Chapter Text
October 1999 - Hawkins, Indiana
“Shit,” Max muttered under her breath as her foot caught the corner of a half-unpacked box of books.
She stumbled forward, reaching for the phone jangling noisily from her disaster zone of a desk. The scarf she’d only just wound around her neck tried to strangle her in the process, while the keys she already held dug into her palm.
By the time she managed to grab the receiver, she sounded more composed than she felt. “Fireside Books, how can I help you?”
“Oh, good, you haven’t left yet.” Lucas’s voice softened her irritation.
“Just about to,” Max said, wrestling the strap of her bag back onto her shoulder from where it had slipped.
“I’m starting dinner and I realized we’re out of garlic. Can you grab some on the way home?”
“Yup,” she said, already mentally tacking the errand onto her route.
“Okay, see you soon. Love you.”
“Bye.” Max hung up, tucked the phone back onto its cradle, and exhaled.
She slipped out of the office, offering a quick wave to Anna, the part-time teenager manning the register. Anna, with her chipped black nail polish and perpetual headphones tucked around her neck, barely looked up from scanning a customer’s stack of paperbacks.
Working at Fireside Books had initially been a stopgap, something Max took on during her senior year of high school when she needed gas money and a little savings for college. It was never supposed to be more than a temporary paycheque.
Then, when her circumstances changed and college was no longer an option, the bookstore shifted from part-time gig to full-time lifeline.
The owner back then was an elderly woman named Rose. Rose had been whip-smart, with an unexpectedly dark sense of humour and a sarcasm so sharp it sometimes startled customers before they realized she was joking. She had no family of her own, just the store and the people who wandered into it. Max had loved her.
Two years ago, a pulmonary embolism took her from the world, leaving an empty chair in the back office and a silence that seemed too big for the small shop. And then came the impossible news that in her will, Rose had left Fireside Books to Max.
Like many things in her life, it hadn’t been a choice she’d made so much as something that happened to her.
After Vecna, Max’s world had become a carousel of hospitals and clinics—white walls, antiseptic smells, the relentless buzz of fluorescent lights. Her life shrank down to routines. The slow, exhausting work of physical therapy, the daily task of convincing her body to remember how to move.
She learned to celebrate the smallest victories—a step without the walker, a pencil held between stiff fingers, the day she managed to braid her own hair. Progress was painstaking, but progress all the same.
High school had been more like a distant idea than a reality. She clung to the occasional class, a half-credit here, a paper turned in there, until she could finally return full-time the next year.
By then, the others had already moved on. The Party were scattering into adulthood, all of them fleeing Hawkins as soon as they could.
Even Lucas, her anchor through it all, had technically left, though not all the way. He turned down a full-ride scholarship to a college states away and chose one in Indianapolis instead, close enough to drive home on weekends. Close enough to keep an eye on her.
It was during Max’s much delayed senior year, when she’d just begun the tentative process of looking forward again—applications, essays, the quiet thrill of possibility—that the bottom dropped out.
It started as a cough.
Just a cough, the kind of thing her mom had brushed off a dozen times before. But then it lingered. Then it deepened. Then came the nights when her mom struggled for breath, chest rattling, blood speckling the tissue in her hand.
And then the doctor’s office. The words that suctioned out all the air in the room. Lung cancer.
From that moment, college became an indulgence Max could no longer afford. She slipped seamlessly into the role of caregiver, because there was no one else to do it.
Appointments filled her calendar instead of classes. She memorized the names of specialists, learned how to navigate insurance calls that went nowhere, picked up prescriptions until the pharmacy staff knew her by name. The kitchen counters disappeared beneath orange pill bottles and blister packs.
The first time went by in a blur. Surgery. Radiation. Chemo. Endless waiting rooms. It was brutal, but there was a light at the end. Remission. The word had tasted like air after drowning.
The second time was worse.
Barely a year later, the cancer was back. This time, the doctors didn’t talk about removal or recovery. It had already spread, settling in her liver, and the treatments were little more than delays.
Weeks bled into months, each one eroding the woman her mother had once been—already fragile from years of hard drinking, now brittle in ways Max couldn’t fix.
Max lived in a rhythm of exhaustion. Treatments that did nothing, hope that flickered and burned out, the slow grind of watching someone you love vanish by degrees. And then hospice, three months of it, each day both endless and vanishingly short.
By the time it was over, Max was twenty-one and hollowed out, carrying grief like another limb she had to relearn how to use.
