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hang out with
him the other night, and didn’t just send him home as soon as it became clear
that he wasn’t getting any.
    So why is Max here?
    Several seconds of silence follow, and the
whole time, Theo is painfully aware of Max sitting there, looking at him. He’s
a bit higher up than Theo, sitting on that little wall, but Theo can
practically sense him watching him. And then, Max suddenly makes a small
thinking noise, and Theo frowns. He looks up at him.
    “What?” he says, and he can see Max
considering whether or not he should answer. He’s got the smallest frown on his
face, eyes on Theo’s notes. And then he seems to decide to say what he’s
thinking.
    “That one goes there,” he says, pointing
at the notes, and Theo looks back at them. And then it dawns on him.
    “Right, I forgot,” he says, just a little
bit bitterly. “You’re a genius.”
    He hears a small chuckle from Max, more
like a scoff, and when Theo looks up at him, he looks oddly self-conscious,
beneath that confident expression.
    “Is there anything you can’t do?” Theo
asks, with a hint of sarcasm, the kind he barely ever manages to pull off. Max
smirks, that self-consciousness gone.
    “You’d be surprised,” he says. Then he
looks back at the notes on the table in front of Theo, and sighs. “However,
algebra is not one of those things.”
    He looks at Theo, and extends his hand, a
question written on his face; May I? Theo doesn’t answer him, just hands
him his notes, full of equations and formulas, and Max takes the notepad from
him, placing it in his lap.
    It somehow looks odd, Theo thinks, as he
watches Max. He’s sitting on that small dividing wall, black Dr. Martens
planted on the chair’s seat in front of and below him, a notepad full of
formulas and mathematical scribbles in his lap. He looks at it with complete
focus for a few seconds, brow slightly furrowed, rolling his tongue piercing
between his teeth―for some reason, Theo loves that quirk of his. He has
no idea why.
    Finally, Max lets out a deep breath and
actually hops off the dividing wall, feet landing with a soft thud on the
floor.
    “Alright,” he says, pulling up a chair and
sitting down. He squeezes in beside Theo, even though there’s barely any room
at the end of the table, where he sits. He moves so close that their shoulders
brush together, and Theo just stares at him, while Max keeps his eyes on the
notes, not bothered at all. “Here’s how it works.”
    He’s clearly referring to Theo’s algebra,
and Theo glances down at the notepad, confused.
    “You’re helping me with my homework?” he
blurts, and Max glances up at him. Theo could have sworn that there was the
slightest hint of nervousness in those blue eyes, just now. But if there was,
it’s gone now, as Max frowns a bit.
    “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he
grumbles, rather unlike his usual, confident self. “It’s not like I’ve got
anything better to do.”
    They look at each other for another moment
or so, before Max turns back to the notes.
    “Right,” he says, clearing his throat.
“You gotta―”
    He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
Theo, on some kind of impulse, puts his hand by Max's face and angles it, so
that he can kiss him on the mouth, and it shuts him right up.
    The kiss only lasts for a few moments, but
Max reciprocates it, and when Theo pulls away, those black-lined eyes are just
a little bit widened. And Theo just looks right into them, until he realizes
that maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he went too far. And for a split second,
he panics. But then, Max blinks, and he swallows hard, before turning back to
the notes.
    It’s a few minutes later, when Max has
explained to Theo how to solve his current problem, that Theo gives it a try.
And as he leans forward slightly and tries to focus, he feels the lightest
brush of Max's lips against his neck, in a soft, chaste kiss. And he smiles.
     
    ♦
     
    “Are your parents ever home?” Theo
asks, and Max