“Willa, come on, let’s go,” she ordered.
Willa blinked up at Bo in surprise, and Bo sighed. Willa’s eyes were unfocused, her cheeks were flushed, and she’d clearly downed about three glasses of wine in the past twenty minutes.
“Bo!” Willa exclaimed happily, throwing her arms around her, and now the wine sloshed onto Bo’s cardigan, leaving a damp stain.
“Come on, Willa. You’ve had enough.” Bo was careful not to meet Max’s eyes. She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to talk to him. She just wanted to extricate her best friend from this situation and get the hell away from him.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Willa protested, unsteady on her feet. “I still need to finish my wine. This gentleman,” Willa gestured to Max, “was kind enough to refill my glass.”
“Your glass is empty,” Bo said, pointing to the stain on her cardigan. “And you don’t need any more. Let’s go.”
“No, no, no, no, no. We still need to find Max.”
“What?” Max finally spoke, and now Bo looked at him. He was looking right back at her, puzzlement in his gaze, and itdawned on Bo that Willa had no idea who Max was, or what he looked like.
Willa had been looking for Max but hadn’t known who to look for. More than that, she’d been talking to Max for nearly ten minutes now, without a single fucking clue who he was.
“That doesn’t matter now,” Bo insisted, trying to pull Willa away. “Come on.”
“No, we need to find Max,” Willa replied, refusing to budge, and honestly, for all Willa’s small and delicate stature, you could tell she worked out. She was strong.
Fucking Pilates,Bo cursed internally.
“You need to find Max, do you?” Max suddenly asked, and his tone might have been blank, but his eyes were deeply curious.
“Yes!” exclaimed Willa, grinning up at Max stupidly. “Mr Two out of Ten.”
“Who?” Max asked sharply.
“Wills—” Bo said instantly, desperately trying to cut her friend off, but Willa carried on talking regardless.
“Mr Two out of Ten,” she said again. “That’s what we call Max.”
“Why?” Max asked, his tone now deadly, and the look he gave Bo was even worse.
“Because that’s how Bo here rates him,” Willa explained, throwing her arm around Bo’s shoulder. “Looks-wise, that is. She’s not really attracted to him, you see. But apparently, he’s pretty good in bed so she tolerates him, right?”
Silence fell and God, it was awful. The look in Max’s eyes changed from deadly to one of stunned and hurt confusion, and Bo’s stomach turned over itself. He looked pained, and Bo realized that this conversation must truly have hurt him. He stared at Bo, with that horrible hurt in his eyes, and she stared back at him, without knowing what to do.
“Max,” she said, but nothing else would come out because what else could she say? How could she make any of this better?
Max shook his head though and looked to the ground, away from Bo’s gaze. When he looked back up, his expression was once again emotionless, his face set into carefully trained lines of bland boredom. Maybe he should have been the actor, Bo couldn’t help but think. His face was so empty, so hidden of real feeling.
“Max?” Willa blinked in confusion, but she was too drunk to know how to process the situation. “Where’s Max?”
“Here. I’m Max, you see,” Max replied, and his tone was just as expressionless as his face. “Mr Two out of Ten, right?”
Willa’s face changed, and even in her drunken state, Bo could see that Willa realized she’d inadvertently fucked up.
“Max,” Bo tried again, but once again, nothing more would come. She knew she’d hurt Max, but then, hadn’t he hurt her too?
Max shook his head again though. “Take your friend back to your summer house, Bo,” he instructed. “I don’t have anything to say to you right now.”
“Max—”
“Actually, that’s not true,” Max abruptly added. “I do have something to say to you. Fuck you, Bo.”
“Max.”