Her mother's slow, drawn-out end had hardened her—turned something inside her to stone. Watching how death had devoured her mother piece by piece from the inside out until all that remained was a husk. Something you could mourn alive; not really a mother at all.
It was like grieving in slow motion, before she was even gone. She was in so much pain those last few weeks that when death finally came, it was almost a relief.
Maybe it was wrong of her, but Max had hidden from Lucas just how dire it was toward the end.
If he knew, he would’ve packed up without hesitation—postponed his senior year or transferred to Hawkins Community. And she couldn’t let him do that. Not again. She couldn’t let him keep putting his life on hold for her.
After all, he’d already given her more time than anyone could reasonably expect. Twenty months of it, to be exact. Sitting beside her hospital bed, reading aloud to her when she couldn’t respond, holding her hand through the long, terrifying silence of her coma.
And when the dust of the final battle had settled, after she’d been ripped back to consciousness, weak and broken and furious at the world, he’d stayed. He’d stayed through the crawl of physical therapy, through the humiliations of relearning how to walk, through the nights when she bit down on her own hand to keep from screaming at the pain.
He never wavered. Not once.
Even when she lashed out with sharp words and cold shoulders and doors slammed in his face, Lucas never threw it back at her. He just absorbed it, steady as stone, the patience of someone who’d already decided she was worth it, no matter how hard she tried to convince him otherwise.
Sometimes, when he looked at her with that bottomless patience, with that unshakable kindness, she felt the mean little voice in her head whisper, Break it. Shatter it. Prove he’s wrong about you.
He didn’t flinch from her anger. He didn’t retreat from her silence. He just… stayed. And that made it worse, somehow, because she knew she didn’t deserve it.
But that had always been their dynamic, hadn’t it? She was the asshole. He was the good one. The steady one. The hopeful one. The one who believed in her.
The thing was, he thought she was good too. He always had. She remembered it so vividly—just days after meeting him, on the roof of that school bus. She’d confessed the thought that haunted her, the fear that she was destined to end up like Billy, cruel and violent and hollow.
And Lucas had looked at her, eyes blazing with certainty, and said, You’re not like him. He’d said it like it was fact, like gravity, something undeniable.
And for a while, she’d let herself believe him.
But now? Now she wasn’t so sure. Because she could feel it inside her, simmering just beneath the skin—the same ugly impulses, the same urge to lash out, to destroy, to take it all out on someone kinder and weaker.
She knew how to hide it better than Billy had, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Maybe all she was doing was keeping the rot under wraps.
And that thought gnawed at her whenever she looked at Lucas.
Because what did she really bring to their relationship? She wasn’t the kind of wife who packed lunches or cooked him dinner. She wasn’t sweet or easygoing. She wasn’t someone who made his life lighter. Hell, she was more often the storm that darkened it.
She’d almost asked him, more than once, Why are you still here? Why me? But the words always caught in her throat, because she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to hear the answer.
The fluorescent lights of Bradley’s Big Buy made Max squint as she entered, the buzz of them somehow still audible over the soft, forgettable pop song that trickled through the tinny speakers.
She grabbed a plastic basket from the stack near the entrance and headed for the produce, tossing in a sleeve of garlic bulbs before making her way to the fogged-up refrigerators at the back. They were probably low on milk too.
Her path up to the registers took her past the cosmetics aisle. She didn’t slow down, didn’t let her gaze linger. She didn’t have to. Her eyes caught the flash of colour she was looking for instantly; a single, calculated glance was all it took to mark her target.
Her stride never broke as her hand shot out, casual and practiced, like muscle memory. The tube of blue mascara vanished from the hook and into her coat sleeve in one smooth movement. Max rolled her wrist, shifted her arm, and it was gone before anyone around her had the chance to notice.
Her pulse quickened. Not panicked, but bright and electric. The kind that prickled at the edges of her skin and made her stomach feel light.
By the time she joined the short line at the checkout, the mascara was already sliding down into her pocket, hidden in the nest of her curled fist.
It was something she’d started doing years ago. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it.
It was always dumb shit, too. A keychain. A novelty bottle opener. Lipstick and nail polish in shades she’d never be caught dead wearing.
And, just like she was doing right now, she’d smile and make meaningless chit chat with the unsuspecting cashier, and that stolen little trinket burning a hole in her pocket would make her feel… something.
This petty crime stitched into the fabric of her ordinary errands provided a kind of thrill she didn’t get anywhere else in her life.
It wasn’t that she wanted trouble. It wasn’t that she only wanted trouble. It was just that she had something dangerous licking up inside of her, hot and fickle. It was just that… she wanted things to happen.
