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Rachel at least has the decency to knock before she barges into the bathroom, even if she totally ignores Max’s frantic attempts to stop her.
“What the fuck, Rachel?” Max yelps, hopping down from her perch on the counter.
“Oh come on, you weren’t even doing anything,” Rachel rolls her eyes. “Lock the door next time.”
“W-what are you doing?” Max demands, smoothing her hands nervously against her pant legs, not quite able to bring herself to look Rachel in the eye.
“Stopping you from doing something really dumb, probably,” Rachel says.
Then she’s drifting forward and Max is backing up until she feels the edge of the counter digging into the small of her back. Rachel’s hazel eyes are heavy-lidded and intense, burning a hole right through her. Max’s throat goes dry, and she’s trapped by the weight of Rachel’s gaze, the nearness of her body.
Rachel brings her hand up, the back of her knuckles brushing Max’s cheek and then she’s kissing her, slow and hot and urgent and it’s too much. Max pulls back, tries to turn her face away but then Rachel’s palm cups her jaw, dragging her lips back in reach.
“Stop,” Max says, pushing Rachel away with a palm against her collarbone. “Rachel.”
Rachel sighs and runs a hand through her hair, mussing it up. Somehow it looks better this way, all elegantly disheveled. She’s so beautiful, it makes Max’s throat ache.
“I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy,” she mutters, crossing her arms under her chest. Whether intentional or not, the motion draws Max’s gaze to her chest and, oh god, she’s not wearing a bra and--
Max winces, rubbing her temples with her fingertips to hide the growing blush on her cheeks, “What wouldn’t be that easy?”
“Getting you to stop freaking out and come back to bed,” Rachel says, bluntly. “So, what kind of freakout is this, exactly?”
“What?”
“Is this, like, an ‘I just lost my virginity’ freakout? Or an ‘I just fucked a girl’ freakout? Or an ‘I just fucked two girls at the same time’ freakout?” Rachel smiles, a little frayed around the edges, cautious and hopeful. “Or did you wake up in a cold sweat after mentally calculating the cost of polaroid film and the number of great shots Chloe has ruined by photobombing?”
Max snorts, covering her face with her hand and shaking her head. “Oh my god…”
“C’mon,” Rachel shoves her lightly on the shoulder. Max rocks backward til she’s leaning against the counter again, and drops her arms to her sides. Rachel hangs back, watching Max intently. “Max, you can’t leave.”
Max lets her head fall back, pushes out a lungful of air between her clenched teeth, fingers curling around the countertop, “I know. I know that, I just don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
“I don’t know what this is,” Max sighs, tilting her head to look at Rachel again.
Rachel’s looking down, worrying her lip between her teeth, one arm wrapped around her middle. She looks small and human, hair messy, in a pair of Chloe’s too loose flannel pajama pants and a wrinkled t-shirt. She’s just a girl.
“What do you want it to be?” Rachel asks, carefully.
“I asked you first,” Max says. “What is this to you?”
Rachel silent for a few long moments, mouth pursed, a pretty crease in her brow. When she finally speaks her voice is soft, words slow and carefully measured, “I don’t know what this is yet, honestly.”
“Oh.”
That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear.
“I mean, that’s kind of up to you, Max,” Rachel hurries to clarify, seeing Max’s dismay. “It could be… y’know, fun. For a night, or a few nights. It could be a thing you tried one time, when you were eighteen. Or…”
“Or?” Max prompts her.
“Or it could be real,” Rachel shrugs.
“Real,” Max echoes, unable to shake her feeling of disappointment. That was vague. She hadn’t exactly been expecting a… grand declaration of love or anything. If she tried to imagine that, she couldn’t even figure out how she’d handle it. But still…
“Something tells me you’re not much of a team player,” Rachel says.
“What?” Max blinks, confused by the random turn of the conversation.
“My dad made me go to these business seminars with him, when I was a kid. How to Win Friends and Influence People shit,” Rachel grins, something a little brittle in the edges of her smile. “I learned a lot about team-building. Probably some stuff you could stand to pick up.”
Was Rachel high?
“Trust falls, Max,” Rachel rolls her eyes, like Max is the densest human being on the planet. “That’s where one person stands in fron--”
“I know what a trust fall is,” Max interrupts.
“Good, okay, this metaphor will work,” Rachel’s smile is softer now, genuine. “It’s your turn to fall, Max. Do you trust us?”
She holds her hand out for Max.
Max nods slowly, letting loose a shaky sigh. She takes Rachel’s hand, lets Rachel tip her into a hug.
“Then just fall,” she whispers into Max’s hair, “and let us catch you. We can figure out the details later.”
“Okay,” Max sighs, relaxing into the embrace. Rachel’s body is warm; she smells like sex and sleep and green apple shampoo.
“Now, get the hell out of here, I actually have to pee.”
Max laughs and lets Rachel shove her out of the bathroom. She lingers in the hallway until Rachel is finished and they walk back into the bedroom together.
There, wide awake and looking lost in the middle of the bed that had seemed so small last night, is Chloe. She looks up when they enter, smiling anxiously, looking pale and a little queasy.
“Hey,” she says, voice rough with sleep. Max is transfixed by the rapid jump of her knee against the bed, the nervous patter of her fingertips against her bare stomach. She’s so beautiful there, with just the string of Christmas lights illuminating her skin in the dark. “You guys were gone for a bit. Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Max breathes, feeling the tension that had driven her from the bedroom earlier leave her body. She slides into the bed, bracing one hand on Chloe’s bare thigh and pressing a kiss into her cheek. “Everything’s fine.”
Chloe nods, sighing shakily and leaning into her body. Rachel watches from the foot of the bed for a moment before pulling off her shirt and kicking her borrowed pajama pants down her legs. She gets in on Chloe’s other side and guides them both gently back into the bed, hooking one leg over Chloe’s thighs. Max shifts her hand from Chloe’s thigh to Rachel’s knee, settling her head on Chloe’s shoulder to maintain contact.
Max looks up meeting Rachel’s eyes over Chloe’s body. Rachel smiles, something private and beautiful, and Chloe presses a kiss into Max’s forehead.
Max trusts them to catch her.