The Connection

They all stand in Cooper’s foyer for a solid five minutes.

Max and Avery are both blushing slightly; Max from the biting wind and Avery because he’s just him, and Max is just… Max. And this is the most awkward situation Avery’s ever been in. Max is still holding the pizza boxes in both hands, shifting his huge sneaker covered feet in the entryway. If Avery would turn around and look at the other pair of Soul Mates in this too small space, he would see Kat glaring daggers at Cooper and Max in turn, and Cooper shrugging, giving her a look that screams C’mon, they have to socialize a little bit. Cut the cord, mom. No one is saying anything, and the awkward silence in about to suffocate Avery.

“Are you just going to stand there, Admiral?”

Kat’s dry, taunting voice cuts through the tension like a butcher knife through melted butter. Avery glances at her, to find her glaring hard at Max. If looks could kill, Max would be nothing but a powdery mush by now. Avery almost doesn’t notice the use of their nickname for him.

“Uh. I’m football Captain.” Max says a suspicious edge to his gruff voice. He’s giving Kat an apprising stare in return. He doesn’t sound angry, just hesitant, if not a little defiant. Kat smirks, her red stained lips crueler than anything Avery’s ever seen on the short redhead.

“Ah, so you understand sarcasm? Well, I’m impressed, and here I thought that you were— ow!“

Avery draws back his hand from Kat’s slightly (more) mussed hair. He barely hit her, just a little slap to the back of the head… she’s hit him harder on many occasions.

“Fucker. What was that for?” Kat hisses, shoving him shoulder weakly, one of her tiny hands smoothing the back of her hair.

“Quit being rude. Jesus, you’re like an unruly terrier.” Avery snorts, ignoring the barely contained laughter etched into Cooper’s face, and not daring to even look at Max.

“Shut up! If I’m a terrier what does that make you? Like a Chihuahua or something else small and lame!” Kat growls, putting her hands on her ample hips. Avery rolls his eyes at the stupid, Kat like insult. He crosses his own arms over his chest.

“Kat could be a poodle! She’s curly like one!” Cooper chimes in, throwing an arm around Kat’s shoulders. Avery laughs, grinning at Cooper.

“Yeah, she totally could. Thanks Cooper.” Avery laughs. Kat huffs a sound of annoyance, before striding up to Max, a look that can only be described as ‘I’m about to kill someone in the most violent way the internet can thick of’ on her bright pink face. Max, steps back half a step, and Avery can’t really blame him. But instead of striking him, like Avery thinks she’s going to do, she reaches up and slips a pizza box, and the bag of breadsticks into her arms, effortlessly. She turns on her heel and strides away deeper into Cooper’s massive house.

“Screw you guys. I’m going to eat pizza.” She calls over her shoulder, the sound echoing down the barrier hallway leading to the kitchen.

“Kathrine! I want pizza, too!” Avery sings, following his best friend, grinning stupidly.

“Don’t fucking call me that!” Kat screech leads him straight to the kitchen. Cooper’s kitchen looks like one straight out of a cooking show (not that Avery would know, it’s his mom who watches cooking shows, not him). It’s huge and spacious, with stainless steel appliances, light granite countertops and the same dark, glossy wood used in the cubby holes making up the cabinets and the floor.

Kat, red faced and pouting, is pulling out plates from a high cabinet. She’s standing on tiptoes, her well-worn shirt, riding up in the back, showing the deep white curve of her spine and the waistband of her jeans. Avery steps forward, gently tugging the hem of her shirt down. Kat growls (like an unruly terrier, Avery thinks, but doesn’t mention it), and bats Avery’s hand away.

“Go away. I’m mad at you.” She says haughtily, turning to put a stack of pure white china plates on the countertop, right next to the pizza box.

“Can you overlook my impressive verbal insults for a minute? I’m freaking out right now.” Avery says voice low and somewhat panicked. Kat rolls her eyes, but looks up at him, her eyes less narrowed, less lethal.

“Did you know? Please tell me that you didn’t, because if—“

“Keep your voice down!” Kat hisses, glancing over Avery’s shoulder at the kitchen doorway. Avery assumes she found no danger because she continues in a low voice, moving the plates around unnecessarily.

“I didn’t know. I knew Max has been telling Cooper he’s been trying to get you to hang out with him. And I knew that Cooper was asking me if you both could come over, watch movies and stuff. He asked me if I could get you over here. But I told him I wasn’t going to bamboozle you,” She’s speaking quickly, glancing at the doorway every so often, “I told him that you’d make the choice to see Max when you felt like it.”

“So did Max and Cooper set this up?” Avery questions, a twist of suspicious and anger in his gut. Kat sighs heavily.

“It looks like it. I’m sorry… we can go if you want. Watch movies at my place, eat a frozen pizza? God, I’m going to strangle Cooper.” She adds venomously. She opens the box she ripped from Max’s pile, and as soon as Avery catches a whiff of the pizza inside, his heart does a little flip.

