Four Letter Firsts

by Alex C

22 May 2018 856 readers Score 9.0 (21 votes) PDF Mobi ePub Txt


Authors Note: As usual, I apologize for any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, ect that I may have missed while editing this. They will be corrected as soon as I notice them. Thank you for reading. 


Spoiler Alert: God did not make me straight.

It took a long time for me to accept the fact that no amount of praying, begging, bartering, or attempting to jerk off to Victoria’s Secret magazines would fix me.  And it took me even longer to realize I didn’t need to be “fixed”, because I wasn’t broken. And it took me even longer than that to convince myself that God would still love me no matter what. Maybe I’m still trying to convince myself of that.

It wasn’t until I was in the 10th grade that I met another gay man for the first time.

His name was Maxwell Wineberg, but he preferred to just be called Max. Nina had originally approached him with the intention of asking him out on a date, until she realized that he played for the same team and made it her mission in life to set the two of us up.

In contrast to my catholic upbringing, Max was Jewish and unlike me, he had burst out of the closet in 6th grade and never looked back. We had attended different schools before both ending up at Logan High and had never crossed paths in the one and a half years that we had both gone there.

Armed with her limited knowledge of his likes and interests, Nina insisted that we would be perfect together, and listed off all of the things we had in common as she and I made our way through the lunch room.

“You both like Star Wars, and you both like reading, and you both like penis…” She droned on as we walked through Logan High’s cafeteria with our lunch trays, “And you both hate sports, and you both hate Disney…”

“Well, actually, Disney technically owns Star Wars now so I can’t say I hate all of the Disney movies anymore,” I reminded her.

“I literally can’t wait for you to meet him. Oh! There he is!” She said joyfully, sprinting towards a table where Robbie and a few of our other friends were seated.

“Hello, hello, hello,” She greeted as she set her tray down and left space between herself and a brunette boy for me to sit in, “Max, this is Travis. Travis, Max.”

Max turned to face me and I saw what he looked like for the first time; he was thin and petite, with a freckled face, a mouth full of braces that gave him little chip monk cheeks and overly gelled chestnut hair that matched his eyes (in terms of color, not gel content).

“Hey,” I greeted as I sat down between him and Nina.

“Hi,” He replied.

“Wow. Did anyone else see those sparks flying between them just now?” Nina cooed, “Love is in the air.”

“Nina, be quiet,” Robbie shushed her, “Don’t make it awkward.”

“I’m not being awkward!” Nina gasped, “Travis, am I being awkward?”

“You’re being a little awkward,” I agreed with Robbie.

“No, I am being CUPID!” Nina insisted.

“I think you mean you’re being stupid,” Robbie corrected her.

“YOU’RE stupid!” Nina snapped back.

“Is she always like this?” Max whispered to me.

“Pretty much, yeah,” I whispered back.

“Do you think she would notice if we snuck away?” He asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately her Gaydar also came with a tracking device,” I joked

“Are you two exchanging careless whispers already?” Nina butted in proudly.

“Yes, actually. We’re planning the wedding,” Max replied, “Right Travis?”

“Yep, a good old shot gun wedding. I’ll be wearing white,” I played along.

“Because you’re a virgin,” Robbie smirked.

“FUCK. YOU. ROBERTO.” I said bluntly.

“You wish you could,” Robbie winked.

“Such foul language, Travis. Shame on you,” Max scolded, “You’re not the man I thought you were when we met 30 seconds ago. I can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”

“Well, if THAT’S how you’re gonna be, I guess the wedding’s off!” I said dramatically.

“But I already paid the caterer!” Max gasped.

“So what? You didn’t even consult me about the menu! I didn’t want to order lobster!” I fake cried.

“I’m kosher, I can’t even eat lobster!” Max revealed.

“WELL, I DIDN’T KNOW THAT, SO I’M SORRY!” I replied, holding back my laughter.

 “I am such a proud gay mama right now,” Nina beamed.

I had to admit, I was pleasantly surprised at how well mine and Max’s senses of humor complimented each other. He was sarcastic and silly and relatively smart, but there was a serious lack of physical attraction between us, at least on my part. In spite of Nina’s best efforts to force us together, our relationship remained platonic for several weeks and the only time we every hung out together was during our mutual lunch period. Until one Friday afternoon when Max took the initiative to change that.

“Are you busy tomorrow?” He asked as we emptied our lunch treys into the trash.

