Code Blue

Lexi vs. Organized Extracurricular Activities

“You’ve literally accomplished nothing.”

I glared at Evan, who was looking much too comfortable as he lay on my bed. “What are you talking about?”

“With Max,” he went on as though it was completely obvious, “You’ve gotten nowhere with him.”

Rolling my eyes, I went back to reorganizing the supplies on my desk. “I’ve been here less than a week, Evan. Cut me some slack.”

“I know,” he deadpanned, “But all you’ve managed to do is get extremely flustered around Max. I need you to make some progress, Allie.”

He was right, of course. I had two classes with Max, which wasn’t too unusual, considering we had an overlapping major. So he wasn’t really surprised when he saw me, which was good, but it also made things tricky in terms of trying to talk to him.

If I attempted to strike up a conversation every time we saw each other, he’d probably start thinking I was creepy. This far, I’d settled for observing him from a distance. Which I realized wasn’t any less creepy, but it was my job.

And I had learned some things.

For instance, I’d figured out that Max had a posse. I hadn’t noticed them at the activity fair because they must have been somewhere in the background, but during class, the same two boys were always nearby. More than likely, they served some sort of bodyguard type purpose, and perhaps, if I befriended one of them, I could wedge my way into Max’s inner circle.

“What do you think of this outfit?” I asked Evan once my desk had been rearranged because I’d been trying to keep myself busy after getting ready for the Leadership in Business meeting far too early. I spun in a slow circle to show off the grey pantsuit I’d selected, which was coincidentally the one I’d worn for my first interview with the agency.

“It looks like you’re trying too hard,” Evan replied without actually looking at me, focusing all of his attention of throwing a rubber band ball into the air and catching it with one hand.

I rolled my eyes and glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest and huffing. “What do you know?”

Chuckling softly, he caught the rubber band ball and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and settling his face into a serious expression. “I know I’m no fashion expert, but I do know students and they can smell bullshitters from a mile away. So if you try too hard, they’ll instantly know you’re covering something up and then they’ll ice you out and that’s the last thing you want. You’re trying to get in good with these people, remember?”

Scrunching my nose because I knew he was right, I sighed heavily. Apparently a lot had changed since I had last been in school and it seemed I had a lot to learn about the social nuances of extracurricular organizations.

“Oooh, who are you trying to impress?”

I looked to the side to find Quinn stepping through the open doorway, a smile on her lips as she inspected my outfit and I exhaled in defeat. “I really do look like I’m trying too hard, don’t I?”

“Aw, no, that’s not what I meant,” she immediately cried out, setting down the tote bag which held her books on top of her bed and stepping towards me, one hand reaching out to comfortingly squeeze my upper arm. “You look great. Where are you going?”

“Leadership in Business meeting,” Evan offered, his cheeks tinting a little pinker at Quinn’s presence, as though he was expecting some flirtation to occur.

But she paid him very little attention, simply nodding to acknowledge his statement before turning her attention back to me, her lips kinking into a knowing smirk. “Now I understand.”

“Understand what?” I replied innocently, though I knew exactly where this conversation was headed.

“Please,” she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “All of this has nothing to do with the fact that Max will be at that meeting?”

“Nope,” I shook my head, wondering if I sounded any more convincing than I felt. Unbuttoning my blazer, I shrugged it off my shoulders and moved to hang it back up in my closet, deciding the business casual look might be more appropriate, before slipping into the most comfortable black pumps I owned. Grabbing my purse, I headed towards the door, knowing that I would arrive at the meeting incredibly early, but needing to get out of the judgement zone. Shooting Evan a glare to silently tell him to behave around Quinn, I wave goodbye to my roommate. “I’ll see you guys later.”

I was striding down the hallway before I could hear either of them respond, taking a deep breath once I was outside and allowing the fresh air to calm my nerves. The truth was that I was afraid Evan was right: I was getting nowhere with Max. It wasn’t as though a week an incredibly long time, but in the few interactions I’d had with him so far, all I’d managed to learn was that he was smart, he enjoyed flirting, and he had an irritating ability to make forget how to form coherent thoughts.

Despite the s**t I had given Evan earlier, I did need to try harder. This meeting was a good place to start because it would give me a chance to see Max outside of the classroom setting, but it was still too structured. I needed to see him completely uninhibited, somewhere he might drop his guard long enough for me to find out something real about him.

The trouble was, thus far, he seemed to be a ghost. He was involved in campus life, sure, but I had yet to see him at any social gatherings. Ridgewood had hosted a whole slew of welcome week events that I’d made an appearance at in hopes of glimpsing Max in a more natural habitat only to be disappointed when he never showed up.

I needed to figure out where he hung out in his down time, when he was relaxing and just having fun, but I was willing to bet that was information he wasn’t just going to give me, so I needed to put my investigative skills to work. This meant either finding someone who actually knew something about him, or getting him to like me enough that he would just tell me himself. Seeing as I was having trouble forming full sentences around him, my best bet was probably to figure out who he hung out with and do some recon that way.

Clasping my fingers tighter around the straps of my purse, I pulled myself from that train of thought as I came to a stop outside the door of the room where the meeting was supposed to be held, surprised to find it completely empty. Then again, I was about twenty minutes early.

Deciding that I didn’t want to look to eager, I turned away to go find the nearest coffee shop, but was stopped short when I nearly collided with someone’s tall frame and cursed inwardly when that someone turned out to be Max.

