Chapter Text
“Hey, uh, can we talk?”
Max, spread lazily across a simple picnic blanket on the college lawn, looked up at the question, startled to see Bradley standing before him. They hadn’t spoken since the X-Games, and, frankly, Max had no desire to do so now. He felt a significant drop in the already crisp temperature seeing his old opponent wearing a strained expression and awkwardly rigid posture.
“Um, sure, I guess?” he murmured, more than a little disappointed that he’d most likely be delayed in getting pizza with P.J. and Bobby now. The past few hours had been dedicated to studying (or at least that was what he told himself), but now his daydreams were interrupted by Bradley Uppercrust shuffling from foot to foot in front of him. “Man, you’re giving me anxiety,” Max snickered eventually because someone had to say something. “What’s up?”
“I just . . . I’ve been thinking about what happened. You know. At the X-Games.” Bradley rubbed at his neck while his eyes drifted overhead to follow a passing airplane—anything to avoid direct eye contact. “I don’t believe I ever offered a proper apology, so I thought—”
“Whoa, whoa, wait,” said Max with a grin, rolling on his back into a sitting position to look up at him more directly. “Do my ears deceive me? Can I record this for my friends to hear?”
“Ugh, forget it,” Bradley started with narrowed eyes, his fingers twisting tensely at his bag straps as he turned to rush off. Recently, the most Max had seen of him had been his dramatic tailspins to evade him in classrooms, the library, and the cafeteria. This time, Max caught around him the ankle so he couldn’t get away.
“I’m just messing with you, dude,” he chuckled while Bradley shook at his ankle as if a viper had coiled around it. Max released him, sighed, and leaned back again, propped on his elbows. “Honestly, it surprised me when you congratulated me on the win at all that day. I already told you that you didn’t need to be my towel boy or whatever, so let’s just put it in the past now.”
“Yes, but,” Bradley sputtered, his gaze shifting back and forth again. His teeth dug into his bottom lip a few times. “Everything has been awful for me since then. The Gammas kicked me out, and my family—”
“Ah, I get it. There’s the usual Brad, playing victim now,” Max muttered, turning his attention to the textbooks he’d successfully ignored for the past couple hours. “This isn’t an apology to me for what you’ve done. It’s an apology to yourself for getting caught.”
“What, no, that’s not what I was saying at all!” snapped Bradley, but this time Max didn’t bother turning his head to acknowledge him. Instead, he focused on shoving the books into his bag.
“Everything has been awful for you since the X-Games. That’s literally what you just said. What about Tank? He lost the guy he thought was his best friend when you basically left him to die over a skating contest. And why aren’t you apologizing to P.J.? He’s the one you shot into space. You’re lucky he landed okay. If your apology is gonna suck this bad, don’t even go through the trouble, Brad."
Now that he was speaking on the topic again, Max felt the old anger firing into his motions as he tossed one book into the bag after the other. He was a little surprised himself at the height of his emotion since he hadn’t given much thought to the former rivalry since the X-Games.
Since there was nothing left hanging over him but silence, Max figured Bradley must have already left. He was more than surprised when he glanced up and saw him still standing there, looking down at him with wide-blown, glossy eyes and a face flushed all over with red. Max had seen the expression on others enough in his lifetime to know he was trying not to cry.
“Whoa, what . . ?” he started, his anger dissipating into his own kind of guilt now. Even though he knew he was in the right, he hadn’t meant to make anyone cry.
“It seems I can never do anything right, can I?” Bradley bit back, and though he clearly was trying to maintain the usual venomous confidence in his speech, Max didn’t miss how his lips twitched at the sides and his words wavered. “Everywhere I go, I get this same response. With Tank and the other Gammas. My family. So, what’s even the point of trying to apologize if it never does any good? Even if I mean it?”
When the first tear slipped from his left eye and raced rapidly down his cheek, his eyes grew even bigger, and he appeared appalled with himself. He shook his head violently from left to right and then turned as if to run off again. Again, Max caught him by the ankle.
“Hey, hey. Wait a minute. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, softening his tone. “I’m sorry about that. And . . . I’m sorry for interrupting your apology. You were . . . trying, and that’s important.”
He tried to consider what his dad might say in a situation like this, and he knew there was no scenario in which his dad would ever turn a cold shoulder to someone at least attempting a sincere apology.
To Max’s surprise, Bradley didn’t fight to escape his grasp this time. He continued standing with his head averted, trying his best to conceal the tears falling freely from both eyes now. “I wasn’t trying to play the victim, for your information,” he insisted quietly, sniffling some. “I was trying to make you understand that my mistake cost me more than I imagined, and I suppose I needed that to happen . . . I know I don’t need the support of the Gammas or my family to succeed, but it’s been difficult, and . . . I really am sorry, but no one seems to believe me, so . . .”
Max tried to listen without interrupting, his fingers loosening around Bradley’s ankle until they fell from him completely. “Hey, why don’t you sit down?” he invited, gently patting the space on the picnic blanket beside him.
Bradley, still flustered and red-faced, sent him an electrified look as if Max had suggested they have children together. “It’s getting late,” he answered inflexibly, his voice stretched as taut as a piano string.
Max glanced around and found that he was right. Only the upper arch of the sun was visible on the horizon, its light reduced to a faint orange glow across an otherwise indigo sky. The campus was illuminated primarily by the lampposts now, and most small groups of students were gathering up their things and heading indoors. Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw his phone brightening with texts from his friends. Surely they were wondering where he was by now.
