The Luckiest Girl In The World

Fuck.

Kathy had laughed at that.

Just a small chuckle but...

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Dante snickered softly. "What do you play, anyway?" he said. "I used to be lead guitar in a high school band."

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"Piano," Max said with a soft smile. "Took lessons all my life. I was allowed to quit Cub Scouts, football, and the drama club, but piano was mandatory."

To Kathy he asked, "You play anything?"

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"Also guitar," Kathy answered after a half-beat of silence. "Acoustic, though." She gave Dante a crooked smile. "And vocals. Uh, not that I was really in the high school band."

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It was really weird seeing a smile like that on Max's face, Dante noted. "She wasn't really the big, get on stage and shout it out type in high school," he said easily. "I still am, though. Not really the same vibe as piano."

It was harder making small talk when you were squishing down your instincts to flirt at the same time.

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"I did that once, actually," Kathy told him. "You just hadn't transferred in yet."

And had been under the influence of gremlin venom, but she wasn't mentioning that.

For several reasons.

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Max was also squishing. Not because of the obvious age gap now, but because it was in poor taste to flirt with a guy in front of his girlfriend after a dude who looked creepily like you had kidnapped her and died in a standoff.

And this was a Max who cared about that kind of thing.

"What did you sing?" he asked, curious, not even realizing that he's taken a seat at the end of their booth.

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Kathy did. But she answered him anyway.

"A Korean song. Called Love Love Love. There was a whole routine."

She smirked at Dante. "Boots were involved."

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Dante let out a surprised laugh. "Why didn't I know about this?" he asked, settling down in the booth because-- well, fuck, everyone was sitting now. "Fuck, is there video?"

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Oh no. How had she not foreseen this?

"Errr......"

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"That's a yes," Max guessed.

Grinning.

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This was so much easier to do when you had back-up.

... don't think of Max as back-up.

"I need the video, Kathy," Dante said, leaning over with big eyes. "I need it."

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"You didn't even know it existed five minutes ago!" Kathy argued.

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"Her hand is on her pocket," Max muttered into his cup. "Hiding her phone."

This was way better than being accused of being her dead kidnapper!

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Dante held his hand out. "Phone, Kathy."

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Goddamn it. That commanding tone had her halfway through handing over her phone before her brain kicked in. There was just this thing about how he said - ahem.

"I'm giving you my phone," she muttered. "The rest is up to you, junior detective."

And he'd better make good on that commanding tone later, dammit.

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Max was just going to take a loooooooooooooooooong sip of his soda right there. Because...ahem.

Stupid sexy tone.

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Aw, nice!Max, maybe in another universe...

Dante took the phone and flicked to the photos. "Well, I got to school in '15 and you got there a year earlier," he mused, quickly sliding down to the early days.

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"Cute, but wrong," Kathy reminded. "I was a senior your sophomore year, remember?"

Only seventeen to his sixteen, but two grades ahead of

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But Max was only not an asshole in this one!

Of course, he was listening to them throw around high school grades in 2015 and quickly reminding himself just how very much older he was.

Tone or not, thinking any more about that was going to be highly inappropriate, dear god.

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"Seriously, you graduated after that? Fuck, time is weird," Dante sighed, scrolling further down. "So it was what, your sophomore year?"

Be lucky he wasn't actually trying to hit on you, Max.

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Yes, be very lucky. Because Kathy might just forget how not-the-Max-she-knew you were.

"I'm not telling," she told him. "I'm getting up to get a soda. You're on your own."

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"She was way too happy about you going back to sophomore year," Max noted, watching Kathy strut over to the soda machine. She was really killing it in that skirt--NOPE.

Back to his soda.

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Don't think Dante didn't see you there, Max. Don't think he wasn't trying to bury an inappropriate snicker in his soda, either.

"Yeah, she was," he said. "Hm." He scrolled back up. "Junior, maybe? She could play off freshman as a kid thing..."

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