It was just that she wanted and wanted and wanted.
After pulling into the driveway, Max sat with the engine ticking as it cooled, staring at the house she and Lucas had built a life in.
It was a nice house. The nicest one she’d ever lived in. A three-bedroom split-level with light blue shutters and a cozy front porch. In the spring, the front flower beds bloomed with the petunias Lucas planted every year, and in the fall the big maple out back filled the yard with red-gold leaves.
She had nothing to complain about. Nothing real, anyway.
She and Lucas had been married for seven years now. Seven years of routines and holidays, of movie nights and bills paid on time. Stability. Normalcy. All the things she used to dream about when her own home had been anything but.
The proposal had caught her completely off guard.
Lucas had done it at his college graduation party, right there in his parents’ backyard with all his friends and family gathered. Music, laughter, the smell of barbecue in the air… and then Lucas down on one knee in the grass, sunlight catching on the ring like something out of a movie.
They had never so much as talked about marriage—they were barely in their twenties, after all—but she saw him there, his face open and unguarded, full of warmth and a kind of certainty she’d never been able to muster in herself.
She had seen her future closing in on her already. Her mom’s decline was like a clock counting down, each second louder than the last, and Max had known what was coming. That after her mother was gone, she would have no one. No family. Just an emptiness she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to survive.
And Lucas, with his bright eyes and endless tolerance, had stood there offering her something different. Offering her a family, a promise, a tether to keep her from drifting away.
It had felt like safety. Like rescue. Like everything she had craved since she was old enough to recognize the absence of it.
Only a fool would have turned that down.
Later that evening, they sat side by side on the sofa, watching Jeopardy while Lucas graded a stack of quizzes, red pen ticking methodically down each page.
He was the history teacher at Hawkins High, as well as the coach of the basketball team. His students adored him; Max saw it every time they ran into one at the grocery store or in the hallway at a school function.
They’d light up when they saw him, eager to tell him about their sports games, their college applications, their latest wins. He listened to each one like it mattered. Like they mattered. That was just the kind of man he was. He had a way with people she’d never been able to fake.
Max shifted to lean against the arm of the couch, tucking her feet up under herself as the voice of Alex Trebek faded into the background.
Sometimes she got this feeling like she was floating just above the room, looking down at herself from outside her own body. A stranger occupying her life.
She found it fascinating, how she could be sitting right next to someone, the person she was supposed to spend forever with, and feel so utterly alone.
For some reason, her mind drifted to thoughts of her Grandma Dorothy—her mom’s mom—who had passed away back when they were still in California.
Grandma Dorothy was a strict woman.
She would always scold Max for running around with the boys on the playground and coming home with grass stains and skinned knees.
Grandma Dorothy used to say, “You take after your father,” which Max knew was just another way of saying, You’ve got the devil in you.
She didn’t think she was wrong.
***
The air was crisp the next morning, a true fall day. Max cracked her window on the drive in, breathing in the scent of dewy grass and decaying leaves.
Halloween decorations had started popping up around town. She made a mental note to stop by the dollar store later, grab some cheap decorations to liven up Fireside’s front window. Maybe she’d set up a little horror display—King, Jackson, Poe…
As she turned onto Main Street, her eyes narrowed. A moving truck sat wedged right into her usual parking spot. She slowed, remembering belatedly the letter from the building’s owner: new tenants upstairs this week.
The last ones, an older Polish couple, had been so quiet that Max often forgot they even lived above her. Just the faint smell of cabbage soup sometimes drifting through the floorboards. She hoped the new people would be the same—quiet, self-contained, drama-free.
She parked half a block away, keys jingling in her hand as she approached the familiar glass door. The shop’s bell gave its soft, welcoming chime when she let herself in. The place smelled the way it always did, paper and dust, the coffee she kept brewed on the front counter.
Max flipped on the lights, each lamp casting a golden glow that softened the cramped edges of the store.
It was small and imperfect. The overstuffed shelves didn’t line up properly, the armchairs in the corner were mismatched, one plaid and sagging, the other sleek and leather-cracked. There was always a stack of books that never seemed to find their way back to the shelves, and the glossy, walnut counter bore the scratches of time.
Max liked it that way. Lived-in. Cozy.
She went through her routine—register on, cash counted, blinds adjusted so the morning sun slanted just right across the front display. The quiet familiarity of the store wrapped around her like a blanket. She hadn’t chosen this life, but she could admit it was… comforting.
