Page 23 of Do You Ship It

Max supplies me with a raspberry Kopparberg from a case stashed inside the washing machine.

I look around for a bottle opener, but when I don’t see one, he smoothly takes the bottle out of my hand, angles it just so against the kitchen counter and gives the top a whack. The lid pops right off, and I’m impressed enough that I have to make an effort not to gawp as I take the bottle back.

I clear my throat, trying to shake it off. ‘So, um …’

Great work, Cerys. A conversational superstar.

It’s not my fault, though. Max makes it so hard to talk to him.

He’s all stoic and serious and superior and downright annoying , and it’s not as if he’s here throwing out ‘Hey look at me, I’m Mr Approachable, small talk is my forte’ vibes, is he?

Thankfully – God, this is what my life has come to, that I’m stuck alone at a party with Max and grateful when he has something to say – he finds something for us to talk about.

‘Anissa seems cool.’

‘Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, she’s …’ The exact opposite, but maybe in Max’s books she’s the height of cool? She definitely is where Jake is concerned, it seems …

‘You went to the same school, right? Jake mentioned you guys were never really friends, though.’

‘We weren’t.’

I don’t have much else to say – the truth is I’m still uncomfortable with being seen hanging out with Anissa in case I’m judged and exiled for it, but she does seem really great and I regret not getting to know her sooner. I feel a whole mess of shame when I think about any of that, and I’m realizing it has less to do with her and a lot to do with me, but that’s really scary to confront. The very last person I want to open up to about any of that is Max .

He takes my brusque response as some kind of invitation to pry, though, saying, ‘So what changed? Don’t tell me all it took was a mutual appreciation for OWAR.’ He quirks an eyebrow, apparently sceptical as ever about my own investment in this fandom.

I bristle. Not because he’s right , but because I am invested. Genuinely, deeply. I’ve written fanfiction, for God’s sake! Not – NOT – that I am about to prove that to him by sending Max my lovey-dovey one-shot of a ballroom dance. I’d rather set myself on fire.

But I’m backed into a corner: I don’t want to stand here elaborating on my fangirl status to make a point, and I don’t want to reveal just how shady my motivations for inviting Anissa to the party tonight were. I don’t want that getting back to Jake – or worse, to Anissa.

‘I didn’t realize my friendships were any of your business,’ I snap.

Max scoffs.

‘What? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Clearly, it meant something. ’

His jaw works for a minute before he shakes his head and mutters, ‘Forget it,’ and sets about finding himself a drink. He doesn’t bother with the washing machine ciders, but yanks open a cupboard to find a glass, and pours himself some Coke.

That ever-present tension between us is back, amped-up, crackling and angry, making me grit my own teeth as I wonder who the hell he thinks he is to try and pick apart my newly forged bond with Anissa, and what the hell that scoff was all about. It takes every ounce of my willpower to try to let it go.

Fine. Let him think what he wants. Let him hate me. See if I care.

But I am not going to let him spoil my night any more than Jake and Anissa and even Daphne already have. Eventually, they’ll run out of steam and come hang out with us again, and I don’t want to be in a foul mood when they do.

For now, I’m stuck with him. I guess I have no choice but to try and be civil, if I want to salvage this night.

Max, it seems, has the same idea, because although he leans against the counter a safe distance from me, his frown looks more perturbed than annoyed now, and I get the sense he’s trying to think of small talk that’s safer ground.

If that even exists; I don’t think we’ve managed to have anything resembling a normal conversation since we met.

This time, it’s me who breaks the ice.

‘You’re not drinking?’ I ask, nodding at his own glass.

Max shakes his head. ‘I drew the short straw.’ Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out his car keys, gives them a little jangle, then puts them away again. Then he tilts his head in the direction of a few other people clustered in the kitchen. ‘Just wait til later, I’ll suddenly be everybody’s best friend, even if they don’t remember my name and call me “Matt” half the time.’

‘Doesn’t that bother you?’

He locks eyes with me, and it’s so piercing that I almost flinch. ‘Should it?’

I think about Anissa, about my conversation with Jake in the Discord channel, about how desperately hard I’ve tried to fit in.

It’s definitely a lot easier to chat behind the safety of a screen with the OWAR fandom as a shield, but I swallow, my mouth dry, and dare myself to ask, ‘I get that “finding your people” is important, but … You don’t think it gets lonely, alienating yourself like that? Being …’

Max waits for me to finish that sentence, and I cringe.

Altering course slightly, I say, ‘Don’t you ever get lonely?’

His lips curve into a wry smile. ‘I do okay. Why? Do you get lonely, not alienating yourself all the time?’

Yes. That’s why I can’t afford to lose what I do have.

