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“I wasn’t taking them! I was just moving them! The guys are fun, Soph, they are on my side, they don’t run a mile about my eye, for a start,” Max’s voice quavered a little. Sophie felt she saw a little under his tough teenager bravado for a second. He just wanted to fit in. To belong. She felt sorry for him, but she could never say that, or show it. She wanted him to belong here, with her. She had been popular at school, she did her own thing and didn’t really care and that had attracted a lot of popular kids. She’d had a fairly happy time at school, and later, taking classes at the local college, making friends had been easy for her.
“Max, you can’t just follow whoever because they are nice to you…” she said, more gently now.
“Look, I joined up anyway so it’s too late, no matter what you say-”
Sophie’s head reeled. “Wait, joined up?”
“They are kind of… a street gang-”
“A gang? Max!” She heard her voice was decibels louder and an octave higher than normal.
“Jeez, what’s the problem, they were cool-”
“Right.” Sophie forced herself to try to keep her voice sounding normal, even.
“Anyway, now I’m grounded again!”
“Being grounded is the least of your worries… drugs… a gang… Max, there could be all sorts of trouble-”
“Yeah? Well maybe I want trouble, huh? Maybe I want something to shake my life up a bit because it’s fucking miserable right now!”
Sophie gritted her teeth and took a deep breath in and out. “I’m sorry….”
She knew that feeling only too well. That’s how she felt about Phantom. The biker. The man who had stolen her breath in the alleyway. Had stolen more than her breath. It was very obvious he was no good. He was trouble with a capital T. But she was drawn to it. Drawn to him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him and the kind of trouble she could get into with him. She could understand what Max was feeling.
“What did the parents do?”
Max sighed. “Dad shouted. Mom cried. I tried to explain, honestly I’d forgotten about it, I haven’t heard from them and it was months ago… Dad flushed the powder down the toilet and burned the envelope and said I was grounded…” He sighed again. “Anyway, fuck that. I’m done talking about that. What’s up with you?” Max grunted.
Sophie shook her head and expelled her breath. It was sweet he’d been able to pick up on her mood, even in his own drama and fury. She let her angst at him go just as he had let his anger toward her go, her need to have him close outweighing the duty to chastise him further on this.
“I’m just tired, Max, I’ve been working so hard lately… the café isn’t quite off the ground yet,” she gulped, voicing her fears for the first time.
“New businesses always take a loss the first few months, don’t they?” Max said offhandedly.
Sophie raised her eyebrows. Yes, she’d been lucky. The bank had approved her business plan, her cousin, Gil, had generously supplied a cash deposit. That had been a bit of a surprise. Her family was close, her mother’s sister’s family living only a few streets away. She had grown up and gone to school with her cousins. She’d never been particularly close to Gil, he was a few years older than her. In their teenage years he’d been very aloof. He’d looked down on her slightly and had often not turned up to family gatherings. But he surprised them all. When Sophie’s business venture had been the topic of conversation at one family barbeque, Gil had gone silent, thinking. Then, a week later, out of the blue, he’d handed her a bag of cash. Actual bills, all crisp and unused. He said he’d had a bonus from his new employer. He said he wanted to support their family, and give back. Everyone had clapped him on the back and Sophie’s mother and her aunt had cried and Sophie had grinned from ear to ear and called up the shop owner to organize the lease immediately. Then it had all happened rather quickly, before she knew it she was moving away and setting up shop.
“Yeah, sure, but I mean… I’ve made so much ice cream and hardly anyone is buying it, I get a bit of a rush after school, the kids come in with their parents and that’s great, but I’ve got loads of professional offices nearby, they turn their nose up at my ice cream and just buy coffees-” Sophie tried not to gulp. She was trying to run a professional business here, trying to be thick skinned and positive. But sometimes self-doubt creeped in.
“Have you got coffee flavored ice cream?” Max asked.
Sophie paused. “No.”
“Well,” Max sounded like he was snacking on something now, she could hear him crunching in the background, “I’d do that, then they might want some.”
“That’s… a good thought,” Sophie said quietly. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d let her imagination run wild and done all sorts of fun fruity flavors to appeal to kids… she needed to adjust to suit her audience.
“And like… kale and flaxseed shit?” Max garbled.
“Huh?”
“You know, all that green superfood crap that people like…”
Sophie sighed. “Max, this is why I need you to finish school this year and get your ass here for the summer. I can’t do this without you.”
Max laughed. “I dunno if I’m going to make the grades this year, sis, parents said I can only come if-”
Sophie felt a flash of anger shoot through her. Here she was sweating and running herself ragged to get this business off the ground and he was just slouching about getting into trouble and messing about.
