“Do you need me to send help?” Madelaine asks, barely looking at Max from the corner of her eye. The corner of her lip twitches in disappointment or disgust or both.
“No, I have him. Thanks, Madelaine.” Tiffany steps around the car and grabs Max's arm, checking his face for any lasting damage. A long time ago, this maid had a problem with Tiffany. Because of her skin. Over the years, though, Madelaine came to terms with Tiffany being the only good friend Max had. “It's just a few small scrapes from the rocks. Come on, let's get inside and we can watch a movie.”
“And drink?” He asks with his most pitiful voice.
“And drink,” Tiffany answers.
Cooper House has been in the Cooper family since before the country was founded, and its decoration does not hide that fact. Paintings of the patriarchs of the family throughout the ages dot the walls and the architecture is similar to that found in Washington DC. Old. Colonial. A Roman revival in some areas. It's worth more than most of the houses in the area, and though the land it sits on is still sprawling with beautiful gardens, most of the farmland that the Coopers once owned have since been sold and turned into suburban neighborhoods.
A long time ago, many of Tiffany's ancestors worked on that farmland. The Cooper family were some of the kinder slaveholders, but they were still slaveholders. She's never told her mother this, because she knew it would become a source of drama.
Acting as a gate between these neighborhoods and the Cooper estate are large, lush old forests, long since protected by Max's great-great-grandfather. Not one Cooper man has been willing to fell even one tree since then, and so the suburban neighborhood growth has slowed to a crawl. The forest grows, coming nearer to this old house every year.
The second living room, far to the back of the house and overlooking the large swimming pool where Max taught Tiffany and Charlotte how to swim when they were eight, is where Max spends most of his free time. His computer is shoved into the corner, barely used since they left high school. In the middle of the room is a treadmill, used daily now. To the back is a new bar, added just this year when Max turned 21. It's always stocked with the hard stuff, though most of the more expensive liquor is full. Gifts from his father.
“What's your poison, Rich Boy?”
“Stop calling me that! And give me some vodka. Lemon.” Max throws himself onto his leather couch, covering his eyes from the light hanging from the ceiling. Tiffany grabs a fifth from the bar and anot
her one for herself.
“To heartbreak, she says, handing the vodka bottle to her best friend and crush since she was eleven. Oh yes, she knows of heartbreak. She knows it well.
“Yeah, whatever,” he replies, holding up his vodka. They both take a long swig before Tiffany sits herself in the leather recliner and flips on the TV. She glances at Max's face, noticing his puffy eyes and disheveled brown hair.
For hours they watch reruns of old TV shows, drinking and drinking until both fifths are gone and both of them drunk. Halfway through their liquor, Max pulls Tiffany over to the couch and lays his head in her lap. She brushes her fingers against his cheek softly, a little thrill coursing through her.
“Tiffany,” Max says. He looks up at her, his green eyes serious. The little flecks of amber dotting his eyes sparkle in the light. “Do you think I'll be alone forever?”
Tiffany thinks for a second. She could take advantage of this situation, use Max's frail state to convince him to date her. It's what she's wanted for so long, and it's the kind of advice her friends would give her.
Biting her bottom lip, she considers kissing him there and now. In the end, though, her conscience wins out over her heart. What kind of scumbag uses someone like that? “No, I don't think so, Max. Charlotte might just not be the right girl for you. You did cheat on her, after all.”
“It was after my mom died! I was distraught and drunk, and she was in India and she wasn't even answering my calls! I didn't even do anything more than kiss the other girl! If she had been here...”
“Hey! I know. You don't have to explain this to me, I already know all of that. But she doesn't have to forgive you, and you should probably move on. What you're doing, drinking yourself to oblivion every time she tells you to fuck off? It's not healthy. It's going to kill you.”
Max lays his head back down on her lap, enjoying her warmth as he mulls over her words. Tiffany watches him as every emotion he feels displays itself on his red face and hopes that he'll at least remember her words after he sobers up. That's more important than him making any sort of life choice right now.
Pushing himself up, Max stares hard into Tiffany's eyes. They're green like his, though more gray than emerald. Her dark skin makes them look all the more dazzling.
His eyebrows knit together with worry and sadness and probably a thousand other emotions, each one of them battling for control of his body. He lifts his hand, then sets it back down. He looks to the floor blushing, and Tiffany's eyes widen with confusion. She wishes he would do something, anything. Claim her.
His hand brushes her jaw, pushing errant hair away from her features.
Even though Tiffany knows these touches are the touches of a drunk man, she relishes in them. When she was a teen she had fantasies about being touched this way, his soft skin exploring her body. She gulps back a small sob as she watches him search her eyes.
When he kisses her, she doesn't resist. She can't. Her whole body accepts the pressure and sensation, the tingles and heat that arise from between her legs almost instantly. She stops breathing for a moment and melts into him, too drunk and too full of years of desire to pull away. Her hands clutch his shirt. His soft, warm lips press against hers, and they open and their tongues tangle.
Tiffany might be a wild child. She might party hard and drink too much, but she's a virgin. She's saving herself for the one man who has ever kept her interested for more than five minutes, the one man who has protected her and guided her and taught her so much. For the longest time, she thought her patience was in vain. As he presses against her and lays her back onto the couch, she can't help thinking that it was worth the wait. He smells of liquor and his lips still taste like his salty tears, but this moment is so heavenly.
Good things come to those who wait.
His mouth leaves her lips and finds her neck. It still smells of her perfume and her sweat from dancing with her girlfriends. Max licks these memories away, finding her skin salty but also sweet. His mouth surrounds a chunk of black skin, sucking in hard and breaking the blood vessels that will leave a lovely bruise.
A shiver goes down Tiffany's back. Her arms wrap around the boy of her dreams, her hands pulling his shirt up and holding him tight. Teeth graze her flesh as she thinks to herself, the whole world could end right now and I would be happy.
Max sloppily slides a hand up Tiffany's shirt. It's so tight that his hand is pinned to her, forced to spread out and feel every part of her slender body that it can reach. His hand grazes beneath her right breast. Frustrated with the tightness, both hands tear the shirt open.