Max (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Max

“Thanks for letting me crash here, mate.”

I was readying myself to repeat the
statement, thinking Sean, who sat at the table of the upstairs apartment
glaring intently at the papers before him hadn’t heard me. As if sensing my
gaze, he slowly tore his eyes away from the fascinating sprawl before him.

“No worries, can’t see you homeless,” he
said, a small knowing smirk lining the corner of his mouth.

It was a look I was getting used to from
Chris and Sean, and God forbid, whenever Adam found out. It was a running joke
that I had given up my room for some chick I picked up in the night. A room I
had barely settled into myself having made the move from Remington’s Caravan
Park. It had been a welcomed change, up and away from the comings and goings of
tourists in and out of the park, or the screaming kids playing cricket in the
drive outside my cabin door, or the constant smell of passive BBQ fumes and
burning mosquito coils. No, this was ideal, and when Chris suggested I take the
room upstairs I jumped at it. Close to work, close to a feed, and yet up and
away from all the goings on downstairs; the only sound was the occasional thud
of the bass from the jukebox in the poolroom, but I could handle that. I could
handle anything, except a girl stealing my bed. Not even unpacked fully from my
duffle bag, with little choice but to put her up in my room, quickly grab my
things and leave her in peace. I hadn’t thought too much of it. By morning she
would be gone and that one sleepless night on the couch would soon be
forgotten; of course, that was until my summer was gate-crashed.

“It’s only for a week,” I told him and told
myself as if by saying it over and over again it made me feel better about it.

Sean shrugged, his focus shifting back to
the stack of papers. “Doesn’t worry me, I won’t be here, and Chris isn’t
shifting in here till the New Year so you can crash here as long as you want.”

The two-bedroom apartment above the hotel
was one of the things that had had a major renovation, the walls still remnant
with the acrid smell of wet paint; the hundred-year-old velvet drapes had been
replaced as had the manky old carpet. It was one of the many refurbishments
Chris and Sean had undertaken since being the new owners of the hotel. When I
hit Onslow and saw the lone, derelict hotel on the hill I thought it was my
best possible chance of employment in a small town, an extra helping hand to do
the odd job maybe, so the fact I landed a cushy job behind the bar was a bonus,
and one that was fulltime – even better. I would hardly call it a job, slinging
drinks and talking all day to anyone that would walk through the doors; it was
really a dream job, I’d talk to anyone.

Then why did I find myself struggling to
work up enough courage to check in on Mel?

I sighed, wiping my hand over my face as I
leant back on the chair, gauging the wall clock with a certain amount of dread.

My break was nearly over.

I let my chair fall forward; all the legs
touched the ground with a thud.

Shit. I better check on her.

“Bloody hell, Max, you’re like a cat on a
hot tin roof.” Sean smiled into his papers; he didn’t need to look up to sense
my unease. Why was I so highly strung about this? So I had to keep Bluey’s
daughter fed, watered, and in one piece for when he returned, not so much a
hair out of place because friend or not, I would be killed. That was some
responsibility.

“What am I supposed to do with some
delinquent, eighteen-year-old girl?”

Sean’s amused eyes lifted. “Do you really
want me to answer that?”

“Don’t even go there,” I scoffed.

Sean leant back in his chair, crossing his
arms across his broad chest, looking at me with his knowing eyes. “As in you
don’t want me to go there with my answer, or YOU’RE not going to go there and …”

“Both!” I cut him off before he had the
chance to put any more emphasis on the subject.

Sean now rocked back on his chair, his
brows rising in surprise. “Touchy subject, mate?”

“Look, I’m looking out for Blue, so as far
as I’m concerned the Onslow Hotel is as good as a nunnery to this girl.”

Sean burst out laughing. “The Onslow? A
nunnery? Good luck with that. Jesus, if only these walls could talk,” he said,
continuing to laugh through his words.

