Cause for Concern ✓

twenty seven

SATURDAY. 30. OCTOBER. 21. (unedited!!)

LUCKILY, Max hadn't needed to call Cole. Immediately after Carter had left, Cole had called him.

As soon as he answered the phone (hastily, after a few seconds of panicked hesitation), he stole Cole's chance to speak and invited him to come over. After another painful hesitation that had passed through a clenched fist and eyes squeezed shut, Cole agreed. Within the next half an hour, he was stood on the front porch.

The half an hour wait had been painful enough on its own. Thankfully, the fifteen minute shower he'd taken had massively refreshed him and the feeling of warm water running over his head and over his body eased the tension in his shoulders, relaxed the thoughts in his head— even if only a little bit.

He tried to hold onto that feeling, tried to nurture it in a cave inside his chest, when he was clambering down the stairs, when he was quickly stuffing down a piece of toast and praying that filling his stomach might ease out the weird hollow feeling lingering there, when his phone buzzed with a message from Cole letting him know that he was outside.

On his way to open the door, he'd tried not to think about how clammy his palms were and abandoned any plans to rehearse what he might say. Whatever the conversation was that they were about to have, he wanted it to be as natural as possible. No hidden feelings, no sugarcoating, no rehearsals.

He tried to remind himself of this while he sat on the sofa and tried to relax, curling up in the far end and daring to glance at Cole who was sat on an adjacent love seat. One of his arm was resting over the chair arm, one hand falling over the edge and his other hand resting carelessly in his lap. His knees were spread, one leg lazily bouncing as he studied Max, eyes curiously searching and brows furrowed so gently it was almost unnoticeable.

They were living in a brief period of silence.

The second that he'd stepped foot into the house, Cole was asking him all about last night with a faint glint of hope in his eyes, kicking off his shoes by the door and shrugging his jacket off. When Max offered to take it, he recognised the familiar scent of amber wood, the already increasing rate of his heartbeat leaping when Cole brushed past him.

Talk of Nick's had, thankfully, filled up the all of the empty space in the air for a while, but there was only so much to talk about before it began to feel stilted.

For some reason, he almost felt like he shouldn't talk about what he had gotten up to with Tommy. It wasn't a secret or anything, but something about it was making him feel like it should stay locked in the past. And anyway, he knew that Cole was the one who introduced it to Tommy in the first place and he supposed that, in a weird way, he didn't want Cole to think he was intruding, stepping on ground that wasn't his.

Unfortunately, not talking about going out with Tommy meant that he could pretty much only talk about the time he spent at the party, and the time that he spent at the party mostly consisted of daydreaming (about Cole, for crying out loud) and topical conversation while he stayed in the exact same place all night. There was only so much he could say before there was nothing left.

As he observed Cole in the ticking seconds, he dug half-moons into the tip of his fingers with the index finger on his other hand and reminded himself not to think too hard. Just talk. That's how this had to happen if they wanted to be honest with each other.

"Why are you sitting over there?" Max asked him curiously, cross-legged on the sofa with his back resting against the arm, hands in his lap as he continued to pinch his fingertips.

"What?" Cole asked, the corners of his rosy lips perking into a confused smile, brows furrowing now enough to be apparent.

"You feel so far away," Max muttered, tilting his head curiously.