“It’s all right,” he said, ignoring his phone because he couldn’t exactly lecture Bradley on social conventions if he interrupted such an earnest moment to send a text. “Can’t you just . . . please sit down? You’re making me nervous up there,” he tried again.
Bradley stared down at him with pink-rimmed eyes for an extended moment until time must have stretched too thin for him, and he gave in. Very hesitantly, he lowered onto the picnic blanket next to Max and drew up his legs under his chin so no two body parts of theirs were touching.
“I know there’s no excuse for cheating the way I did,” he began after a short, shaky breath. “It’s a complicated situation, and I do have my reasons, but there’s no excuse.” He paused and exhaled. “Anyway, I don’t want to make this all about me on accident, and I understand no one owes me their forgiveness. It’s painful when no one accepts an apology, but that’s the reality I created for myself, and I must live it now. You won the X-Games fair and square.” He sighed heavily, dropping his face into his knees so Max couldn’t see any of his expression.
“Why are you still crying?” gasped Max when he saw Bradley’s hunched shoulders were still rising and falling with the recognizable effort not to cry audibly. “That was a good apology. For real. I forgive you."
Bradley froze a little until a loud sniffle interrupted his silence again, and this time he shuddered out of his curved position to wipe furiously at his face.
“You know, it’s okay to cry,” murmured Max when he saw how Bradley was practically sucking in his breath to avoid releasing any unwanted sounds. “I think it’s pretty cool that you wanted to apologize and be a better person. I’m . . . I’m proud of you for that.” He didn’t know what his pride mattered, but it must have meant something because Bradley suddenly looked up, startled and teary, his irises like two blue stones underneath shallow water.
“I don’t want to mess up everything anymore,” he said, a broken little hitch in his voice that snagged Max’s heart in an unexpected way. “I don’t want everyone to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” said Max, sensing a significant shift in the air around them. The breeze tossed a handful of small spring leaves and buds from a nearby tree their way, and a few pink petals sailed onto Bradley’s hair and shoulders. Max watched as one sealed itself to the tears on his cheek. Smiling a little, he leaned forward to wipe it away, and when he did, Bradley grabbed onto his shoulders and tugged him closer.
There are scenes in life too surprising and monumental to understand immediately, and Max froze, astonished and clueless, when he felt Bradley’s lips press against his. With no clear knowledge on how to react, Max allowed his body to decide what to do rather than his mind. And what his body decided to do was push further into Bradley until their chests were touching, and his arm was weaving around Bradley’s slim waist and up his back to his air.
Bradley’s mouth was swelteringly hot compared to the outside air, and his lips tasted faintly of the salt from his tears. When Max angled his head better to accommodate him, he felt small droplets raining from Bradley’s eyelashes onto his own nose and cheeks.
Max had dreamt so often of a passionate college romance that he almost couldn’t believe he was here relishing someone else’s warmth and body like this, but more than anything, he couldn’t believe he was here with Bradley Uppercrust, and that he was enjoying the embarrassed little gasps and huffs of breath Bradley was finally allowing himself to release every now and then between his lips.
When Bradley nudged against his chest and finally drew away from him with a bewildered and disorganized expression, Max was crushed instantly with a heavy feeling of abrupt absence. Suddenly, he felt as if his lips had been waiting all these years for Bradley, and now that they’d found each other, they shouldn’t part so soon.
“I-I’m sorry,” Bradley choked without looking at him, trying to push himself at arms-length away from Max. “I never do anything right. I got carried away. I’m s—”
“Please stop talking,” Max hushed him, silencing him more effectively by covering his words once again with his lips.
Max had no idea how long he spent kissing Bradley because all he now remembered how to do was move his mouth against another’s and slip his tongue into the warm opening between Bradley’s lips until he heard him whimper. He felt the sound reverberate through his own tongue, which only encouraged him to move deeper and more languidly until he was certain time had to be slipping away and his friends were probably sending out a search party for him.
When he finally let Bradley breathe again, he saw how Bradley fell backward, his shoulders loose and his face entirely reddened from the bridge of his nose across to his ears. His lips were pinkish and swollen, and his eyes had fallen half-lidded at some point, the tears nothing but drying memories in the corners now. “Y-Your phone,” he panted eventually, his darkened, blotted eyes wandering slowly over to Max’s phone, which was lighting up again and again with missed calls and messages.
“T-That’s right,” Max said, the words falling heavily like lead from his numb lips. “I gotta . . . I mean, I’m supposed to . . .” What was he supposed to do again? Something about pizza? Some part of his mind asked him why bothering when there was something much tastier here to satiate his hunger. A quick swipe of his tongue across his lips proved that Bradley tasted of faintly floral tea.
“I, uh, thanks for the apology,” Max said next, remembering his vocabulary at last.
“Yeah . . . I, yes,” said Bradley, blinking fast and clearly further behind in his ability to speak. “You really shouldn’t ignore people like that,” he added with a brutal swing of his chin toward Max’s phone—a last attempt to regain control of the situation, if Max had to guess. He jumped up, shook out his whole body, and raced off with his bag held tightly to his side.
Several of the pink petals lay scattered across Max's legs as he leaned back onto the blanket, scooping up his phone into his palm and staring up at the sky’s bright pattern of stars. He licked at his lips again, once again trying to determine the flavor of Bradley’s apology.
Chamomile? Jasmine? Hibiscus?
Shit, he didn't know his flavors well enough, and he couldn’t tell for sure anyway because the sweet traces were so faded and few now. All he knew for sure was that he unexpectedly liked tea now and wanted to taste it again. His phone kept buzzing between his fingers.
Lavender?
His friends could wait a little longer; he had some studying to do.