“Hmmm, I don’t think so. Why?” I responded as we placed our empty treys on top of the garbage bin.

“Would you like to go see a movie with me?” He invited, as we made our way out of the cafeteria into the hall.

“I would, if movie theaters weren’t so damn expensive,” I sighed, “I don’t understand how they can get away with charging $20 for a bag of popcorn. It’s criminal!”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll pay,” Max offered.

“For both of us?” I raised an eye brow, a little taken a back.

“Don’t look so shocked. The concept of ‘The Cheap Jew’ is an unfair stereotype,” He replied.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” I let my sentence trail off and started a new one, “Would Robbie and Nina be joining us?”

“No. Just the two of us,” Max smiled, “Does that sound good?”

“Well, yeah, but…” I lowered my voice and made sure to say the next part quietly in case anyone was listening, “That kind of sounds like a date, don’t you think?”

“Because it IS a date,” Max confirmed.

“You want to go on a date…with me?” I said, stopping in my tracks, both literally and figuratively.

“Wow, blondie, I thought you were smarter than this,” Max teased, “Maybe some stereotypes ARE true.”

“I just didn’t think you liked me…like that,” I admitted.

“It’s not a big deal, you can say No if you’re not interested,” Max assured me.

“I am interested, I’ve just never been on a date before,” I answered, somewhat truthfully.

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Max grinned metallicly.

“I mean....yeah, sure. Why not?” I shrugged.

“Your enthusiasm is palpable. I’ll text you. Later," Max bid me farewell as we parted ways.

After planning our date via text message that night, Max and I met at the movie theater the following afternoon. Our mutual love of Marvel comics and Chris Pratt lead to a unanimous choice of us watching ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, which was awesome, but the date its self was less monumental than I had expected. To be honest, I’m not sure what I was hoping for; A spark? A sudden realization of attraction? The often aforementioned ‘butterflies’ people always talk about when referring to love?  What ever it was, it wasn’t there.

But in spite of that, I felt obligated to give Max a chance. He was nice enough to take me out on a date, so he obviously had some feelings for me that went beyond friendship and I didn’t really have any other options in terms of boyfriends, so I may as well take what I could get.

“What did you think?” Max asked as we exited the movie theater.

“I liked it. You?” I replied, discarding my empty soda cup in the recycling bin.

“I loved it. I can’t wait until it comes out on DVD so I can watch it with my brothers, they go bananas for Superhero movies,” He said as we walked through the lobby.

“How many do you have?” I inquired.

“Superhero movies?” He responded as we hopped on the escalator. 

“No…Jesus,” I rolled my eyes.

“My name isn’t Jesus,” He answered snarkily.

“Siblings,” I clarified, “How many siblings do you have?”

“Oh, four,” He divulged.

“Four?!” I said in disbelief.

“Yep. Two sisters and two brothers. I’m the second oldest,” Max revealed.

“Wow…And I thought having ONE little sister was bad,” I answered, “Are your parents still together?”

“Happily married for 20 years,” Max said proudly, “Yours?”

“Nah,” I shrugged as we rode down the escalator.

“I’m sorry,” He frowned

“It’s cool, I’m not bothered by it,” I lied, before changing the subject, “Thanks for paying for everything, by the way.”

“No problem, I’m happy to do it,” Max said positively, “Do you have to go home right away or do you want to come hang out at my place for a little while?”

“Um…” I pulled out my phone and looked at the time on it.

“I've got a game that you and I HAVE to play,” Max encouraged.

“Hmmmm…” I put my phone back in my pocket, “Yeah, I can come hang out for a while. What kind of game?”

“Do you like chess?” Max asked as we reached the bottom of the escalator.

“Actually, yes,” I replied as we started walking through the mall.

“Perfect! I have a Star Wars chessboard, you're gonna love it. Instead of white and black, it’s Sith and Jedi. It’s the best thing I've ever owned,” He said excitedly.

“That actually sounds pretty awesome,” I agreed as we headed towards the mall subway station.

“I have to warn you though,” Max cautioned me, “I have been on the chess team every year since I was in the first grade.”

“I didn’t think I would ever hear somebody brag about that,” I replied as we entered the subway.

We arrived back at Max’s abode, which was a modest, 2 story house in a suburban part of the city. As we entered, I could hear the sound of a TV playing in the living room and adolescent children fighting at the end of the hallway.