“Holy f**k,” I gasped, startled by his sudden appearance. “You should wear a bell.”

His smiled wickedly, apparently pleased that his presence was having any effect on me whatsoever. “You’re easily startled. What are you doing here?”

“You asked me to come, remember?” I said slowly, wondering if his invitation had merely been a flirtation technique and he hadn’t actually expected me to show up, in which case, I really didn’t understand flirting.

“And look at that,” his eyes lit with joy as he shoved his hands into the pockets of the suit pants that he wearing the hell out of. “I asked and you came. Very early, I might add. You just can’t stay away, can you?”

I couldn’t really deny that I was there to see him, mostly because it wouldn’t be true, and there seemed to be no other graceful way out of the situation, so I veered the conversation in a different direction, crossing my arms over my chest and quirking one eyebrow upwards. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“Someone has to.”

His tone was sarcastic, but something flashed in his eyes that intrigued me; a hint of vulnerability perhaps. But that couldn’t be the case, because surely he knew how he was viewed by the other students at the university. I had eavesdropped on enough of the conversations people had about him in the classes we had together to know that he was idolized by half the school’s population and lusted after by the entirety of it.

Before I could say something along those lines, however, his vice president arrived, shooting us a questioning glance before purposefully pulling open the door which led to the room where the meeting was being held, probably wondering why we hadn’t gone inside yet.

“Come on, darling,” Max grinned, nodding towards the door once the vice president propped it open. “Let’s see if I can’t impress you even more.”

I parted my lips to inform him that the likelihood of that ever happening was slim to none, but he was already gesturing towards the doorway, so I held in the insult and obliged with his silent request, choosing a seat near the back of the small lecture hall as members of the club began to arrive.

It turned out, that no matter how much I wanted to say otherwise, he was impressive. If those twinkly eyes and those stupid cute dimples didn’t draw you in, then the amount of passion in his voice sure as hell did. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did know that I wanted to buy whatever he was selling.

I wondered if that was a family trait; if learning how to persuade large crowds of people was something he had been groomed to do since he was a child, because it definitely seemed like something the leader of crime family might want to be good at.

I figured I should give credit where credit was due, so at the end of the meeting, I stood to the side and looked really interested in my phone until the masses of people dissipated and I was finally able to step in front of Max. Unfortunately, when the opportunity came, I couldn’t think of any way to hold a conversation, so I inhaled deeply and smiled sweetly and said, “Not bad.”

He pressed his lips together in a smirk, as if he knew that I was far more impressed by him than I was letting on. “Thanks.”

This was an opportunity to find an excuse to spend more time with him, and I knew I should take advantage of it. Because despite the fact that I’d learned he had a knack for public speaking that I wish came as easily to me, I still didn’t know anything personal about him. I needed some one on one time or a more casual setting, and I’d spent the past week mentally warring with myself about the best way to go about making that happen and I’d come to the conclusion that he already knew I got incredibly flustered in his presence, so stumbling through asking him to hang out wouldn’t really change his perception of me.

“Hey, Max?” I exhaled deeply, mentally recalling how it was exactly that you ask someone to hang out. I was a little rusty in the area, seeing as the last time I had done this was in high school and that hadn’t exactly ended well.

“Yes, Evie?” he replied, tilting his head to the side, those damn sparkles in his eyes just getting sparklier, as though he knew exactly where the conversation was headed. And he probably did, because I was willing to bet big money that he got asked out on a pretty regular basis.

That thought made me freeze. Because if I was about to ask him something that he was already asked on the daily, then what were the chances that he would say yes? I needed to differentiate myself; give him a reason to want to hang out with me. Maybe under different circumstances, I could come up with a laundry list as to why I was an awesome study buddy, but I was struggling under pressure.

Deciding that the only way to salvage the situation was to get myself out of it, I shook my head and sighed. “Never mind. I have a ton of homework to do if I’m going to understand the finer points of Advanced Microeconomics, so I better go.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his lips stretching into a slow smile as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and lifted his shoulders into a nonchalant shrug. “Are you sure there’s not something you want to ask me?”

Now he was just purposely trying to irritate me and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of obliging with his request, so I shook my head and kept my eyes locked on his as I responded. “Nope. Like I said, I gotta go.”

“Alright,” he laughed, removing one hand from his pocket and holding it towards me. “But before you go, give me your phone.”

“What? Why?” I raised an eyebrow skeptically, though I was already reaching into my purse to retrieve the device.

He didn’t answer my question as he took hold of my phone once I unlocked it and dropped it in his hand, his eyes narrowing in concentration as he quickly typed something and then handed it back to me, and it was only as I took it back that I realized I needed to be more careful about letting criminal masterminds have free range of my personal items.

“I put my number in it,” he explained as I stared down at the touch screen, trying to decipher what was different. “I’m having a little get together at my place tomorrow night. You should swing by.”

I checked my contacts to see that he had, in fact, added his number, but he hadn’t given me any other information, which meant that if I wanted to go to the party, I’d have to text him to find out the details. 

“Have a good night, Evie,” he smiled softly, turning towards his vice president to discuss how the meeting had gone.

“Goodnight,” I whispered to his back, turning to exit the small lecture hall and shaking my head as I wondered how it was possible that Max was always one step ahead of me.