LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT (English)

Chapter 2

"I'm curious," Horatio mentioned, poking around the fire with a stick. "If Sitara is so excited about someone, there really has to be something about her."

"Nah, our expectations shouldn't be too high. I mean she can't be that cool if she's not hanging with us, right?" Wrench replied.

"But we're about to in a few minutes," Josh noticed.

"You're just jealous because Sitara said, she was cooler than you," Horatio laughed.

"You have no proof for that!" Wrench snapped.

"But you're right," Josh mumbled. "Let's just wait and see. I've already had too many times I thought people were cool and big Tolkien fans for example, until they mention how they liked the Hobbit movies. That's really a no go."

"I don't think we have to make any more guesses. There they are," Horatio pointed out.

"Hey guys, we brought some beer!", Sitara shouted, while Max trudged after her with the pack in her arms. There were three people she could recognize at the campfire. Probably the ones Sitara had told her about and wanted to introduce to her. One of them was wearing a green hoodie and seemed a little shy at first, the guy next to him had a black DedSec hoodie smiling at them and waving his hand, as he saw them coming. On the last one her attention got stuck a little longer. He wore ripped jeans and a black DedSec hoodie which was mostly covered from a studded vest like her own – even though it was not as cool as hers of course. The most interesting thing about his appearance was the mask that covered the entire face. The lower part was also completely studded, while the upper part had a display showing two X's instead of his eyes, but apparently was able to display all sorts of facial expressions that way.

"I'm not sure if we'll share," Max grinned, as she set down the beer in the sand. Wrench looked from Josh to Horatio and then to Sitara. The X's on his Mask changed to exclamation marks and then a more surprised looking expression, while he pointed his hand slightly towards Max.

"This...this is Max?!" he asked a bit stunned to Sitara.

"Yup, that's me," Max replied. That one had to be Wrench, the one who was on the phone this afternoon. So apparently Sitaras phone was not broken and his voice was distorted by the mask where it got its robotic sound from.

Sitara laughed. "Look, she's cool. I told you you'd like her," she grinned at Wrench.

"Yeah, but...not how cool!" he answered while he stood up to inspect the patches on her vest. Meanwhile various enthusiastic and curious expressions appeared on the display on his mask.

"Nice to make such a good first impression," Max grinned, spreading her arms so he could admire the rest of her vest.

"You do, you have an excellent taste in music," he stated. "Question: What's the best Operation Ivy album?" he asked after discovering their patch on her vest.

"Behave yourself, dude. This is neither a zoo nor an interrogation," Sitara grinned and pushed him back into the sand.

"It's okay," Max grinned, before she grabbed a beer and sat next to him. She leaned over to him and suddenly was closer to his mask than intended so she could see the individual LEDs of the now displayed Os.

"It's a trick question," she said calmly. "They only did one. Then they thought it sucked that they were so successful because that much commerce was incompatible with their understanding of punk, which is why they broke up and Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman founded Rancid afterwards." She took a lighter out of her pocket and popped open her beer. "So my answer is the first one, which would probably still be the best one if they had made another one. It's a great album," Max grinned as she gained some distance from him again and raised her beer to clink bottles with the other ones.