Completely, Enthusiastically, & Without Question - Pt. 01

Olivia: I work until 8:30 most nights but I'm off Thursdays and Sundays. I know you're 30 and have to take life seriously (as you put it), but do you think you can make it out on a school night? Otherwise it would have to be 9:30 or later...

Max: I turn into a pumpkin at 9:30, lol.

They could stay out later if they were expecting it, but they didn't want to start the night that late if they didn't have to.

Max: I can do Thursday or Sunday so you don't have to rush around.

Olivia: Does this Thursday work for you? As in 2 days from now?

Max: Any time after 5, I work from home on Thursdays. You can pick the place.

Olivia: Oh no, are you one of those people who can't make decisions?

Max: Maybe. Unless that's a dealbreaker. In which case I can definitely pick.

Olivia: 6:30, Casey's Pub

Max: I'll be there

Olivia

Casey's Pub was Olivia's second favorite bar in her neighborhood and her first choice for grabbing drinks with someone she hoped to sleep with. The bar was a dive - dark and a little dirty. She didn't want to risk that anyone would mistake her intent to take them home with her for intent to date them long-term. At Casey's, the vibe was a little rough and she felt like she could be a little more overt in her flirtation than she might at a bar that felt more proper for a serious first date.

Olivia arrived to find Max already there, five minutes early, watching the news on one of the TVs in the darkest corner of the bar. They were so focused on the screen that they didn't see her walk in, which gave her a few extra moments to appreciate them.

Max's hair was styled differently than it had been a few nights before with no fringe on their forehead. Instead, it was pushed back and to the side and, much like Aaron Samuels, Max's hair looked sexy pushed back. She noticed a small scar on the back of their head that she hadn't seen before and wondered how she could work asking them about it into a conversation. Their zip-up hoodie had gotten snagged on the back of the chair, exposing a sliver of their back with ink that was clearly part of a much larger piece. She hoped to see the whole tattoo later.

"I like this style on you," Olivia said as she shed her jacket and took the stool next to Max. She tilted her head to the side and examined Max's hair. "You didn't get another haircut already, did you? Did you not like the other cut?" It was definitely not the same as it had been on Monday.

Max laughed. "I'm going to need you to tell Bailey that, because he's been looking at me funny since I showed him what I was sure were three different haircuts and he told me that they were all the same cut, just styled differently. I need him to know that I'm not the only one."

"So you can mix it up if you want. That's cool. I like this way, if you're soliciting opinions," Olivia said, tracing her tongue along her lower lip. "I can see more of you and I like that."

Max's eyes brightened at the compliment and Olivia made a mental note to shower them with compliments, just so she could see them smile over and over again. "Thank you. I still have one more style to try, so you'll have to see me at least one more time to give me feedback on that one," they said with a shy smile.

"Oh, I have a feeling tonight will not be the last time we hang out," Olivia said. The two clearly had chemistry and they lived in the same neighborhood. There were still a couple of months left in cuffing season and she wouldn't have been sad about ending Winter with a short fling.

"Glad to hear it," Max said, relief apparent in their voice.

"Pineapple Truly?" the bartender, Vicky, asked as she slid a can in front of Olivia. She knew the answer to the question already - it was all Olivia drank at that bar.

"Come here often?" Max asked.

"I guess you could say that. I feel like I can be myself here," Olivia said as she looked around the bar. It was dark and the floor was perpetually sticky, but it served her well. When she first moved to the neighborhood and Jess worked nights, Olivia went to Casey's just to exist in the presence of other people. She'd occasionally chat with one of the other regulars, but mostly she just hung out and watched whatever was on TV.

Max raised their bottle. "To being ourselves," they said, tapping their bottle against Olivia's can.

"To being ourselves," Olivia repeated, nodding before taking a zip of her seltzer.

"Just one thing I need to get out of the way first because I feel like I'm hiding something from you," Max said, grimacing as they awaited Olivia's reaction.

