Chapter 12

“I hate this game. I don’t understand how you’re having fun,” Sam announced after Alex had won their first game of Ascension.

“I hope the grocery store is open tomorrow,” Max said as she dragged a couple of cans of Richardson’s store-brand chicken noodle soup from my cupboards. “You can’t feed us for another day.”

“We’ll play something else now, Sam,” Alex climbed up to her feet. “What do you like?”

“Don’t you three have meal plans?” I asked. “I’m not used to buying food for four.”

“I don’t know what any of these are except for Sorry,” Sam grumbled. “I always hated Sorry.”

“Well yeah, but the power’s still not on uptown, so where would Alex eat?” Max answered me. I switched over to Sam and Alex turned to Max.

“I don’t think we have enough liquor for Sorry. We’d have to use half-shots,” I pointed out.

“They cook everything with propane anyways. Besides, I can eat at you guys’s meal hall too. It’s closer, and the roads are bigger and they’re more likely to be ploughed,” Alex said. “The trick’ll be smuggling out food for Gene.”

“Shots? Sorry‘s a drinking game?” Sam raised her nose in confusion. She had been energetic all day. She had been tramping around in the boots and my bathrobe. Bathrobes had become the uniform of sorts.

“We’ll just take Gene out for food,” Max said. “Least we could do, right?”

“It isn’t tonight. You girls have class tomorrow,” I pointed out.

“You think anything’ll be open?” Alex asked. She pulled out Master Labyrinth and grabbed Sam’s attention. “C’mon, girl. No more math.”

“You’re just saying that to get me naked,” Sam accused.

“I like math,” Max said as she came over. “But I do too much of it at school. I want to relax with friends and no math.” She poked me. “You don’t have crackers or bread.”

“No, I probably don’t.” I looked up. “Is there enough soup for everyone?”

“There is, but I think you’ll want something more.”

“I usually fry up some meat and dump it in along with some frozen vegetables when I cook a can of soup.” She didn’t like that idea, but she reached for the freezer anyways. I changed tack and stopped her. “There’s some potatoes. Do you girls like mashed potatoes? I do good mashed potatoes.”

“Really?” Sam lit up.

“Sure,” I said. I climbed up and lifted Max out of my way as I walked over to the little kitchenette. It was small for me. It wasn’t big enough to prepare a meal with someone. That was always something I liked to do. Hadn’t done it in a while.

“Do you need me to peel?” Max asked. She had asserted herself on my kitchen and apartment all day. The bed was made with fresh sheets. The garbage was packed up. She had volunteered to shovel. She would’ve scrubbed down the walls, floors, and bathroom if I hadn’t got embarrassed and stopped her. That probably would’ve just been a delay but I had cleaned the washroom as she stripped and remade the bed.

“So you’re a wizard,” Alex was saying, “You’re going to make a secret magic spell but we all have to raid this moving labyrinth for ingredients.” That was a good game. Simple. Not entirely math-free though: you had to take into account the topology of rearranging the map and predicting the paths you needed to get the bits you wanted. And once all the playing was done, you had to count up to see who won. Sam would accuse Alex of hiding math on her by the time we were finished.

“I’m going to give mom a call while you guys do dinner.” Sam got up and went to the washroom again. She was smiling this time. I was glad she had perked herself up after this morning. Alex flounced over and hugged me.

“How do you make mashed potatoes?” she asked me.

“You boil them and then you hit them,” I said, surprised the concept needed to be explained.

“Oh la la!” Alex squeezed me and hammed up her praise. “Such a knowledgeable and skilled chef!”

“Yes, it’s an ancient family recipe from just before man tamed the dinosaurs,” I said with a smile. I kissed her. Grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in.

I looked over at Max, who was expertly peeling a potato with my paring knife. I usually just used the peeler and wasted way more. She smiled down at her hands. “Humans weren’t around to tame dinosaurs.”

“What about chickens?” I asked. Had I thought twice, I might have come up with another plan. I shushed the giggling Alexa and stalked the intent Maxine.

“I suppose birds are dino--Christ!” Max squealed as I grabbed her waist and laughed warmly. I nosed aside her red hair and sloppily kissed her neck. “Ow! Crap!”

“Oh my god!” I reached across her and turned on the faucet. She put the knife down and was holding her left hand where she had cut into her index finger. I hoped I had band-aids. I kissed her ear. “Sorry!”

“It’s only a little cut,” she said, rinsing it. Alex stepped up with a sponge to wash off the knife. Max shook her head. “I’ll get that.”

