“You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper, and he gives me one of his sultry bad boy smiles, the ones he affects while lounging casually against lockers in the hallway, watching over Parrish and, apparently, me.
“You know how boys feel about periods,” he retorts, and I narrow my eyes, chucking the paper towels at him. Annoyingly enough, he catches them between his palms and sets them aside. Maxx looks between the two of us with a quizzical expression on his face.
I feel suddenly terrified that he might find out what happened between me and Chasm.
Then, of course, I realize that we sort of have to tell Maxx. He can’t help if he doesn’t know the full story. My eyes drift over to his, and he turns back to me, as if he can sense me watching him. He give me an easy, confident smile, like the hero to Chasm’s villainous smirk.
“Anything interesting happen today?” I ask it first, so that I can have time to get myself together.
“Well, first off, I’m pretty sure that GG is a boy,” X offers up, leaning back on the bed on his palms. He’s wearing another wifebeater today. This one’s white, and it strains across his broad chest in a way that’s disturbingly distracting. Not to mention it leaves both of his arms bare, his thick biceps and corded forearms exposed.
“How do you figure that?” Chasm asks, slipping out of his blazer and then reaching down to unbutton the top few buttons of his dress shirt. As he goes to do so, he realizes that a few are already undone and the rest are crooked. His eyes lift up to mine, and I swallow past a lump of anxiety.
“He tried to hump me for one,” Maxx starts, and I let out a snorting laugh, clamping a hand over my mouth. Chasm gives me a look, one that’s absolutely dripping with innuendo. Like I humped you today? That’s what I imagine he’s saying, but maybe I’m just a crazy person. “Second, he sprayed the inside of his cage and also quite a few of Parrish’s hardcover books in the process.”
“He’s going to be so fucking pissed when he gets back,” Chasm says with a sharp grin, but then the expression freezes on his face and slides right off, leaving him with a pained grimace instead. “Fuck.”
Maxx exhales and sits up, trying to move past the sickening sadness that’s just permeated the room. He forces another pretty smile.
“Anyway, I looked it up. It’s possible that GG’s a girl, and still doing those things, but it’s far more likely that he’s … well, he’s a he.”
“Isn’t it, like, obvious?” Chasm asks, giving Maxx a side eye.
“How so?” X queries back, turning to look at his friend. The way they’re sitting and staring at each other reminds me of Parrish, that easy, comfortable friendship the three of them share. It’s something I thought I had with Sally and Nevaeh back home, but I’ll be honest: I don’t think that anymore. Not only could they not be bothered to return my texts or resist dating my crush, but I highly doubt my old besties would ever load a dead maid into the back of their sportscar and dump it off at a rapist’s house in order to save me.
“How so? Man, don’t make me say it. Does the rabbit have a dick?”
“Were you home all day with GG? Did you do an online search on how to sex a rabbit? It isn’t as easy as it sounds, and I’m not fucking doing it.” Maxx turns back to me, his eyes dropping to my chest before lifting back to my face. I know that I’m blushing. He knows it. I have no idea why because we’re talking about freaking rabbits here, but …
I did screw Kwang-seon McKenna in a hedge maze today, so my mind is in the gutter.
“Well, whatever. Your rabbit, your problem,” Chasm says with another smirk. The expression doesn’t reach his eyes, but that’s okay. We’re all trying our best here.
“So, what about you two?” Maxx asks, standing up and moving over to the desk. He’s already brought his laptop in here, sitting down in the desk chair in front of it. I wet my lower lip and glance over at Chasm. It isn’t like we didn’t know that the Slayer could watch us through tech, but at least now we know he’s been watching us another way.
“Let’s go see the bunny,” I suggest lightly, grabbing Maxx by the arm. His eyes drop down to my fingers on his bicep, and he cringes slightly, so subtly that I might not have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it. He stands up in just such a way that he dislodges my grip without being obvious about it.
Much to his surprise, I actually reach my hand into his sweats pocket and snatch his phone, chucking it on the desk beside the laptop.