“Did… Did you tell Cooper—“

“No.” Kat says, eye narrowed into tiny, gray green slits, “I didn’t. Cooper didn’t order the pizza; just gave Sport-o the money.” Kat says, glancing up at Avery. But Avery isn’t looking at his best friend. He’s instead looking down at one large, thick crust pizza; with the most gooey, slightly toasted cheese Avery ever seen on a pizza. In the box, almost overflowing for it, are little yellow labeled cups of garlic butter.

“How did Sport-o even…” Kat trails off; staring at the odd pizza like it might bite her.

“I-I told him. In a text message. In…” What? October? Maybe even September? “… A while ago.”

“I’m burning my hands! Are you done with the BFF super-secret freak-out meeting?” Cooper calls from the doorway, now holding all the boxes.

“Good. I hope you burn. You deserve it.” Kat says shortly, but grabbing the boxes out of Cooper’s arms, anyway.

“You wound me, sweetheart.” Cooper laments, hoping to sit on the countertop, grinning wolfishly at Kat. Max stands in the doorway, big hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, looking from the opened cheese pizza, back to Avery and then down at the floor. He frowns, the tips of his ears bright red. Avery looks away too, blushing deeply from his neck up to his scalp.

“Don’t tempt me, Cleft.” Kat snorts, opening each box in turn; one Meat Lover’s and one plain pepperoni round out the very specific cheese pizza. She opens the smaller box next, groaning.

“Did you get the spicy ones?” Kat whines, poking Cooper in the stomach. Cooper rolls his eyes, but his smile is mushy with affection.

“Honey Barbeque; for your delicate palate.” Cooper says drily.

“Boneless?” Kat prompts, hopefully. Cooper sighs heavily.

“Yes, you lame ass. Now give me a plate.” Cooper says, reaching for plate, only to have his hand smacked away.

“Hey, asshole. Ladies first?” Kat says. Cooper rolls his eyes.

“Fine.” Cooper relents. Kat grins, pulling a plate from the stack, she moves to hand Avery one—

“Hey! Avery is not a lady!” Cooper protests, jumping down from the counter to stand in front of Kat. It’s kind of comical, to be honest. Kat only comes up to Cooper’s chest, but she stares up at him, neck craned and a determined look flashing in her eyes.

“You don’t know that.” Kat defends lamely. Cooper snorts.

“How do you know then?” Cooper retorts, looking down at Kat, just as determined. Kat opens her mouth to retort something else stupid and lame, but without their noticing, Max has come up to Avery. He taps him lightly on the shoulder.

“Pizza? While they’re bitching?” He says, glancing at the still bickering pair.

“That’s a great idea.” Avery smiles softly, handing Max a plate. Their fingertips brush lightly, and while Avery jerks his hand back, Max seems unaffected, moving past Avery and towards the pizza line. Maybe he didn’t notice? They pile their plates, Avery grabbing three slices of cheese and two tubs of garlic butter, and Max piling three slices of meat lover’s, one of pepperoni, and with a quick ‘do you mind?’ that makes Avery’s heart jerk in his chest, one of cheese.

“Hey! I didn’t say you could have pizza!” Cooper cries, pointing at Max’s and Avery’s heaping plates. Avery opens his mouth, but Max is quicker.

“You were busy. I was hungry.” Max says shrugging, “Besides, I drove to get the pizza. I get the first bite.” He adds, like it’s obvious. Max walks towards the stainless steel fridge, pulling open the French doors. He extracts a can of Coke, and rummages further into the fridge finally extracting… there it is, that stupid heart flip again, a can of Cherry Coke. He tosses the can of Cherry over to Avery, who clumsily catches it, grinning sheepishly and blushing. Max shrugs, looking totally uncaring either way.

“I’m picking a movie.” Max calls over his shoulder heading towards where Avery assumes the living room to be.

Cooper and Kat scramble to load up their plates.

________

“This is dumb.”

“I second that.”

“And I don’t give a fuck. It’s my house.”

Cooper says loftily, selecting the Human Centipede from his Netflix queue and totally ignoring Avery and Max’s complaints. They choose to eat in the smallest den (like the smaller one out of the others. Like the Cleft family has more than one living room. Avery will never understand people with money), because Cooper said it was cozy. He lied, obviously. He picked this room for one reason: the limited seating.

Cooper sits sprawled out on the only single chair, holding the Xbox controller. He tried to pull Kat into his lap, only to have the feisty redhead, shove him the chest and sit at his feet instead. But her venom is only half potent, because she relents somewhat, and leans her back and head against Cooper’s leg, chomping on her pizza. She looks comfortable, and relaxed; a look that Avery rarely sees on his best friend. He wishes he could be comfortable.