“Health first. It doesn’t look deep. I’ll get you a band-aid.” I hoped I was not going to be having her hold a couple folds of toilet paper over the cut. I was certain I didn’t have Kleenex.

“It’s like I can’t even look at him without feeling happier than I’ve ever felt in my life,” I heard Sam saying to her mom. “How do I get him to tell me he loves me?”

I tried to ignore that as I rapped on the door. She jumped and squealed.

“Sam, uh, Samantha, uh, lovely, uh,” I was brainfarting.

“What is it, Gene?” she asked.

“Max cut herself--Max has a cut on her hand. Can you pass me a band-aid from behind the mirror?” I hoped.

“Sure, yeah, of course.” She quickly opened the door and handed me a box of Ninja Turtles Band-Aids. It was unopened. I frowned. Maybe I had just assumed -- for more than a year -- that I didn’t have any. “It’s not bad, is it?”

“Just a little cut on her finger.”

She smiled at me. “Here you are, nurse.”

“Why, thank you, doctor!” I said back. She closed the door, but kept her smile through the crack until we couldn’t have eye contact anymore.

“Yes, Mom. Max. My roommate Max. What other Maxes are in Halifax? Whatever. Max also likes him! We’re all going to try to make it work! I do too like him! We’re going to try! The three of us. No, the three of us and Gene. Max, Al--”

I hurried away as Sam’s voice got more accusatory and combative. I rushed over to Max.

“It’s really not that bad,” Max told me as she watched Alex finish up her job for her. “I’ll be alright.”

“Let me see,” I demanded and picked up her wrist and turned over her hand. It was a long cut, from below her finger up to the first knuckle, but it was shallow and it was only welling a blood drop at the end of the cut. “Prognosis isn’t good. You’re going to lose the hand and the arm. Probably the whole left side of your body.”

“She did tell you she’d be all right,” Alex chuckled, taking the offered punchline. She opened the box.

“This is important, Max.” I looked up at her huge eyes. She had the softest features, but she didn’t smile as often as the adorable Alex. Sam had more of a classic beauty to her. All three girls were stunning. I realized I had taken an extra moment or two. “Which turtle are you?”

“Oh, um,” She looked over. “Raphael?”

“She’s a Donatello,” Alex said.

“He has the nunchucks?” Max asked. Alex and I gasped in momentary horror. We both started laughing.

“He does machines,” I explained.

“I didn’t even open the packaging!” Max burned red. I had taken the Donatello-faced band-aid and stuck it tightly around her finger. I reached up and kissed her.

“He’s the nerdy one,” Alex said. “With the stick and purple mask.”

“I love purple,” Max nodded. She leaned forward and kissed me back. I smiled, lifted her hand, kissed her band-aid, and danced her away from the kitchen space. Alex stowed the box in a cupboard, and picked up and rinsed the next potato. “I really want to help with dinner.”

Max wouldn’t let me sit her in my chair so I sat her on the foot of my bed. I kissed her nose. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” she huffed.

“I mean, you need to heal and get better,” I smiled. “We get to dote on you and make you feel awesome.”

“OK,” she pouted. “But only because I really like you.”

“I really like you too,” I said. I could go with ‘really like’ for months. Let the first impressions and bubbling new relationship energy burn off before I took the words further. I realized I’d have to be the one saying the words first. These girls, they were unprepared. They were about to have their feelings hit them harder than they could imagine. I was not prepared either. Not for three girls at the same time. I was more excited for the challenge than I was worried about the outcome. I swung back to the stove and pulled out a pot for the potatoes. I went back down and grabbed the other for the soup.

“Hey everyone,” Sam came back into the room. “Dinner ready? Are you OK, Max?”

“I kinda wish I wasn’t being treated like an invalid.” She waved her Donatello band-aid at Sam.

“Oh, perfect choice for her!” Sam grinned and rushed over to hug me from behind.

“Hey, squeezy,” I said to her. “Feeling good?”

“I’m feeling like this is the best feeling anyone’s ever had,” she said. I stopped myself from saying, “I really like you, Samantha.” That wasn’t what she hoped to hear, and a half-measure would be a knife in her guts. I looked over at everyone. Alex grinned as she handed me the pot full of water and potatoes.

“OK,” I said, putting them on the burner. “Let’s get ready to eat.”

Max bristled at not being able to help, but we all made her stay put. That was half of the fun. Sam avoided work, and was opening Sorry and marvelling at the four colors of tacky bikini shotglasses I had inserted into the game.