“It’s the way it has to be, for the next
seven days anyway,” I said, sighing wearily and looking at the clock for the
hundredth time. Three hours had passed since Bluey broke the news to me. Three.
Hours.

“Ah, don’t stress, from what I hear Amy is
going to show her around tomorrow, so what’s that, five, six hours out of your
day? You just have to occupy her for the rest of the days and nights.” Sean
winked; as if reading my mind, he calculated the days for me.

“You make it sound so simple.”

“You can always put her to work, keep her
busy. The time will fly by, you’ll see.” Sean went back to study his papers,
his interest in our conversation clearly fading. My pissed-off stare bore into
the top of his head.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said sarcastically,
pushing myself into a reluctant stand. I felt like a small child, dragging
myself toward something I really didn’t want to do, and just as I opened the
door to the apartment readying myself to head toward the very place I didn’t
want to go, I stilled. Taking a step back behind the door and pulling it back
so only a slither of the opening allowed me to peer through. Footsteps,
creaking along the aged, deep red floral carpet of the upstairs landing, there
she appeared.

Melanie Sheehan.

She paused at a side table, catching her
reflection in the mirror that hung above it. She leant in, running a finger
over an eyebrow before her gaze ticked over her face, studying the imaginary
lines; her expression seemed displeased as did the rise and fall of her deep
sigh of resignation. Her eyes lowered over her attire as she shifted from side
to side and straightened her top.

I couldn’t quite make out what the big deal
was, and what was taking so long. A long-legged blonde with a pretty face was
nothing to scowl at, and just as my head tilted to the side a little taking in
the curvy angles of Mel, I quickly shook myself from doing it.

Melanie tightened her ponytail with a
defiant pull, before continuing her way across the landing and swinging around
the bannister, making her way downstairs.

Chapter Nine

Mel

How could wiping a bar be so sexy?

Try as I might, keeping my attention poised
on the TV screen above the bar was proving too problematic with Max in my
peripheral vision. Oh God, did he just laugh? Laughter usually meant a smile
and I really couldn’t afford to fix on such a thing right now. I turned,
feigning to glance out the window when there it was indeed, Max’s smile, the
big and brilliant pressing lines in the corner of his cheeks that made my heart
thunder against the wall of my chest. His eyes glinted with amusement as he
watched on eagerly as the man sitting before him at the bar read a local yarn
from his paper. I couldn’t quite overhear the mumbles over the noise of the TV,
but I wasn’t really interested in the punchline. I just needed my view to not
be obstructed as I dreamily chewed on the end of my straw and watched Max as he
skimmed his cloth along the polished red gum bar top, the tanned lines and the
curved muscles of his arms.

I had loved him since, well, forever. From
even the earliest of memories when I would play with his younger sister
Miranda, I would moon over him opposite the dinner table. He, on the other
hand, was completely oblivious to my existence, just like he was now. Nothing
had changed, except now against his will, he was forced to have to care about
me and my whereabouts, which were restricted to the main bar, watching the
mid-day movie, drinking complimentary pots of Coke, and eating packets of salt
and vinegar chips.

Crunch-sip-crunch.

Not that he had said all but a few words to
me.

“Sit here, I’ll get you a drink.”

Sit-stay-don’t move, he might as well have
said.

Max was not much of a conversationalist at
best, except with the blokes he seemed to be chattering away to now.

Still, it could be worse, I guess. I could
be sitting in a car with Dad, with endless roadhouse food for dinner and hours
of questionable air conditioning. Nope, I had to make the most of this, the
best out of a rather awkward situation. I had to take the moral high ground and
ease the tension that had worked its way in to our day, a day that had seemed
so incredibly long, mostly because I had been hiding out in my room all
morning, mainly sitting on the edge of my bed blinking, frowning, cursing that
I hadn’t packed anything nice, no makeup, nothing girly. There just wasn’t any
real call for it on the road; curse my dad for not giving me the heads up. I
mean, I wasn’t going to enter the bar in a cocktail dress or anything, but if I
had planned to stick out and catch Max’s eye, then I would have to wear
something other than khaki-coloured shorts and a pea-green singlet top. Yeah, I
was so hot in an African-safari kind of a way.