“It’s MINE!” One boy shouted as he ran towards us.

“No its MINE!” Another boy insisted, chasing after him. They nearly knocked me over as they raced past us, into the kitchen.

“Your brothers?” I asked as Max slipped his shoes off.

“Yeah…” Max sighed as he watched them chase each other out of the kitchen back into the living room, before shouting, “Brothers who are fighting over MY Gameboy and THEY BETTER NOT BREAK IT!”

“It’s MINE!” One of the boys growled, tackling the other.

"It's MINE, buttface!" The other argued, trying to wrestle the device away from his brother.

“They seem nice,” I complimented sarcastically.

“We should go hang out in my room, it’s a quieter down there,” Max suggested.

“Okay,” I nodded, slipping my own shoes off. We walked down the hall and he opened a door leading down to the basement, where the light downstairs was already on.

“Wait…your parents make you sleep in the basement?” I asked as we walked down the stairs.

“They don’t MAKE me sleep in the basement. I volunteered,” He clarified, “We’ve got 8 people living here and there are only 2 bedrooms. We had to get creative with space.”

As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I immediately noticed a man in the corner of the room removing clothes from a dryer.

“Father dearest,” Max greeted, taking a seat on the edge of the bed in the middle of the room.

“Fruit of my looms,” His father replied, closing the dryer door.

“Don’t you mean fruit of your loins?” Max corrected.

“I was talking to my underwear, Maxwell. Not everything revolves around you,” His father said, turning around with a basket of clothes in his hands, “Why, hello, un-named gentleman!”

“Hello, sir,” I answered respectfully.

“Oh, please! Patrick Stewart is a Sir. I’m Mark,” He introduced himself.

 “I’m Travis,” I replied.

“Nice to meet you, Travis,” Mark said, making his way towards us, carrying his basket of clothes, “What brings you to my sons room, after one date, because I thought I taught him better than that?”

“Relax, we only came down here to escape the noise,” Max explained.

“Oh, is THAT what the kids are calling it these days?” Mark winked.

“Don’t be gross,” Max cringed.

“Hey, it’s cool, no judgement! I’ve ‘escaped the noise’ quite a few times myself, how do you think I ended up with five kids?” Mark smiled.

“Ew, I wish I hadn’t heard that,” Max gagged.

“Yeah, that’s what you said after your sister was conceived,” Mark quipped, “So, how was the movie?”

“Really good,” Max answered.

“Was Chris Pratt even hotter in it than he is on Parks and Rec?” Mark asked.

Way hotter,” Max swooned.

I couldn’t help but be shocked at how casual they were being about Max's sexual preference, and they fact that he was bringing a boy home after a date.

“Well, Travis, you’ve got a lot to live up to,” Mark said as he began to climb the stairs, “I’ll leave you two alone now. And remember: no glove, no love.”

“Father...” Max sighed.

“Don’t be a fool, cover your tool,” Mark continued.

“Father!” Max said, more irately.

“Protect your wang before you bang,” Mark concluded.

“FATHER, GO!” Max demanded.

“Okay, I’m done,” Mark chuckled as he finally walked upstairs, closing the basement door behind him.

“He’s so embarrassing,” Max rolled his eyes as he stood up and made his way over to a stack of games on a shelf in the corner.

“I can’t believe your dad is okay with you being gay,” I expressed, causing Max to turn around and look at me with a confused disposition.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” He asked.

“I don’t know, I mean….maybe Jews are just more accepting about homosexuality than Catholics are,” I shrugged.

“Actually, no, they’re not,” Max said, grabbing his Star Wars chess set off the shelf, “I’m pretty you’re your bible says the same thing as our bible. ’Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is an abomination’?”

“Word for word,” I confirmed as he set the chess set down on the bed, “But if that’s the case, then why is your dad cool so with it?”

“Because I’m his son and he loves me,” Max said as he began to set up the pieces on the board.

“How did you come out to him?” I asked as I sat down on the bed.

“I didn’t have to, my parents knew I was gay before I did,” Max smiled, his braces shining in the basement light, “In grade 6, when they sat me down for the Birds and the Bees talk, they were like ‘When you have sex with a boy, or a girl, you have to be safe. You have to use a condom and more importantly, make sure you really love him or her before you go through with it.’ And then, in grade 9, when told them I had a boyfriend, they congratulated me and said that they couldn’t wait to meet him.”