Cooper’s stupid ploy for picking this room is clear once he and Max sit on the love seat, the only other available seating in this room. And if the name of said furniture wasn’t enough, the size of it adds about a thousand more pounds on the awkward scale. The love seat is far too small for two fully grown (and one almost overgrown) guys, and the love seat doesn’t even take into account the added space for their combined amount of personal baggage with each other.

Max, for his credit, seems totally unfazed by the cramp space, because he sits with his knees spread widely, the picture of relaxed. Meanwhile, Avery, sits almost on top of the opposite arm. He tries to make himself as small as possible, to take up as little space as he can. But it only works somewhat, because Max’s thigh is only a hair’s breath away from his own, considerably less muscular one (and why the hell is he noticing that now?).

“Cooper. Seriously.” Max says again, harder this time. Cooper snorts, letting the movie buffer.

“Scared, Matthews?” Cooper says in his best smarmy British accent. Max rolls his eyes, throwing his head back against the love seat in exasperation. Avery finds himself staring at the tan column of Max’s throat, he wonders if that, like the rest of Max’s face, is littered with freckles? And is Max’s whole body covered in the little dark brown flecks? He shakes himself, hoping that the dim light of the TV can hide the florid rise of color in his cheeks. God, he feels like a gross middle school boy.

“You wish.” Max counters drily, glancing over at Cooper. Both Kat and Avery choke on their pizza.

“You’ve seen Harry Potter?” Kat drawls cynically, eyeing Max with a look of suspicious, and what… a little bit of awe?

“Yeah. The first one, once or twice,” He shrugs, “Allie likes it.” Kat raises an eyebrow and opens her mouth, but Avery is quicker.

“The second one. You quoted the second one.” Avery prompts, a grin betraying his features. Max bristles slightly, the tips of his ears tinted pink.

“Maybe. I don’t know, they all kind of blur together after—“

“Wait, so you’ve seen all of them?” Kat questions, the note of barely suppressed glee heavily in her tone. “Have you read the books?”

“I don’t read, unless I have to.” Max snorts, taking a larger than needed bite of pizza, as the color from his ears bleeding into his freckled cheeks.

“Lair!” Cooper howls with laughter, he turns to Kat, “He’s read the books. He stole Allie’s copies and he’s seen all the movies. We went to the last one, and he cried like a bitch—“

“I did fucking not!” Max growls, pointedly ignoring Kat and Avery’s grinned stretched faces and less-than soft laughter, “It was July! I had allergies!”

Kat actually falls backwards on the floor from laughing too hard.

“This is fucking stupid. I’m getting more pizza.” Max glowers, rising from the love seat and slaking into the kitchen. He comes back after Kat’s laugher has died down, his plate heaped with pizza, wings and a couple breadsticks. He sits down, ripping into a breadstick with venom. And Avery doesn’t want to think that Max is undeniably cute when he’s pouting, but he can’t help it.

“Hey,” Avery ventures quietly, and in a moment of bravery taps Max on the shoulder. Max stills, like a rabbit caught in a trap, glancing at Avery. “It’s okay. I took Kat to the midnight premier, and she cried all throughout the movie. Even when we got into my car she kept crying. I bet she cried herself to sleep that night.” He adds with an easy smile. Max stares at him a second his face unreadable, probably wondering if Avery is lying.

“Hey, its sad! Tonks and Lupin never got to raise Teddy, and Fred! Right after he and Percy had made-up! And Snape! Oh my fucking Christ! Snape loved Lily so much! It’s really—“ Kat laments, her voice raised higher than normal with emotion and what Avery can only describe as Fan Girl.

“Are you alright? Do you need a minute?” Cooper teases, pulling on one of Kat’s loose curls, “It’s only a book, Kat. Calm down.” Kat makes a sputtering noise, punching his leg.

“Its not just a book!” Kat says hotly, facing Cooper. Cooper chuckles, good-naturedly.

“Yeah, it is. Seriously, calm you’re little fan girly heart.” He teases without any real malice. Kat puffs up, like a huge burgundy bird defending her babies (and, Avery thinks dully, the characters of Harry Potter are like Kat’s children). But a snort from the other side of the love seat cuts her sure-to-be-lame retort off.

“Harry Potter’s sold billions of books and made billions with the movies and everything else.” Max says drily, he looks right at Cooper.

“It’s not just a book, Coop.”

And then something shifts in the room. All four of them spend the rest of the night discussing Harry Potter, and then the Hunger Games, and then with distaste evident on everyone’s tongues Twilight. Over the course of the night, they continue discussing, and bickering about subjects varied and random. Max laughs once or twice at something Avery says, and Avery’s heart should be training for the Olympics for all the flipping and bouncing its doing. They finish off the pizza, and all the other food. And it’s nearly one am before they realize the time and have to head to their respective homes.

The movie, fully buffered, stays on Cooper’s TV; totally ignored.