Ugh, this was usually how people told her that they don't do casual hookups. It was fine, she had hopes but she didn't have expectations. She was just disappointed.

She nodded for Max to continue, knowing she wore a slightly skeptical look on her face.

"The woman that you were helping the other night at the gym approached me to offer me support if I needed someone to relate to because her partner is agender. Which was really cool honestly, but that's not actually the point. She told me something and I feel like I'm lying to you by not telling you," Max said quickly.

"Okay..."

"She works for a gym that's expanding and she was there to, like, recruit people. She asked me how I felt about how you handled my name change and all that and I told her I thought you handled it well. And she said she agreed. So I wanted you to know. She's recruiting people and she likes you, so if you're interested, definitely show off next time she comes in," Max explained.

"Wow. Well, thank you for giving me the heads up. And more importantly, I'm glad that I handled my fuck-up well," Olivia laughed nervously.

"You didn't fuck up. You greeted me as who you knew me to be. You didn't know yet." Mex shrugged as they continued, "I had planned to say hi as soon as I opened the door so I could tell you, but I was a little distracted..." Max paused. "Maybe a little jealous because I thought Lily was flirting with you," they said, scrunching up their face.

"Oh really?" Olivia asked as she leaned closer to Max. "Are you the jealous type?"

"Not really," Max said before tilting their head to the side. "Well, maybe a little but not in an aggressive or controlling way. Like, at the end of the day I know that if you're here with me, I'm already in a better position than anyone who flirts with you. Because you already picked me. So I was jealous of Lily because I have been crushing on you for a while and I didn't know if you were into me. Now I do. No more jealousy."

"Are you always this confident?" Olivia teased, her voice dipping lower as she hoped to make her intentions crystal clear.

"I can be," Max flirted back, their eyes dipping to watch Olivia pull her bottom lip between her teeth.

How long did they need to stay at the bar before it was acceptable for Olivia to suggest that Max go home with her? Because it was clear that's where they would end up.

Olivia and Max ended up staying at the bar for three hours before Max suggested that they close out their tab. She hadn't realized so much time had passed, she was enjoying flirting with them.

The two stepped out into the cold and immediately tensed at the frigid gust of wind that smacked them in the face.

"Ohhhh, I hate the cold," Max said, shaking their head and trying to retreat into their jacket like a turtle.

"I had a really great time tonight," Olivia said, stepping into Max's space and looking at her hands. She looked up, feigning a bit of shyness and smiling softly. She waited a beat to give them an opportunity to create space between them, but they didn't retreat, instead placing their hands on her waist and pressing their fingertips into her.

Max didn't pull Olivia closer, they invited her closer. The pressure of their fingertips on her waist made it clear that they wanted her without making her feel like she wasn't one-hundred percent in control of what she did and what they might do to her.

Olivia took a half-step closer to Max without breaking eye contact. As she stepped towards them, they leaned forward to meet her lips with theirs. She tangled her fist in the waist of their jacket while her other hand slid up Max's jaw and cupped the base of their skull as she deepened the kiss. Warmth spread from Olivia's core through her body as she walked Max two steps backwards, their back hitting the wall with a light thud.

Max pulled Olivia against them and rolled their body into her. Their thigh slid between her legs as she dragged her fingertips across the short hairs on the back of their head. She found the scar she'd noticed earlier that night and traced it with her fingers.

"Skateboarding incident," Max mumbled breathlessly through their kiss. "Tried to drop into a halfpipe when I was thirteen. Did not succeed."

Olivia ground her hips, pressing her center against Max's thigh. She needed to get them back to her apartment as soon as possible. "My place is three blocks from here," she said, panting from the intensity of their embrace. "I've been tested recently."

"Me too. And, convenient," Max said before kissing Olivia again. They moaned into her mouth and it was more than Olivia could take. She pushed them back against the wall roughly and locked her eyes on theirs.

"We better start walking before I try to drag you into that alley," Olivia said through a grin that she had absolutely no control over.

