He meant it to be a joke. But Max’s face twisted up, avoiding Benji’s eyes.
“I don’t care what happens as long as we don’t have to talk to him,” Max admitted. “That was really weird.”
“It was,” Benji said quietly.
He watched Max stand there in the stairwell doorway, arms crossed so tightly over his chest he might as well have been hugging himself.
Benji’s heart sank. Hehatedtalking about things. But now might be one of those times he couldn’t avoid it.
He ushered Max into the living room. Noah was talking to security on the phone in the other room, and Tia had just left with the awkward wave of someone who had just intruded on some deeply intimate family business she had no part in.
Max sat on the couch, legs swinging, tapping anxiously on the glass of orange juice Benji had brought him. Full pulp, because Max was a weirdo like that. It was one of the first thingshe’d requested when Noah told him he didn’t have to worry about grocery bills anymore.
“Thatwassuper fucking weird,” Benji admitted as he sat down next to him with a normal glass of orange juice. “But you don’t have to worry about seeing him again. We won’t let him get near you.”
Max’s nose scrunched. He hadn’t looked at Benji since they sat down. “Dude, you make it sound like he hit me or something. I’m not afraid of him. It’s just… reallyweirdseeing him again!”
“Got that right,” Benji muttered. Whenever he saw Chet, he was dragged back into a childhood he spent the whole time trying to get out of. Aunt Nat was a piece of work, but she wassteady. You knew what to expect with her. Every day with Chet was a clusterfuck of mysteries Benji didn’t want to find out. Why was the door kicked in when he got home? Why did the whole house smell like smoke, and why were both his parents gone? Why was he missing a day of school to go to the dump and look for fridges?
“Like…” Max shrugged, his shoulders staying up near his ears at the end of it. “I don’t know. I never really knew the guy, and now he’s making up all this stuff about how he wants me back. It’s bullshit, right?”
“It’s bullshit,” Benji said gently. He still didn’t know how gentle he needed to be about the whole “your dad is lying about wanting custody again” thing.
“Right.” Max sighed and dragged his feet up onto the couch, dirty sneakers and all. “Everyone keeps asking how I feel about it, and it’s like, I don’t know! I just feel weird! I don’t want to feelanythingabout it, you know?”
“Yeah,” Benji muttered. “I get that.”
“Like, I wish I could just be angry,” Max continued. “All righteous and stuff. Like if this was a movie, I’d have these badass one-liners about how he means nothing to me. Which hedoes! I’ve even imagined saying that stuff to him! But then I saw him, and… I don’t know. I just wanted him to go away.”
“Yeah,” Benji repeated softly. He hesitated, then scooched over and pressed his knee into Max’s.
Max leaned against him, arms still crossed heavily over his chest, the orange juice sloshing dangerously against the glass. “Did you get in any badass one-liners?”
Benji couldn’t remember. He had definitely said things, but now it was a blur of anger and hot humiliation and the urge to ram Chet into the wall with a vicious headbutt. He was surprised to realize that the main urge was the same as Max’s, squirming and uncomfortable in a way that made him think of hiding under tables as a very small child. He wanted Chet to go away.
“You know me,” Benji said. “All one-liners, all the time.”
Max snorted. It was the first smile Benji had seen from him since he appeared at the end of the hall.
Benji knocked their knees together. “So, how was the hangout? Make any robots?”
“No robots,” Max said, and brightened. “We set up a bunch of mugs on ropes and made them swing around each other until one of them broke. Then we narrowed them down match by match until we got the ultimate mug.”
Benji grinned. Max’s childhood was going so differently from his own, full of friendship and adventure instead of isolation and responsibility. It was one of the only things Benji was really proud of.
“Yeah? Who won?”
“JJ’s mom’s mug,” Max said. “Live, Laugh, Love. The reigning champ.”
“Yeah, those guys will pack a punch.” Benji ruffled Max’s hair, leaning harder when Max groaned and tried to lean away. “Want takeout tonight?”
Max beamed. “Can I pick?”
“You picked last time,” Benji said, then paused. “But yeah, alright.”
He headed into the kitchen to find Noah tucking his phone into his pocket.
“Did anyone get fired?” Benji asked.