“Holy shit,” I said in awe, “If I told my step-dad I had a boyfriend, I think he might slap me into another ethnicity.”

Max stopped setting up the chess pieces and looked at me, concerned.

“That’s not okay,” He said seriously.

“I didn’t mean it literally,” I assured him, “I just mean that I don’t think my parents would be as cool with it as yours are.”

“Your parents should be cool with whatever you’re doing as long as you’re happy and you're not hurting anyone,” Max replied as he resumed setting up the pieces.

“Yeah, I guess…” I shrugged, before changing the subject, “Does your ex go to Logan?”

“Oh, no, he went to a Hebrew School up town,” Max replied, setting up the Jedi pieces on my side of the board.

“Why did you two break up?” I questioned.

“You would need to ask him that,” Max replied, “He never really gave me an explanation.”

“Did you two ever…” I gestured vaguely.

“Did we ever what?” Max asked as he finished setting up the pieces on the board.

“Ya know…” I continued to hint, without actually saying it.

“Fuck?” Max smirked as he cocked his head to the side slightly, “Bang? Mate? Other four letter words?”

“Yes. That,” I blushed slightly.

“That’s kind of a personal question,” He said as he sat down on the bed opposite me, “Are you trying to determine whether or not I’m easy?”

“No! I’m just curious,” I answered.

“I’ll tell you what. If you beat me in this game, I’ll answer your question,” Max proposed, “Go ahead, you’re first.”

“Okay,” I nodded, as I moved my first piece, which was a tiny millennium falcon instead of a pawn.

It was a close game but in the end, I found myself declaring,

“Checkmate!”

“The force is strong with this one,” Max complimented, “Good game.”

“Thank you,” I grinned triumphantly as Max began to re-set the game pieces, “I think you owe me an answer now.”

“I guess I do,” Max said, staring down at the chessboard, “The answer is yes.”

“Oh…how was it?” I asked.

“The first few times, it was painful. But eventually, I started to like it,” Max said, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Was he the only one?” I pried.

“Hey, I only owe you one answer, dude,” Max finally looked up at me, “Beat me again and I’ll tell you.”

“Okay,” I agreed as we began a new round.

Once again, a close game ended with me calling out,

“Checkmate!”

“Wow, you beat me again,” Max said, as he began setting up the pieces for a new game, “And to answer your question, No. I've slept with one other guy besides my ex.”

“Oh…” I said, a little bit surprised. Max didn't strike me as the overly sexual type.

“I have an idea,” Max looked up at me as he finished re-setting the pieces, “Since you’ve already asked me twice, how about you let me ask YOU a question if I win the next round?”

“Sure, but I doubt that’s gonna happen,” I grinned cockily.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Max quoted, “Do you want to play as the Sith this time?”

“I’ll never turn to the dark side,” I quoted back. Max smiled as we started a new game. Unlike the previous two, he began knocking my pieces off the board left and right and before I knew it, he had me backed into a corner with no where to go.

“Checkmate,” He said confidently. I stared down at the board in disbelief.

“How did you-“ I began to say before being cut off.

“No, no, no. You asked your questions, now it’s my turn,” He interrupted. I looked up at him and nodded.

“You’re right,” I relented, “What’s your question?”

“Can I kiss you?” He said calmly.

“Can you what?” I half chuckled. I wasn’t sure I had heard him properly.

“Can. I. Kiss. You?” He repeated slowly.

“Do you WANT to kiss me?” I replied.

“Can you just give me a straight answer?” Max rolled his eyes.

“No, I can only give gay answers,” I responded.

“Just say Yes or No, Travis,” Max said sternly, “My feelings wont be hurt if you say No.”

I sat there and pondered what I should say. I hypothesized that maybe I needed to kiss Max in order to develop feelings for him. With nothing to lose, I placed my glasses on top of my head.

“Yes...” I answered, “But there's a cosmic battle sitting between us so….”

Max grabbed the edge of the chess board, yanking it out of our way and spilling most of the pieces onto the bed, before grabbing the collar of my shirt and pulling me towards him, planting a kiss on me.  I reciprocated, letting my lips caress and gently suck on his, with our tongues gradually increasing their depth until we were Dentist level deep in each others mouths. He slowly fell backwards, pulling me down onto the bed with him, with both of us laying on our sides, when I felt a sharp pain in my ribs.

