You Plus Me Equals - Chapter 13

He seemed like maybe he was in a really great mood today. And Leo didn’t want to give up the opportunity he had been waiting for all this time. ‘Maybe he could just let it all go, and just try to forget it, just have a good lunch sharing a table with him.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam behind them and frowned.

“I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch with me,” Max asked smiling at Leo. Max rested a hand on his hip relaxed.

“The food is really good, they are serving…”

Max paused Leo waited for him to finish his sentence.

“Um… Food, in the cafeteria.” Max finished lamely while rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand.

Leo stared at him in both surprise, and the desire to snicker at Max’s adorable awkwardness warring inside him. Max rubbed the side of his neck uncomfortably.

‘Definitely not what he thought Max was going to say. But also so stupid, and embarrassing. Which was kinda melting him inside with how cute it had been…’ And he really liked Max being cute.

Max quirked his head to the side.

“They always serve food in the cafeteria,” Leo responded. Staring unimpressed at him.

Max gulped. Leo watched him, looking down at the floor uneasily.

Leo had never seen Max act so awkwardly before. And he quirked his head slightly confused, wondering what had happened today. To make Max be sweet and gentle after pretending he didn’t even exist for a week…

After kissing him.

Leo scoffed, unintentionally. ‘Don’t start thinking about that. You are only gonna get even more embarrassed and annoyed now. Calm down.’

‘Don’t think about last week or the stupid, embarrassing thing he had said. Which was pretty darn cute…’ Leo smirked although he really liked Max being cute.

Max quirked his head to the side.

“You seem different today… Did something happen?” Max stared at him concerned.

Leo frowned, remembering why he was annoyed. And looked back up to glance behind him at Sam, who was doing his very best to eavesdrop from a few tables back. Despite the noise around them. He glanced to stare at Max.

“Yeah, actually a lot happened. Leo responded. “How could stuff not happen? A week is a long time, especially in college.” He chided, snarkily.

“It’s been a week… A full week since you talked to me… You know.”

Then added softly under his breath. “Or did anything to me.”

“Oh, yeah, I have been busy,” Max said with a nervous chuckle, his eyes flickered quickly to the side where Sam was sitting. Leo looked back at Sam, Sam smiled, watching the two of them with interest.

Leo looked back at Max in time to catch a quick flash of panic that flitted across his face, before disappearing. ‘What the hell was that? Was he guilty, he had caught the two of them together? Guilty that he had been spending his full week with Sam and forgotten about him?

“Yes… Ahh, lunch,” Max said quickly, trying to recover.

“They probably are serving all of…” Max paused,

Leo waited. A sneer of annoyance flashed for a moment on his face.

Max sputtered, trying to recover.

Leo scoffed. ‘He really doesn’t have a clue what they are serving… Why is he even trying?’ Leo looked back at the table where Sam had finally sat back down. Sam had grabbed some chicken and rice. Pretty bland… He looked over to the second plate and noticed it was the same thing. Just with a pile of sauces to the side of the plate.

‘Max can’t even remember what they grabbed together to try and entice him to stay with yummy sounding dishes? Guess he doesn’t really want me to stay all that badly… Or maybe he just doesn’t know what to say after a week of not seeing each other,’ Leo thought.

“Um… Food, in there.” He finished lamely for a second time.

Leo’s heart thumped again at the adorable frustration that seemed to be flitting across Max as he tried to get out what he was saying. ‘Maybe he could stay… He did actually like a basic meal every now and then. And there seemed to be enough sauce for both of them at the table…’

A small snicker came from behind Max and Leo froze remembering Sam was there.

“I’m actually not interested in anything in there. Why don’t you ask Sam to join you instead?” Leo said snidely hoping Max would pick up on it and just drop the whole conversation and leave him alone.

“Oh, no, I don’t have to ask him… He’s there. We always have lunch together, like every day.” Max finished with a big, happy grin pointing behind him.

Leo stared at him, he could feel his eyebrow begin to twitch. He took a deep breath to calm himself,

“I need to go study.” He said and turned then walked away before the annoyance really made him snap at Max. He needed to go vent to Evan stat.

Or at the very least what he needed to do was get as far away from Max as possible.

‘Which… If you asked him.’

He didn’t think he would or could have been thinking almost an hour ago.

✥✥✥

Max stared after him confused. ‘He hadn’t done or said anything to Leo in a week. So why was he mad at him, when he hadn’t done anything to make him misunderstand?’

Max walked back inside, confusion warring inside his head as he tried to figure out what he could have possibly done in that time.

Sam looked up at him in confusion as he came back to the table without Leo, who walked away quickly, angrily.

“I thought you were going to get your boy toy? Why did it look good, then go so south?”

“I tried… But he seems upset…” Max sat back down and pouted.

“I don’t get why though.” Max put his head down sideways on the table so that his face was turned to look up at Sam.

“Can you go find out for me, 乞求可爱?” He said, pouting like a puppy dog.

Sam rolled his eyes and shoveled a heaping spoon of rice in his face.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Wow, you didn’t even get angry at me for calling him a toy and you begged in two languages… I kinda have to say yes now, right?” he said. Then shoved more food in his mouth with a smile.

Max sat up happily. “Really! Thanks!”