"What I want to do to you cannot be done in an alley," Max said, pressing their forehead to Olivia's. She took a step back to lead the way, but Max stopped her, squeezing her hand and tugging for her to turn back around. "Just one thing first," they continued. "I want to make sure we're on the same page."

Max

Hearing that they were not on the same page had been completely unexpected for Max. They were so sure that Olivia knew that they really liked her. They thought they'd been transparent about their feelings. They'd admitted that they'd had a crush on her for a while and they thought that made it clear that they wanted more than just a hookup.

And Olivia had made it sound like she was looking for more. At least that's what Max thought at the time. Maybe it had just been what they wanted to hear. She'd said that she thought they'd see each other more than once, didn't that imply something more than a casual hookup?

Max thought Olivia was sharing a part of herself with them by bringing them to a bar that was special to her, but it ended up just being the bar closest to her apartment.

"Like, if I look at all of the facts now, through this lens, I can see that she was being super clear about what she wanted. And I was being super clear about what I wanted. But neither of us saw the whole picture," Max said, wrapping up their recap of the night to Bailey.

"I'm sorry, dude, that sucks. Need me to take a walk so you can let out some frustration?" Bailey asked, winking at Max.

Max threw the pillow they'd been holding at Bailey. "Fuck you."

"Hey now, you can use these things that you forced me to get as weapons against me," Bailey said as he tossed the throw pillow back to Max.

"We have to have a few adult things in this apartment so it doesn't look like a frat house," Max said, motioning to the rest of the living room. It definitely looked like a frat house. A clean frat house where nothing was broken, but a frat house nonetheless.

"I think we could find plenty of adult things under each of our beds," Bailey retorted through his own laughter.

"Jesus Christ, Bail," Max said, shoving Bailey as he moved closer to comfort them. He wrapped them in a hug and stroked their back. "Thank you," Max mumbled into his shoulder.

"You got a new friend out of it, though, right? That's always a good thing. The older we get, the less I want to venture out of this neighborhood. We need friends around here," Bailey said. He always tried to give Max a bright side to look at. It didn't always work, but he tried.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Max sighed. "Ughhhh," they groaned. "No, this sucks. I swear we connected and it was something beyond a casual hookup and beyond friendship. I should just do the casual thing. Maybe it'll work out in the end."

"You know, I was just about to tell you that I was proud of you for sticking to your guns about not doing casual hookups. Don't take that from me now," Bailey said, narrowing his eyes at Max.

"I know," Max said as Bailey squinted at them. "No, really, I know. That was just frustration. I'm done with casual flings. Long-term needs to be a possibility and it's not a possibility with Olivia. That sucks, but I'll be fine. I'm friends with you and we dated for a couple of years."

"You know we're different. It might not be as easy as you're making it sound like you think it is right now," Bailey told them, skepticism apparent in his voice. "It wasn't that easy for us either. There were some big bumps in the road. I'm not saying you can't do it, but I think you need to prepare yourself for the idea that it might be hard to be friends."

Max's phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Olivia: I meant what I said about wanting to be friends. That wasn't a line.

Max: I meant it too. I have to adjust a little, but I'm glad we figured it out before more happened.

But was Max glad they figured it out before they went home with her? That kiss ranked very high on the list of most intense kisses they'd ever experienced. Their body buzzed as if they were holding a live low voltage wire and their skin prickled with goosebumps everywhere she touched them, even through multiple layers of fabric. Max could still feel the tickle of her fingers across their scar.

Max watched as three dots appeared on their screen, then disappeared. They re-appeared a second time before Olivia's message came through

Olivia: Yeah

Olivia: Thanks again for tonight. I had a really great time hanging out with you. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, but I'm happy to have a new friend.

Max: Same. On all points.

Max looked up from their phone at Bailey and grimaced. "I'm fucked, aren't I?" they asked.

Bailey didn't need to know what Max and Olivia had been texting about in order to read their expression. "Oh, yeah, buddy. You're going to fall in love with that woman."