She certainly hadn’t grown up dreaming of owning a bookstore. Back then, it had been all about excitement and adrenaline.
She’d wanted to be a professional skateboarder, zipping down city streets with scraped knees and wind in her hair.
Later, she thought maybe she’d be a pilot, or a marine biologist, living underwater like Jacques Cousteau. Anything that meant forward motion, escape, possibility.
When she got a little older, adults started saying she’d make a good lawyer, which she knew was just code for, You’re a little too mouthy, kid. At the time, she almost liked the idea—using her attitude like a weapon instead of a liability.
But none of that had happened. Vecna took the first draft of her future. Cancer took the rest.
After her mother’s death, Max had briefly considered medicine. She’d spent enough time in hospitals, memorizing terminology and pestering nurses, that she figured she could practically test out of the first semester. It felt like a way to make all that suffering mean something.
But then Lucas had started his teaching certification, and his practicum was right there in Hawkins.
So she stayed.
It was the easy thing to do.
A thump from above pulled Max from her thoughts, followed by the opening bars of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” blasted so loud the floorboards hummed with it.
She frowned at the ceiling. An admittedly killer song, but not the ambiance she was looking to cultivate.
She waited a minute to see if the decibel level lowered to something more reasonable. It didn’t. The song only seemed to get louder, Kurt Cobain practically howling through the joists of the old building.
Max sighed and grumbled under her breath. “Perfect.”
She locked up the store, crossed to the propped-open door on the other side of the display window, and started up the narrow, dimly lit staircase. The door at the top hung ajar, a triangle of light spilling onto the landing.
Max rapped on it with her knuckles. “Hello?”
She pushed it open wider, curiosity prickling. She’d never actually seen the upstairs apartment before.
It was modest—bright but cramped, boxes stacked like towers against the walls, milk crates overflowing with books and vinyl. A U-shaped kitchen curved to one side, its counters bare except for an unopened roll of paper towels and the offending stereo.
The living area was a wide open space in front of her. It could be cozy with effort, but right now it looked more like a storage unit. A door to what she presumed was the bedroom stood partially shut on the far wall, muffled movement audible behind it.
Stepping inside, she raised her voice to compete with the music. “Um, I’m from the store downstairs and–”
The door opened.
Her words died in her throat. For a full five seconds, her brain glitched, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“Mike?!”
Like a ghost conjured out of memory, Mike Wheeler stood there, his face pale with shock, his mouth falling open.
“Max?” The tape measure in his hand snapped back into its casing with a metallic clack that made her flinch. “Oh my god.”
They both moved forward too fast, colliding in an awkward stutter-step before settling on a half-hug, half-pat on the back. It felt like embracing a stranger who just happened to have Mike’s bones.
Max stepped back, eyes running over him greedily, unable to believe it. Eight years. Eight years since she’d last seen him in the flesh.
But there he was. The same freckles still dusted his nose, and he had the same long, slightly awkward frame. His hair was shorter, cropped around his ears instead of falling past his shoulders. The posture hadn’t changed, though—sloped and a little self-conscious.
“Holy shit,” Max breathed. “It’s really you.”
For a beat, they just stared, grinning and awkward, both of them vibrating with disbelief.
Her mind scrambled to fill in the blanks. He used to come back for the holidays when he was in college, but then Hopper and Joyce moved to Vermont, and El had gotten a job somewhere on the West Coast after finishing her own schooling and, as far as Max knew, the visits stopped.
The sad truth was, they’d all grown apart. Dustin was overseas, doing his PhD at a fancy university in Sweden or Finland or something. Will was in New York, living the whole starving artist life.
El had decided to go into nursing, where she could subtly use her powers to perform miracles on dying patients. She didn’t like to come back to Hawkins; she’d left as soon as she could. Max didn’t blame her.
But now, apparently, they’d decided to return.
“What are you doing here?” Max demanded. “Where’s El?”
She turned in a circle, expecting to see her walk out of one of the rooms any second. Last she’d heard, they’d gotten engaged almost two years ago. Surely they were married by now.
But Mike’s prolonged silence made her pause. She looked back at him, her smile fading at the grimace on his face.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I uh… I guess bad news doesn’t travel as fast as I thought.”
The words hit like ice water.
Max blinked, struggling to process. “No. No way.” Her stomach sank, denial flooding her. “You… you broke up? That doesn’t make any sense!” She shook her head. “How– what– what happened?”
Mike exhaled hard. He gestured toward the fridge, the corner of his mouth twitching in a humourless half-smile. “Do you want a drink?”