I did as I promised. Boiled and hit potatoes. I smuggled in some butter but they didn’t need to know that. Plus, they were all watching me. Alex scooped out the potatoes and used the spoon to shape them into volcano bowls, and I poured the soup into those. It was cute. I didn’t have a real table.

“I’m going to have to get a new place,” I said, and had reason to believe myself this time.

“Right away?” Max worried as she tried to eat the soup without breaking down the potato walls and overflowing her plate like Sam, Alex, and I had already done.

“What do you mean?”

“We have to move out of the dorms in May,” Alex said. “We should all get one big place together.”

“Yeah! A huge one-bedroom apartment! It’ll be great!” Sam agreed.

“We’ll need more than one bedroom.”

“Not if the bed is big enough,” Sam countered.

“I wouldn’t mind sleeping in the next room,” Max said shyly.

“Why would--” Alex began.

“If I get too tired in the master bedroom.”

“We’d all want our own space,” I pointed out. I shook my head. “No, I’m going to look for a decent-sized place for me. You guys should do the same.”

“I think Dad and Mom want me to head back to the island over the summer,” Sam fretted. “But if we have a place, then I’ll have a reason to stay.”

“And how will you be paying for your rent and everything?” I pointed out. “We don’t even know how much you girls can afford. If you’ll have to get a job--”

“Daddy promised me rent if I stay on the Dean’s list,” Alex said.

“I have to do my best, but my parents gave me a similar deal,” Max said.

“I’d rather get a job and make my own way,” Sam said. The other girls clamored that they would do that after they graduated. I looked at Sam. She crossed her legs; the leather of the borrowed boot really accented her calf. I looked up to her eyes. “For now, Dad will help.”

“Yeah...” I had a bit of help myself when I was in school. Until I switched majors for the fourth time. I could see Alex’s dad making an ultimatum that could cut into our plans for rent. “It’s not a ‘today’ thing.”

I tried to pass it off. We finished off our food and played a round of Master Labyrinth. I got them to talk about school. We did pets, movies, things that scare us, things we shouldn’t laugh at but do, and all the various other bits of first-date chatter I had prepared.

“I really don’t think it’s a bad thing to laugh at octopi,” I said to Alex.

“‘Octopuses’,” corrected Sam. “Also ‘octopodes’, but ‘octopuses’ is fine.”

“Maybe not to you, but how do you think the octopus feels?” Alex contested.

“Well, I know how it feels to see you smiling and laughing,” I pointed out. “So, if they get you to smile, then I will do everything in my power to protect the world’s octopuses.”

“Thank you,” Sam triumphed at my proper word usage.

“That there are always octopuses in the world is a better way to make a pretty girl smile than to make dead-baby jokes.”

“Hey, I mean, they’re just so far in the wrong they come out the other side,” Max said defensively.

“You’re a monster,” Sam smiled.

“A tickle monster!” Alex reached over and went for Max’s belly. She giggled, thrashed, and escaped behind me.

“Protect me!” Max pleaded.

“No, I’d like to see where this goes,” I laughed. She lost her frown, and pouted.

“I guess I have to.” And she trudged back around me to Alex.

“You OK, Max?” Alex asked.

“I think she found a way to turn off your attack,” I grinned. I reached over and rubbed Max’s arm. “Well done.”

“Thank you?” She looked confused.

By now it was nighttime, and the streetlight outside my window was lighting up the snow behind my curtain. I frowned. “Alex, is power back on at your dorm?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. Her eyes went wide. “Oh wait, I can check on my phone.”

I smiled. I reached over and ran my fingers through Sam’s hair. She was snuggled up against my left leg.

“Uh, yeah, looks like power’s back on most everywhere,” she said. “Oh ... You want to walk us home.”

“If only so everyone’ll get fed in the morning.” I grinned. “OK, Sam. You gotta leave the boots behind.”

“Ah... “ She pouted but started to unzip them. I had a flash up the skirt of her robe. I smiled as I remembered last night.

“Hey, can I wear them?” Alex smiled bright. “You’re going to drop me off last, yeah? You can take them back with you.”

“They’re still not my boots,” I pointed out, although I was beginning to doubt that I didn’t have maritime salvage rights to them by now. “Is it really right to be tracking them through the snow and slush?”

“Those heels aren’t great for ice,” Max added. “You could slip.”

“Hey Max, you wanna wear them?” Alex said with more than a bit of an accusatory tone.

Max shook her head. “I wore them this morning. It’s your turn next.”

Sam tossed them over the arm of my chair. She stretched, untied the belt of my robe, and let it puddle around her ankles.