Chapter 20

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Chapter Twenty:

"Hello again Mr.Ashton, hello girls!" Casey beamed as Cyro, Maxine and Alice all entered the apartment building. Cyro waved politely to the plump redheaded front desk manager, nodding to the two other staff members at the desk he slightly recognized, as he began fishing his key card from his mini backpack. The staff was very nice but Casey always had a sweet spot for Maxine and Alice. "You two having a sleepover this weekend?"

"Sure are! We're going to watch the live stream premiere of the new 'The Last Color' movie tonight, it comes on at midnight!" Maxine shared excitedly, bouncing up and down a bit causing the entire staff team to smile and nod even though Cyro doubted any of them had heard of the obscure foreign cartoon a day in their lives prior to that very moment.

"Wow midnight, isn't that past bedtime for you two?" Casey replied, chuckling a bit.

"It's cool my Mom said it was fine." Maxine shrugged looking up at Cyro who simply nodded in agreeance finally pulling his keycard from the bag. He was never sure how such a small bag got so easily cluttered when he barely ever put anything in it. He started carrying the small bookbag around mainly so he never had to hold anything Maxine no longer wanted to carry, but somehow that turned into a bag full of random unopened packs of tissues, fast food toys, boxes of crayons as well as the occasional small stuffed animal. Despite all that somewhere deep in the bottom of the bag always tended to be his wallet car keys and phone so he continued to use it.

"Have a good night Casey." Cyro waved signalling the end of the conversation as the group finally began their way over to the elevators. He let the girls push the buttons and swipe the key card to get up to the top floors before finally getting to the apartment door and unlocking it himself. He liked the building upgrades, even though they were still a bit new and confusing to him, but he was just happy they didn't change the physical keys on each door, the idea of keycards for homes just seemed wrong to him for some reason. "So where are you girls planning on watching the movie?"

"Can I borrow the laptop and projector to set up in the room?" Maxine asked already making her way towards her father's office before Cyro nodded disappearing into the kitchen. Maxine followed Alice silently, hanging in the doorway of the office watching as her best friend awkwardly navigated around her working father to get the things they needed to set up the stream. The three spoke briefly mostly because Alice insisted Maxine say hello which led to the same conversation they'd just had with the desk staff before leaving to Maxine's room.

Maxine and Alice set up the projector easily before heading into the kitchen to make a movie snack with a bit of help from Cyro by the time they'd finished there was only a half hour til the premiere and they were sat in Maxine's room watching the pre-stream chat slowly tick by as other early attendees filed in one by one.

"Alice, hey, Alice." She could feel a small nudge of Maxine's knee on her side as she laid upside down, head hanging off the side of her friend's bed. She ignored Maxine for a moment as she stared across the room at the orange sherbet wall. Across from her the bed there was a small white desk with a few textbooks piled on top and a framed picture mounted on the wall above it. It was a simple picture in a decorative white frame one of Maxine, her father and Cyro posed in front of a large Ferris wheel. "Alice!"

Obviously tired of being ignored Maxine shoved Alice from the bed causing her to slide down the side before she knew what was happening. Frowning up at her best friend she continued laying on the floor for a moment, contemplating before finally sitting up cross-legged on the carpet.

"Max, what's so great about having two parents?" Alice frowned leaning against the side of the bed, watching as her best friend shrugged before laying down on the pink comforter so they were almost eye level. "I thought it'd be fun, cause Aunt Lauren made it seem like a big deal but now it just seems like a pain."

"Mmm, I don't know. When it was me and Mom I didn't see either of my parents a lot, now it's CiCi and Dad and I guess I see Dad more but mom a lot less and CiCi all the time so I'm not sure." Maxine rambled, Alice nodded suddenly realizing their situations were pretty different so it didn't make much sense to ask Maxine. Then again thinking through most of the people she knew Alice wasn't sure if any of her friends had a family like her's.

Truthfully, it never really bothered Alice much that her family was different, sometimes other kids would ask weird questions about her mom but Alice usually just shrugged them off. She knew her mom was a guy and that meant he should probably be called her dad but Maxine's parents were kind of called something different too and so did a few of her other friends so it really didn't seem important to her.

"I think I liked it better when it was just me and Mom." Alice decided, crawling back up onto the bed, sitting with her back against the wall. Maxine quirked an eyebrow as she waited for Alice to elaborate. "It was more fun when it was just me and Mom, but like before Jerome ask him to marry him. We would always go fun places and he wasn't as busy all the time or as sad. I think I just miss when Mom wasn't always sad."

"Then why don't you just tell him?" Maxine asked.

Telling Alice {ManxMan} | MPregWhere stories live. Discover now