Release (MxB)

Chapter 1

Maxwell sighs with a mix of relief and frustration as one of the stone cold prison guards hands him the possessions he was carrying before his arrest. A cell phone with no data or battery, his wallet with exactly $3.17 inside, a pair of faded baby blue jeans, a pair of old black and blue converse, and an absurdly out of style graphic T-Shirt with the text "TACO CAT" on it. He chuckles at this, not knowing how completely he had missed the past two years of pop culture and street wear. The guards allow him some time to change, before shooing him away like an annoying little sibling.

As Max walks out of this front area of the prison, he is greeted by a parking lot, miles and miles of desert, and an empty bus stop. The nineteen year old knew he could not afford a ticket with the mere $3.17 he so foolishly left himself. So began his nearly 30 miles treck across the desert, which he surely would not get through in one day. Luckily for him, it was mid November so the temperature was not scorching hot as was typical for this personal hell of a state that was California. When he was still in high school, everyone always talked about how much they loved California and what a beautiful place it was. Max had never, not once, agreed with this opinion and has wanted to leave the wretched state for as long as he could remember. Alas, he was stuck here until he could get a job and save up some money.

Maxwell Luciano is a relatively tall and skinny 19 year old boy with an average, though toned, upper body. The years in prison weren't so bad for his physique. His fair falls over his fair skin in short black swishes while his blue and grey eyes stare icily down at his several year old converse. His best feature is easily his outrageously chiseled jawline, accenting the rest of his features beautifully. His lips are admittedly small, though he has a large Cupid's bow giving him the appearance as though he stole his lips from a woman. Overall, an attractive young man.

While the boy's feet drag his lanky but relatively handsome body down the strip of asphalt that cuts through the desert, a thought occurrs to him. Perhaps if a car happened to be driving down this street, he could catch a ride. If he was lucky, he might even live! This was his only saving grace, but it still wasn't much of one as this street connect to only 2 other roads, one leading to a string of factories and the other to a wind farm. God how Max hated wind mills, couldn't walk two feet without seeing one in this place. Does Max really want a ride from A) Someone who likes fucking windmills, B) A sad person working a slaves job in a factory miles from their home, or C) a fucking pig or ex convict? No, none of these sound ideal to him, but you don't exactly get to pick and choose when you are also a quite recent ex-convict.

Several hours pass by, while Max's vision blurs his feet and the exceedingly black asphalt together in his mindless march, while the suns light begins to dwindle. The temperature drops as Mother Nature turns her back on Maxwells silent, still trudging, form.  However another figure shines her blessings on him. Good old Lady Luck.

Max begins to raise his head for the first time in several hours as he hears a sound, other than the crunching of loose pebbles and the plaping sound his shoes made when they hit the strip or cracked asphalt. At first it was entirely unrecogniazable to him, a loud, far off hum. But soon, within less then a minute, he matched the approaching figure or an adequately sized black SUV to the sound of the hum. His slightly dulled common sense blesses him with new found recognition. A car. A way out. 

Though the vehicle is still about a mile away, Maxwell sticks out his thumb and steps near the edge of the road, staring at the approaching figure preemptively. Max had never been much of a religious person, though right now he prayed. He prayed to be picked up and swooped away from this hell. Just a place to sleep for fucks sake.

The vehicle approaches Max faster and faster. 300 feet, 200 feet, 100 feet. The SUV begins to slow as it gets closer and closer to him, the driver eyeing the handsome boy on the side of the road with the "TACO CAT" T-shirt. The man chuckles quietly to himself as he makes the decision to pull over. Brian wasn't typically one for strangers, much less hitch hikers, but it helped when they were cute.