“Ouch!” I winced, as I pulled away from his kiss.

“Are you okay?” He asked. I reached under my back and pulled out one of the game pieces.

“Yeah, sorry, there was a Storm Trooper in my back,” I replied, before we resumed our make out session. We continued to French kiss until a thought dawned on me and I pulled away from his kiss once more.

“Hey…” I squinted at him, “You let me win the first two games, didn’t you?”

Max smiled slyly.

“I told you, I’ve been playing chess since I was in grade 1,” He reminded me, “You didn’t REALLY think you could beat me, did you?”

“Oh, you are so…”

Max cut me off before I could finish, kissing me again as his hand wandered down my body, gripping my ass. I wrapped my leg around his pelvis, lightly rubbing my semi hard dick his thigh as we necked.

While it wasn’t the epiphany inducing, end-all-be all, love affirming kiss I had hoped it to be, I was still enjoying myself. Max was a good kisser and I only had to accidentally lick one sharp bracket of his braces to learn not to do that again and navigate around them. He was also very respectful, not attempting to remove my clothes or grab anything besides my ass during our 90 minute make-out session, which was only interrupted when my phone began vibrating in my pocket.

“Is that a phone call or are you just happy to see me?” Max joked as I reached into my pocket.

“Fuck, it’s my step-dad,” I sighed as I sat up, pressing the Answer button and pressing the phone to my ear, “Yellow?”

“Do you have Alzheimer’s?” Tom asked through the receiver.

“Um, no?” I replied.

“So, when I told you I needed you to watch your sister tonight, were you ignoring me or do you just not care?” Tom questioned.

Neither explanation was correct. Tom DID tell me that he needed me to baby sit my sister, but he had said it while I was walking out the door on my way to meet up with Max and he had never specified an exact time.

“Sorry. It slipped my mind,” I said honestly, “I’m on my way home now.”

“Yeah, I should hope so, Travis. Hurry up,” Tom said before the line went dead.

“Happy to help, love you too, you colossal fucking douche,” I said before stuffing my phone back in my pocket.

“You two clearly have a very healthy relationship,” Max said, sitting up on the bed as I put my glasses back on, “Do you want me to walk you to the bus stop?”

“Sure,” I said, standing up.

After saying goodbye to his very large family and hearing one more awkward sexual innuendo from Mark, we walked to the end of Max’s street and waited in the darkness for the bus that would take me home.

“I had a really good time today,” Max smiled.

“Me too,” I answered, “But just so you know, I plan on whooping your ass in Chess the next time we play.”

“Great, kid. Don’t get cocky,” Max said, quoting A New Hope, “Oh, your bus is coming.”

“So it is,” I acknowledged as the bus approached the stop, “Thanks again.”

“My pleasure. Let’s do this again soon,” Max said, leaning in to kiss me, only for me to jerk my head away like he had leprosy.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I don’t this it’s really safe for us to do that in public,” I admitted, “Especially at night.”

“I understand,” Max said, ex-tending his hand, “Heterosexual handshake?”

“Sounds good,” I said, grasping his palm in mine, “Farewell, good sir.”

“And best wishes to you, Mister Charles,” He said as the bus stopped behind us. I hopped on and threw in my fair, sitting down as Max and I waved to each other through the window.

I took Max up on his offer for a rematch the following Monday and once again, he beat me, and we ended up making out on top of the chessboard once more. Although I enjoyed spending time with Max, and I enjoyed our make out sessions and over the clothes fondling, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were forcing together two puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. In spite of this, we continued to hang out almost every day after school and ended up devising a system to finish our homework in record time (it was pretty simple, he would complete one half of the assignment and I would do the other, then we would switch papers and copy each others work) which gave us more time to make out and dry hump. While I liked hooking up with him, the problem remained was that Maxwell just wasn’t my type. I liked him, but more like a brother. A brother I didn’t mind making out. Brothers from Alabama.

The longer our un-holy union continued, the more guilty I began to feel. I felt  like I was leading him on, knowing deep down that this ‘relationship’, if you could even call it that, was going no where. Less than 3 weeks after our first date, I knew I had to be straight forward with him. I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

As we sat on his bed, with each of us completing one half of our homework, I tried to force myself to speak up, to no avail.

“You almost done?” Max asked, finishing his half of the assignment.

“Almost…” I said, scratching my pencil against the paper, “I’m having a bit of trouble focusing, to be honest.”