A week passed before Max and Olivia made plans to hang out again. They'd invited Lily and her partner AJ to join them as well. They were excited to meet AJ and potentially have another friend to talk to who might relate to what they were experiencing.

The group gathered at Max and Bailey's apartment for game night. They kept several party games on hand, not to mention the vast video game collection they'd amassed between the two of them. A half-played game of What Do You Meme? covered the coffee table as the group focused on Lily's story.

"So she follows me out of the bar," Lily said, continuing her story about a friend from high school who'd recently hit on her. "And she's all like, 'what the fuck, how could you turn me down,' and I just walked away. I didn't want to waste another second talking to her.

"But then," Lily continued, smirking at AJ, who took a long sip of their beer. "She calls after me and says something about the color of AJ's... you know... to let me know that she'd slept with them. I don't know what she thought that would accomplish. Like, how would that change my mind about sleeping with her?"

"But you knew, so it wasn't a big deal. Ha. Joke's on her," Olivia said, shaking her head and laughing into her beer bottle.

"Actually I didn't know," Lily corrected. "But I didn't care. Because AJ and I both have our own history. I have some regrets in my closet that I wouldn't want to change how they feel about me. I owe them the same."

"Thank you, honey," AJ said, squeezing their girlfriend's hand and kissing her softly on the cheek. They turned back to face the rest of the group. "We didn't see each other for twenty years because we weren't honest with each other about how we felt. We made guesses and tried to fill in blanks that we had no business trying to fill in for each other. Anything that happened during those twenty years was part of the formula that brought us back together."

The story made Max's heart feel full with warmth. Lily and AJ were so in love with each other, it had exceeded the point of being so cute it was disgusting and found its way back to being undeniably adorable. The group was quiet for a moment as everyone took in the story before a sniffle disrupted the silence.

"What?" Olivia said, wiping her eyes. "I may be anti-relationship but I'm still human. Everything makes me cry. Commercials make me cry," she laughed, then looked at her roommate, Jess. "Don't act like this is shocking to you and don't make me start quoting Winnie the Pooh to make you tear up," she threatened.

Olivia's reaction to Lily and AJ's love story almost gave Max hope that she might actually want something long-term, she just didn't want to be vulnerable and get her heart broken. But they had to push that thought away.

Olivia was unavailable to them and, as long as she was only looking for something short-term and casual, Max was unavailable to her.

Olivia

As if she hadn't embarrassed herself enough when she started crying at the end of Lily's story, Olivia followed it up by tripping over the threshold between the laminate in the living room and the tile in the kitchen. Max had tried to catch her and dropped their drink in the process, spilling beer on both of them while they lay entangled on the floor.

This wasn't how Olivia had originally imagined they would end up with their limbs entwined. But after Max had shocked her the week before just before she dragged them back to her apartment and into her bed, it was the only way they were going to be wrapped around each other.

Olivia had thought she'd been clear with Max about what she was looking for. She flirted so openly and suggestively, it was obvious that she was trying to get into their pants. And they'd been the one to pick the darkest corner of the bar so she thought they were hoping to hook up as well.

But where Olivia had, apparently, gone wrong was not looking past their desire to hook up to see what else they wanted. When she played it over in her head, it became much more obvious than it had been in the moment.

"Olivia, can I talk to you real quick?" Lily asked, snapping Olivia from her flashback.

"What's up?" Olivia asked as she joined Lily in Max's kitchen. She didn't know whether Max had told Lily that they'd spilled the beans about Lily's job.

"I'm about to start my second drink and take the edible I brought, so I wanted to make sure we chatted before I'm a little less able to have a serious conversation," Lily explained. "Max told me that they came clean to you about our conversation and I want you to know that, even before we hung out today, I already decided that I was going to invite you for an interview. We can talk more about it another time, but I wanted you to know that, regardless of what comes of our friendship, my interest in recruiting you is not dependent on our social interactions."

"I appreciate that. Can I ask what kinds of jobs you're filling and where?" Olivia asked. "If you don't want to talk about it while we're drinking, that's fine."