It was barely ten a.m., but she nodded. The store could open a little late today. It wasn’t like there was a line of customers pressed against the glass, desperate to get in.
So they sat cross-legged on the laminate floor, backs against taped-up boxes, nursing lukewarm Coors from a fridge that was otherwise empty.
Mike tipped his can back for a long swallow, then ran a hand through his hair with a ragged exhale.
Now that she was looking closely, Max noticed the details she’d missed in her initial shock—the purple crescents beneath his eyes, the defeated slump of his shoulders, the way his voice carried the heaviness of someone who hadn’t slept through the night in weeks.
He looked less like the boy she’d known and more like a man ground down by disappointment.
“Honestly,” he started, eyes fixed on some distant point in the middle of the room, “I don’t know what happened.”
Max’s stomach tightened.
“A month ago, I was supposed to meet her after work to look at a wedding venue, and she didn’t show. When I got home…” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Most of her stuff was gone. She left a note on the dining room table. Her ring was sitting on top of it.”
She blinked rapidly. “Holy shit.”
“I didn’t believe it at first,” Mike went on, voice trembling despite his attempt to keep it even. “I thought maybe something was happening again, the government, the Russians, whatever. But I called Hopper. He told me she was safe. And that… she was sorry.”
He dropped his gaze to his beer, thumb worrying the tab back and forth.
“Fuck, Mike…” Max shook her head slowly, at a loss for words. “I never would’ve thought that could happen.”
“That makes two of us,” he said with a bitter chuckle. “I couldn’t stay in that house, and my job’s remote, so…” He gestured vaguely around the room. “I packed everything up and came here. Hawkins is still home, you know? Figured it was as good a place as any to start over. My mom and her new husband are still around, living in one of those new duplexes on Cedar.”
He sighed, scanning the bare apartment with a mix of amusement and exhaustion. “I never thought I’d be here. Pushing thirty, starting over from scratch.”
Max just nodded. She didn’t trust herself to say more. Her brain was still trying to reconcile the image she’d always carried—Mike and El as inseparable, inevitable, written-in-the-stars—with the reality sitting beside her on the floor.
If they hadn’t made it, what chance did anyone have?
Mike set his can down with a clink, stood, and crossed to the window. He cracked it open, letting the autumn air rush in. And then, to Max’s complete disbelief, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bright yellow pack of American Spirits.
He slid one out with his teeth, lit it in a practiced motion, and blew the smoke out into the street below.
Max stared. “You smoke?”
Mike shrugged. “I started in college, when I was stressed all the time. Quit for a bit. Started again.” He held the pack out to her. “You?”
She shook her head firmly. “Quit.”
It had been just over five years since her last cigarette, and she knew the exact date because she still craved one every single day.
Hell, she wanted one right now, the sight of him exhaling sending her stomach twisting with longing. But Lucas would smell it on her immediately. He wouldn’t say anything, but the disappointment in his eyes was always worse than words.
So she just sat and watched, almost fascinated. Mike Wheeler, gangly Dungeon Master, smoking a cigarette like some disillusioned adult. It was jarring. They really were grown-ups now.
“So…” He exhaled, ashing the cigarette on the window ledge. “You work at the shop downstairs?”
“You could say that.” She smiled at the way his eyebrows lifted. “I own it.”
His mouth fell open. “You own a bookstore?”
“I got really into reading all those times I was stuck in the hospital, so I started working there in high school. Then the owner passed away and left it to me.”
Mike let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “Max Mayfield: business owner.”
“Sinclair,” she corrected automatically.
Her voice was casual, but her chest squeezed at the reminder. She hadn’t been Max Mayfield in a long time.
“Right,” Mike said, blinking. “Of course. I forgot you changed your name.” His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “God. You’re married. I’m divorced before I even made it down the aisle. Feels like we swapped timelines or something.”
She almost told him the story then—the unexpected proposal in Lucas’s parents’ backyard, the ring flashing in the sun, the way she’d said yes before she’d even had time to think.
But the words caught in her throat. What was she thinking? Mike didn’t want to hear about all that, not when his own wounds were so fresh.
He stubbed out the cigarette, turned back toward her, and spread his arms with a helpless little shrug. “So I guess that kinda makes us neighbours, huh?”
Max smiled. “Yeah. I guess it does.”
That evening, when Max walked back to her car after closing up the shop, the moving truck was gone and the door was shut tight.
