“Isn’t that for vampires?” Samantha mocked.

“Good enough.” Chelsea giggled, her hazel eyes shifting to something behind Vera. Then her face morphed into a smile—not the happy kind, but the this-is-gonna-be-good kind. Samantha’s gaze immediately took on the same expression.

Vera craned her neck. If there is an old man in a hospital gown standing behind me…

Only, the person she found was even more shocking.

Hovering inches from Vera’s face was Maxwell Oliver.

He was staring. Again.

“Um, hey, could we talk?” he asked.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Max

She looked shocked, which made sense. While their last names were pretty close in the alphabet—Oliver and Martinez—and over the years they’d sat relatively near each other in a few classes, they’d never spoken. She caught him staring yesterday, and he’d wanted to talk to her; only not in school.

Then the bacon incident happened, and Max had to do something. He saw two choices. Option 1: He could take his mom to the hospital and get her looked over, but every instinct inside him shouted “No!” His mother loathed doctors, and Max feared what would happen to him and Chloe if the hospital admitted her, especially if it were for something (he hated to even think it) addiction-related. Besides, he’d searched the house for pills and liquor last night and found nothing. That left him with Option 2: Vera Martinez, the girl whose parents were so often whispered about they almost didn’t seem real. He’d never given much thought to the rumors before; in fact, he figured most of it was elaborate bullying. But now his mom was morphing into a different person, with a disturbing voice, face, and smell. If he lived in a different town, somewhere far, far away, he probably wouldn’t even consider this possibility. But he lived in this town, with this family, and this girl.

“I know we haven’t spoken much.” Max searched Vera’s face. Her friends across the table gawked at him but wore smiles. Vera didn’t. “I hope you don’t mind. The front desk staff said you were working today and usually take lunch at this time. I was hoping we could, maybe…”

“You came to see me?” Her brows crumpled above big brown eyes.

“Well, yeah.” He rubbed his neck, now heating to what was likely a blotchy shade of red. Her friends smiled wider, nudging each other as they watched him squirm. Great. “Do you think, like, maybe we could talk, you know…somewhere?”

“About what?”

Max swallowed (his pride as much as his nerves). Vera wasn’t making this easy, but not too many people were ever easy on her. He cracked his knuckles, and her friend, the blonde, stifled a laugh. He did not want to have this conversation in front of two older girls he didn’t know, who were kind of pretty. In fact, if he were being honest, so was Vera. What did Jackson call her before? “Undercover hot”? Max hadn’t noticed until now. But her eyes had this cool way of turning up at the corners like a cat’s, and they were flecked like warm apple pie.