I take a fortifying sip of cider and fight back a grimace at the sickly-sweet taste. Gross. How does Jake enjoy this stuff? I wish Ginny had made it home for reading week; she would’ve given us some of that cheap rosé I actually do like. I don’t much fancy minesweeping any of the open wine bottles scattered around the kitchen.

I tell Max, ‘Sure, when my best friend is replacing me. But I do okay, too.’

Mostly. Sort of.

At least, I thought I did.

Max, as if knowing there’s a lot more I’m not really saying, huffs a small laugh, and clinks his drink to mine. ‘Here’s to doing okay.’

Drinks in hand, we leave the kitchen and go to the living room. I check there’s no sign of Daphne before deciding to stay. There’s a big group involved in a noisy card game at a coffee table, with even more people clustered around to watch. There’s a vile-looking mixture in a pint glass in the middle of the table, and as we find a spot behind a sofa on the edge of the crowd to watch, someone pulls a card that makes everyone howl and jeer, and they slosh some of their own drinks into the pint.

I wrinkle my nose, watching the liquid turn an almost purplish shade of brown. Even just looking at it threatens to turn my stomach. Surely nobody has to drink it?

I don’t realize I’ve said that last part out loud until Max says, ‘You’ve never played Ring of Fire before?’

‘What?’ Then I blink. ‘And you have?’

‘Like I said – I do okay. This isn’t my first house party.’ He lifts his Coke slightly. ‘And I’m not always the one driving.’

‘But …’

But who invites him anywhere? He said himself, most of these people don’t even get his name right. Who does he have parties with, playing drinking games like this? I have so many questions, but I’m aware how not-civil they all sound, so I keep my mouth shut.

Max must be secretly cooler than I give him credit for.

As we watch and people take turns pulling cards from the pile surrounding the gross pint glass, Max explains the rules to me. He’s stood close – my shoulder grazing his chest, his mouth near enough to my ear that he doesn’t have to raise his voice to be heard over the shouting and the music. His breath tickles at loose strands of my hair and the edge of my neck, and a shiver threatens to roll down my spine. Someone bumps me and makes me spill some cider over my hand and shoes, and my mind goes completely blank at the sensation of Max putting his arm around me – wrapping it solidly around my lower back, his hand resting on the back of the sofa just by my hip, like a shield between me and stumbling partygoers. The heat of his arm seems to burn right through the thin fabric of my borrowed dress, my attention zeroing in on my shoulder against his solid chest, his breath skating across my skin and just how close his face is to mine.

I don’t catch all the rules, and blame that on the noise. It’s not like I’m distracted. It’s not like he’s distracting me.

Unthinkable. Impossible.

I think he asked me something, because from the corner of my eye I notice that he tilts his head, looking at me as if he’s waiting for my response. I’m biting my lip and staring a bit too hard at the gameplay – seeing none of it.

‘Uh-huh,’ I manage, a non-committal mumble.

The arm isn’t around me, obviously, he’s just trying to balance himself, that’s all.

Whatever comment or question I’ve just responded to, though, Max chuffs a breath of laughter and faces back to the game again. Did I insult him? Ignore him? I don’t quite have the brain capacity to care.

Someone draws a card and there’s a cacophony, voices hollering and howling, and the boy who drew the card – Alfie, the goalkeeper who flaked on games to be with his on-off girlfriend – buries his head in his hands with a loud curse before lurching to his feet, throwing his card – a king – down on the table, and reaching for the pint from hell.

‘He’s not!’ I gasp.

‘He is,’ Max says.

There are chants around the room – ‘ Chug, chug, chug! ’ and ‘Weeeee like to drink with Alfie, ’cos Alfie is our mate, and when we drink with Alfie …’ – and I watch in horror as he downs the entire horrible concoction, gagging only a little halfway through, and belching when he slams the empty glass back down on the table.

Grim.

A fresh game of Ring of Fire is set up, with the group playing shifting a bit as some spectators and participants swap places, and the scummy glass is set back on the table for everyone to pour a little of their drinks in anew, laughing and looking excited.

Raf is in the group playing now, and sits cross-legged on the floor opposite us. He notices me, and waves me over with a grin.

‘Wandy’s gal! You wanna join? We can make room for one more.’

I eye the dubious foam floating on the top of the mixed pint, as people who don’t even know me are smiling, calling me over, making space to include me. ‘Er, I don’t think …’

Isn’t this what I wanted, though? Isn’t this what everybody wants, when they think about going to house parties? Isn’t this the teenage dream, the stuff of romcoms? This is how I become the cool girl, popular and well-loved and oozing ‘fun’ from every pore, and Jake will wander in and see me getting on with all his new mates, see me being the life and soul, and he will sit down next to me to join in, hating to be left out, and …

If it was all the girls playing, if it was Daphne asking me, would I join in? If it was Jake asking me to play, would I even hesitate?