It still didn’t feel real that Mike was back. His voice, his face, the awkward half-embrace—they’d played on repeat in her head all day, breaking her concentration whenever she tried to sort inventory or ring up a customer.
And El. God, El. What the hell had been going through her head to just… leave? After everything? After years of fierce devotion that had once seemed unshakable? Had she been thinking about ending things for months? Years?
Max thought about the one time she’d tried to run away. She’d almost succeeded, too. But she’d just been an angry, misguided kid, searching for a home with a father who wouldn’t have even been able to provide it for her.
She gnawed on her thumbnail as she drove, distracted enough that she almost missed her turn onto Poplar. When she finally did, she groaned aloud at the sight of all the cars stacked along the curb in front of her house.
Shit. It was Thursday.
Game night.
Every other Thursday without fail, Lucas’s teacher friends and their spouses piled into their house like some kind of suburban ritual.
Max found a few of them tolerable in small doses, but for the most part, they drove her insane. All polite chatter and dull anecdotes about lesson plans, parent–teacher conferences, and whose child had lost a tooth this week.
And the inevitable question that always came for her and Lucas, asked with syrupy smiles and curious eyes. So, when are you two going to start a family?
Max cut the engine, sagging against the steering wheel for a moment before climbing out. She tried to brace herself for the endless small talk, for hours of people she barely related to pretending they were all the best of friends.
She knew she should want kids. Lucas would be a phenomenal dad. She could already picture him reading bedtime stories in funny voices, coaching Little League, wiping tears from scraped knees.
But every time she thought about it seriously, all she felt was dread. The thought of giving up what little freedom she had left—her store, her long walks, the quiet evenings where she could slip into herself—made her stomach turn.
Not to mention the actual physical possibility of it. After Vecna, her periods had never been consistent. One doctor had told her it was possible she’d sustained permanent damage to her reproductive organs.
The uncertainty had been enough for Max to cling fiercely to birth control, as if she could at least control that.
Still, she caught the way Lucas’s eyes softened every time he spotted a toddler clinging to their parent’s hand at the grocery store. How he’d smile wistfully at a dad with a baby strapped to his chest.
He didn’t have to say it. Max already knew. He wanted children.
And sometimes, in her weaker moments, she thought maybe she’d just… do it. Just to make him happy. It wasn’t like she had much else to offer.
But then she’d see a frazzled mother juggling a screaming toddler and a newborn in the cereal aisle, desperation etched into her face, and something primal inside Max stirred—a restless, desperate need to not become that woman.
She took a deep breath, shoved all of it down, and opened the door.
A chorus of greetings rose instantly from the dining room.
“There she is!” Lucas grinned at her from his spot at the head of the table, where a sprawling game board covered half the surface. Dice, cards, little wooden tokens. Ugh.
Max forced a smile, raising a hand in greeting.
She had very little patience for convoluted board games. Give her a controller, a screen, and the satisfying click of buttons any day. But Lucas and his friends lived for these nights, so she went along with it. At least there was wine.
Max made a beeline for the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and poured herself a generous serving of Chardonnay.
“Hey, hot stuff.”
She turned, immediately relaxing when she saw Jackie striding in with her usual breezy confidence.
Tall, brunette pixie cut, wicked smile—Jackie was hands-down the best part of this group. Her divorce from Hawkins High’s former math teacher had been a blessing in disguise. He’d moved away, but she’d stayed, much to Max’s relief.
Jackie topped off her own glass from the bottle Max had just opened. “You have got to spill about the new eye candy.”
Max froze, her glass halfway to her lips. “What?”
“The hunk who moved in above your store.” Jackie grinned, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I saw him on my way home from the salon, carrying boxes up the stairs. Tall, scruffy, all broody in the best way. Yum.”
Max nearly spat out her wine. “Hunk? You mean Mike?”
Jackie’s grin widened. “So that’s his name...”
“Jackie.” Max levelled her with a flat look. “Mike Wheeler is not a hunk.”
“Sure he is!” Jackie leaned against the counter, swirling her wine. “Tall, dark, handsome, in that academic, tortured kind of way. Very Mr. Rochester.”
Max snorted. “Yeah, well, he’s got baggage that would put Rochester to shame.”
“Aw, boo,” Jackie pouted playfully. “Crazy ex-wife in the attic?”
“Something like that.” Max shook her head, still trying to reconcile the words Mike and hunk in the same sentence.
They carried their glasses back into the dining room, laughter still lingering between them. Max sank into her seat, already dreading the night ahead, but with a small smile tugging at her lips.
Mike Wheeler. A hunk. As if.