“Any particular reason?” Max asked. I finished my sentence on the page and twiddled the pencil between my fingers.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” I said cautiously.                                                   

“Sure. What’s up?” Max cocked his head to the side.

“I don’t really know how to say it,” I admitted.

“Just start talking and it will eventually come out,” Max encouraged.

“Okay…” I took a deep breath, “The thing is, I really like hanging out with you. We get along great, we have a lot in common but…I’m starting to feel like we’re only dating out of necessity. You’re the only other gay guy I know and you probably don’t know that many either so it kinda feels like we’re only hooking up with each other because…ya know…we don’t have any other options.”

“I see…” Max nodded, “So, if you DID have other options, I wouldn’t be one of them?”

“It’s nothing against you, honestly. You’re great,” I insisted, “But maybe we’re just too much alike. I’m usually more attracted to people who are different than myself. And I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because you’re a good looking guy but you’re just not…”

“I’m not you’re type,” Max interrupted, correctly guessing what I was about to say.

“Exactly,” I nodded, “And it just seems like you and I lack….”

“Chemistry,” Max once again correctly finished my sentence for me.

“Exactly,” I repeated, “And I just think we…”

“We would be better off as friends,” Max cut me off again.

“Okay, you REALLY need to stop doing that,” I finally spoke up.

“Sorry,” Max chuckled, “But I’m glad you brought this up, because I feel the same way. I mean, you’re cute and I like you a lot but I’m really into guys that are a little more…”

“Butch,” We both said at the same time.

“Yes!” Max grinned.

“I’m happy we’re on the same page,” I said, relieved, “No hard feelings?”

“Of course not,” Max assured me.

“But you know what this means, right?” I said.

“Things are gonna be awkward between us?” Max asked.

“No, I’m not worried about that. I think it would only get awkward if we had had sex,” I replied, “I was referring to the possibility that a hot, butch gay guy might enroll at our school and then you and me are gonna have to fight over him.”


“No offense, but I would win that fight,” Max said as we exchanged the homework we had both done so we could copy the others work.

“What makes you so sure?” I scoffed as we started plagerising each others work.

“Because I’m more experienced than you,” Max smirked, “You don’t even know how to give a blow job.”

“I’m sure I could figure it out. Sucking a dick isn’t exactly rocket science,” I replied, “Besides, when eventually do give a guy head, I wont have to worry about getting pubes stuck in my braces.”

“I can’t believe you just threw shade at me in my own house,” Max proclaimed.

“You started it,” I smiled, “So, if you were gonna screw a guy from our school, who would you pick?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know,” Max pondered, “Jeremy Levinstein is kinda cute. And he’s Jewish, which is a plus.”

“I made out with him once,” I said proudly.

“Lies!” Max gasped.

“I did,” I smiled, “Grade eight. He was my first kiss.”

“Oh my god,” Max said in disbelief, “How was it?”

“I loved it,” I admitted, reminiscing fondly, “Jeremy, on the other hand, nearly threw up. So needless to say, he wasn’t as into it as I was.”

“Oh…” Max frowned, “So, he’s straight then?”

“He’s either straight or a really good actor,” I replied.

“Oh, that sucks,” Max said sadly, “How about you? Who would you screw?”

“Unless Channing Tatum started attending Logan High, I wouldn’t bang any of the guys at our school,” I replied.

“You need to lower your standards,” Max suggested.

“Hey, I dated YOU, didn’t I?” I winked.

“YOU SHADY BITCH!” Max exclaimed.

“You walked right into that one,” I smirked.

“Hey, what phone company are you with?” Max asked out of the blue.

“Bell, why?” I replied.

“Are you sure it’s not Virgin Mobile?” Max smirked.

“Oh, cute,” I squinted at him.

“What’s your favorite Madonna song? Like a Virgin?” Max continued.

“Yeah, okay, very funny,” I rolled my eyes.

“Have you ever been to the Virgin Islands?” Max added.

“It’s getting old,” I sighed.

“So are those condoms in your wallet,” Max shot back.

“Maxwell…” I exhaled.

“Truce?” Max waved the metaphorical white flag.

 “Truce,” I agreed. With the truth out in the open and no ill will between us, we carried on with our homework in a comfortable silence.


I was grateful that my first so called relationship had ended on good terms and that I had gained a strong friendship from it. In my next relationship, I wouldn’t be so lucky.