I can’t even summon up any excitement about being referred to as Jake’s ‘gal’. My stomach is too busy churning.

‘We were just gonna go get some air,’ comes a reply for me, and I’m being steered out of the room to a disappointed chorus that ends before I’m even through the living-room door, and my brain doesn’t catch up until we’re in the hallway.

I twist around, shoving Max’s arm off me.

‘What the hell was that?’

He rolls his eyes, head facing more towards the living room than to me. ‘I know, Raf means well but –’

‘Not him . You!’

‘What?’ Max turns now, looking at me properly, his eyes searching mine as a frown begins to crumple his forehead.

‘I didn’t need you to step in for me, you know. This is real life, Max. I’m not some damsel, and you’re not Sir Grayson.’

‘That wasn’t –’

‘And it’s not up to you whether I join in a drinking game or not; I didn’t ask you to interfere. Maybe I wanted to –’

There it is. That scoff .

Again .

As if he knows better. As if he’s so high and mighty, and …

It boils my blood. It really, really does.

I sneer right back at him. ‘Please. You don’t know me, you don’t –’

‘I know you better than you’re giving me credit for. And anyone could see that you were looking for any excuse not to join in that game. But let me guess – you’re worried what they’ll be saying about you, that you didn’t fit in well enough.’

‘It’s not a bad thing to want to fit in! Just because you don’t give two shits what people are saying behind your back –’

‘You’re right. I don’t. If it’s that important, they’ll say it to my face.’

‘Well, consider this me saying it to your face, Max – nobody likes a self-centred prick who spends their whole time looking down on everybody else, especially those of us who actually want to fit in, who want people to like us, who care . Being lonely doesn’t make you better than the rest of us – it just makes you an arsehole.’

With nowhere else to go because he’s blocking my path to the living room and the rest of the hallway, I tramp up the stairs. The three girls are still there, though they’ve acquired some fresh drinks and nobody’s crying anymore.

‘Yes, bish!’ one of them yells to me as I lunge over them. Another says, ‘You tell him!’

At the top of the landing, I almost collide with Daphne. Her eyes are wide, her cheeks still flushed, but she doesn’t look like she’s having such a fun time anymore. If anything she looks annoyed, her glossy lips in a pout. Her curls are limp, and there’s a sheen of sweat around her forehead, some of her eye make-up smudged.

But when her eyes light on me, she lunges for me, grabbing my wrist with a smile. ‘ There you are! Ohmigod, Cerys, so Daniel totally snogged me – and then he said he was going to get a drink, and he’s just vanished . I thought maybe it was code for “meet him upstairs”, but obviously not. Haha! God, how embarrassing … I was actually thinking I might just leave. Anyway, I’m so glad I found you. Shall we go back down to the party? How’s things going with Jake? You can tell me everything –’

And it’s all too much. Anissa and Jake, Max with his chivalry and Raf with his drinking games and Daphne wanting to ask about it all like I could even tell her . It’s too much, and I want to scream.

I wrench away from her, breathing hard, and snap, ‘ Ohmigod, Daphne, I don’t want to talk about Jake. Or Daniel, or …’ Or Max. Especially not Max . ‘Do you even hear yourself? I don’t want to talk about your shitty boy drama!’

‘But … I wasn’t …’ She blinks at me, her face blank, and for once she doesn’t look like the polished icon of put-togetherness that I’ve envied for the last couple of months. She looks young. She looks hurt .

And then her face contorts into a scowl that probably matches my own. ‘Well, screw you, Cerys! As if you’re not the one who’s constantly whinging about this boy who doesn’t fancy you back, as if it’s the only interesting thing going on in your life! Forgive me for the fact that a guy actually is interested in me, and you can’t handle that!’

I don’t stop her as she storms off. I know – a tiny part of me knows – I should go after her. That I’ve been callous and cruel and she’s upset, and I didn’t mean any of that, but she’s right , I do only talk about Jake, and I should fix this …

But it’s such a small voice in the back of my mind, crushed quickly by the raging thought of: good riddance. At least now, all my horrible secrets can stay buried.

By some miracle the bathroom is empty, and I shut myself in, being sure to slam the door to give myself that satisfaction of finality. Fight with Daphne aside, I’ve finally put Max in his place after weeks of putting up with his attitude. I should feel on top of the world.

But instead, I’m standing in the middle of a bathroom clutching a drink I don’t even want, feeling more wretched than ever.