled back, glaring at him like a sullen toddler. “Can’t you see I’m in mourning?”

“Drink away, your majesty,” Max acquiesced, bowing his head jokingly as she let out an annoyed scoff. “This lowly traitor is at your beck and call tonight.”

And drink she did. Before long, Max was carrying a heavily inebriated Riley back to the front door of her apartment, the limp girl flung over his shoulder as he fumbled with her keys.

“You’re dumber than I thought,” Riley mumbled nonsensically, her head swaying against his back as she lazily squirmed in place. “You put the key in the keyhole, genius.”

Max merely snorted in response, hoisting her frail body further up his shoulder as he held the set of keys up to the dim light in the hallway. “Stop trying to put my... hair in your butt,” Riley slurred as he tried inserting the next key into the lock.

“Stop babbling out nonsense,” he simply replied, mentally patting himself on his free shoulder as the lock turned and made a merciful clicking sound.

“You’re fucking brilliant,” Riley loudly stated as he swung the door open and gingerly ran his hand along the wall in search of the light switch. “You should become a house burglar.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Max asked with a laugh as the light turned on to reveal an extremely messy living room.

How do girls live like this?
he wondered to himself, wrinkling his nose at the sheer amount of crap littered across the floors and table. Even
his
house was noticeably cleaner than this dump, and that was with twenty guys living under one roof.

“What should we do now, bestest bestie in the whole wide universe?” Riley mumbled as Max set her down on the sofa, looking around lazily before grabbing for the remote control and turning on the TV. “Should we watch a slasher movie? We can pretend that every victim is Noah. Or maybe Noah can be the murderer and every victim can be me...”

Max gave her a crooked smile, taking one step backwards as he longingly eyed the front door. “I think I should actually get going.”

“You can’t leave,” Riley squeaked out as she looked up at him with a pained look on her face. “Everyone always leaves.”

Max felt his stomach flip tumultuously as he looked into her widened eyes, gulping down the lump that had formed in his throat before looking away nervously. “Uh...”

“Don’t go,” Riley continued to whine like a little kid. “Let’s have a girls’ night in and have a pajama party. You can borrow my socks.”

Shit, think of something
, Max urged his brain, though he soon found that his body was settling down onto the other end of the sofa.
What the fuck are you doing? You can’t stay here! You have to leave. Now!

“What should we watch?” Riley babbled, completely oblivious to Max’s internal conflict as she squinted at the television in concentration. “Ugh, this one’s the worst,” she groaned out, glaring at the cheesy romantic comedy unfolding before them on the screen as she stumbled out of her seat. “Filled with lies and deceit,” she muttered under her breath as she pattered back from the kitchen, two bottles of wine grasped in her hands.

“You’re not seriously going to drink more, are you?” Max asked with a frown.

“You said that tonight is my night,” Riley haughtily replied, shoving one of the bottles into his hands. “And I say we drink.”

“Don’t even need a glass, huh?” he mumbled out as he watched her take a swig straight from her own bottle.

“It’s called being classy,” she drawled out sarcastically before letting out a loud belch.

Don’t think she’s cute,
Max commanded himself as he cleared his throat uncomfortably and shot her a weak smile.
Don’t even think about it. That was not attractive at all. That was gross. What kind of girl does that?

...Ah, who am I kidding? Why the fuck is she so cute? How could such a loud noise come out of someone so small?

“Do you think she knows he’s cheating on her?” Riley suddenly barked, pointing the bottom of her wine bottle in the direction of the TV.

“I don’t think that happened in the movie,” Max told her, gulping nervously as he watched the couple kiss passionately in the backseat of a car. Fuck, had his swallowing always been that loud? Had she heard him?

“Of course he is,” Riley moaned out, narrowing her eyes at what was transpiring on the screen. “He’s totally cheating on her, but of course they won’t let the
audience
know that. He probably has that stupid app on his phone.”

Max merely let out another uncomfortable laugh as she continued to squint at the TV.

“How are they even doing that, anyway? Isn’t the backseat really small? It looks cold too. There’s
no
way that the windows could get
that
foggy. Ugh, I bet it smells like sweat. Gross.”

Max cocked his head to the side and shot her a look. “It’s called being caught up in the heat of the moment.”

“Heat of what moment?” Riley asked, her face scrunched up in confusion. “Noah and I
never
did that. Do people really just lunge for each other’s mouths after only a couple of hours of knowing each other?”

“Um, I guess.”

“Do
you
do that?” she asked, abruptly turning to face Max with a curious look in her eyes.

“Uh...”

“You do, don’t you?”

“Um...”

“See what I mean?” she whimpered. “I’m totally clueless about everything! He took the best years of my life. Now I’m going to die alone and inexperienced.”

“You’re not going to die alone, Riley,” Max flatly replied.

“I don’t even know how normal people meet each other,” she groaned out, hugging the bottle of wine tightly to her chest. “What if I never meet anybody ever again?”

“I’m sure you’ll meet someone new in no time,” Max reassured her, feeling a pang in his chest as he said the words aloud.
Please don’t meet someone new
, he couldn’t help but think to himself as he shot her a crooked smile.

“Even if I did, what happens after that? I don’t know how to go on a first date! I don’t know anything about dating period!”

“Dating’s not something that you can plot and plan,” he said with a sigh. “It happens naturally.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Riley muttered as she leaned her head against the sofa cushion. “You never wasted your youth in a decade-long relationship! My last first date was
six
years ago. I’m basically a dating moron!”

“Well, there’s no such thing as a dating
genius
, so don’t feel too bad,” Max teased her in response.

“I bet you’re pretty close. I mean, you go on first dates all the time! Have you ever even
been
on a second date?”

That’s only because I don’t want to date anyone but you
, Max thought miserably to himself, feeling his cheeks grow hot as he did.

“You need to teach me everything you know, Max,” Riley pleaded, staring at him with a desperate gaze before chugging at her wine like it was a baby bottle. “I need to learn from the best if I’m going to overcome this handicap.”

“What do you mean?” Max asked jumpily, the tips of his ears turning red in embarrassment. “Teach you what?”

“You know!” Riley blurted out in exasperation. “What do boys like? How do I dress? How should I do my hair? How much perfume is too much? Should I kiss on the first date? What should I order? What do I even talk about?”

“I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask...”

“Come on, Max,” Riley whimpered out. “You’re the only guy I feel comfortable asking.”

Don’t fuck this up
, Max firmly told himself as he stared at the expectant look on Riley’s face.
This is your chance to make everything right. It’s your fault she’s suffering right now. This is all because of your big fucking mouth. Be a good guy and help her out.

But then you’ll just have to stand by and watch when she starts dating someone new
, another voice inside his head pointed out.
You don’t want that. Why would you try to help her meet other guys? Isn’t that the
last
thing you want? Seeing her with a new guy would kill you,
especially
if you were the one who helped her get together with him. Just keep her away from everyone until you figure your shit out.

And, maybe, if you somehow manage to keep her away from all other men for the next twenty years, you can cash in on your offer...

Don’t be selfish
, he groaned inwardly as he shook away the tempting thought.
It isn’t like she’d go for you anyway. There’s no point in fucking up her dating life just so
you
won’t have to see her with someone else. You want her to be happy, don’t you?