The moment he had wandered back into the
bar he didn’t so much as look my way, never even acknowledged my existence
until out of the blue, he came up to me and sat a drink and a packet of chips
in front of me without a word.

Awkward.

Did I pay? Did Dad set up a tab or was I
expected to work for my debt?

I wasn’t sure, and didn’t even get to ask
as Max had walked away as soon as the items made contact with the counter.

Okaaaaay, then.

Munching thoughtfully on my chips, I never
felt like such a loser. I might as well have been a kid in a high chair; would
I have to seek permission to go to the toilet, would I have to put my hand up
to ask a question? What if I just walked out the front door? Went for a walk.
Would he stop me, would he finally speak to me then? I was seriously
contemplating testing the theory when the front bar room door of the hotel
opened with an unoiled scream.

Everyone (as in me, a handful of crusty
older workmen and Max) turned around comically in unison to follow the sound.

“Adam Henderson! As I live and breathe,”
called Max, a cocky smile lining his face as if the sight before him was
something to be amused by.

There, in the doorway, stood a guy.
Sporting dark shades and carelessly tousled hair, he looked like he was in
pain, as if Max’s words were like a jack hammer going by the wince on his face
and his silent if not-so-subtle reply of flipping Max the finger.

“That’s not very nice, Adam,” mused Max. “Rough
night?”

The guy, Adam, slinked up to the bar,
dragged the stool out, and plunked himself next to me, resting his elbows on
the bar and running his hands through his messy hair in disdain.

“Do not ask me questions,” he groaned.

Max simply laughed, enjoying his friend’s
pain; at least, I think they were friends. The banter seemed like something
that was pretty typical amongst guys.

Adam’s head thudded the top of the bar, and
for a mere moment I thought he might have lost consciousness until he slowly
lifted his head, sliding down his sunglasses revealing two big, brown—if not a
little bloodshot—eyes that were now looking directly at me.

“You’re a girl,” he said, frowning my way.

My brows mirrored his. “Of course I’m a
girl,” I snapped.

Adam straightened, slowly peeling his
glasses back to divide the thick brown folds of his hair as his dark eyes
ticked over my face.

My instant hoity reaction soon changed into
unease as the boy before me looked at me as if I was a problem to be solved. A
problem that deserved his intense, burning scrutiny, a problem that after much
recollection was now causing his lips to slowly spread into a knowing smile.

He clicked his fingers and pointed at me;
his eyes lit up at his sudden Eureka moment. “You’re Max’s girl!”

I coughed, choking on the sip I had half
finished. “Sorry?” I croaked, banging on the wall of my chest.

What did he just say?

He ignored me, instead swivelling his
mischievous self toward Max who didn’t seem anywhere near as amused as Adam
was.

“I gotta say, Max, the girls that are
ending up in your bed are getting better and better looking,” Adam laughed.

Max simply glowered, a silent intense
warning that urged him to shut up or he might just shut him up.

I felt an unexpected twang in my heart at
the mention of ‘girls’ that had been in Max’s bed, until of course it dawned on
me.

Wait-a-minute.

“I-I’m sleeping in
your
bed?” I
asked, my eyes wide with a new-found horror as I looked toward Max.

Max’s unimpressed demeanour remained as if
he truly wanted to murder Adam for opening his big mouth.

Adam’s smile broadened as he crossed his
arms across his chest, taking in each of our expressions.

“You didn’t know?” he asked me.

All I could manage was to shake my head, as
I continued to lock eyes with Max, hoping that his mood might lighten a little.

It didn’t.

“Well,” added Adam. “This is awkward.”

You could say that again.