“Lexie really, you know you can work this shift for me… please Lex!” Max leaned on the counter and pleaded with the girl on the other side.

Alexandria glared at him. “Max I’ve been here since seven and you really think I’m going to stay ‘til ten so you can have pre drinking time before that stupid party? C’mon!” She needed all of the hours she could get of course, but she wasn’t going to just give in easily to working a fifteen hour shift.

“Don’t whine. I hate when you whine like that.” Max put his hands together pleadingly. "Anyway I would owe you huge! It’s not just some stupid party Lex and you know it. Jade’s start of summer bashes are quality. You should be going to.” He stared at her intently while awaiting her answer.

Alexandria sighed. As much as she didn’t want to be at the Molly’s Ice Cream Haven all day and night, she couldn’t say no to Max and his adorable big brown eyes. “Okay, I’ll work for you. But only because you’re one half of my best friends.”

Max hit the counter in victory. “Alexandria, you’re my hero.” He flashed her a goofy smile.

“Hah! You owe me huge buddy,” Alexandria warned him but with a smile on her face.

“Lex, why don’t you come with us this evening? It’s going to be good times I promise! Jade’s parties always are… c’mon Lexie you know you want to spend the night with your favourite guy.” Max wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Alexandria tried to stifle a laugh but she couldn’t help it. She started laughing gently and shaking her head. “Max, what makes you think you’re my favourite guy?”

Max pretended to look hurt. “You burn me with your denial dear.”

She laughed again. “But of course it is just that, denial.” They were always joking like this with one another. It was just how their relationship had always been. Max and Alexandria had been best friends since the beginning of kindergarten. Well it was really Alexandria and Callie who had become fast best friends on the first day. And one fateful day during that first week at school while skipping past the sand box during recess they had witnessed a cruel boy taking away a small brunette boy’s small shovel and pail and laughing in his face. The curly brown haired boy had immediately burst into tears and the girls had taken it upon themselves to stick up for the crying boy. Alexandria remembered it well… Callie had leapt into the sand box and kicked the pudgy dirty blonde haired kid with all she had (which being a tiny five year old wasn’t much) and Alexandria had picked up a handful of sand and thrown it in the pudgy kid’s face. The next thing they knew, the two girls were sitting a few feet apart from each other in midst of an hour long time out while all of the other kids in their class ran around playing. But that small brown haired boy had sat out voluntarily while the other kids played. He placed himself between the two girls and it was in that moment that a life long bond had formed between the three. Now Alexandria stood laughing and joking with that boy nearly twelve years later in the ice cream parlour they both had gotten summer jobs at. “Ah Max. I don’t know about tonight. I just… I don’t know… I don’t really feel like it.”

“Lex, since Callie left I’ve started to think you’re going to play the role of hermit all summer. Really babe you should be out partying every night like the rest of us soon to be seniors. Plus this is the first summer you’ve been without that jackass in years. School’s been out for a week and I haven’t hung out with you outside of here at all! It’s just not right.” Max had a serious look on his face.

“It’s not that much of a tragedy. Yeah and it is the first summer I’ve been single in a while and I kinda like it that way. It’s refreshing.” She had just gotten out of a really long, really bad relationship a few months earlier, in February, on Valentine’s Day of all days.

“Well then you should be out dating, checking out the scene like the rest of us.”

“You know I’m not interested in dating anyone. And you’re dating? Since when?”

Max stared at her momentarily. “Well actually no I’m not.” She looked at him as though she’d proven her point. “Well that doesn’t mean I’m not checking out the scene because I most certainly am. And the girls have never looked finer in Cedar Falls.” Cedar Falls was their small hometown with a population of around seven thousand.

“Yeah because that’s who I like to look at, the girls.” She rolled her eyes and laughed.

Max raised an eyebrow. “Miss Taylor I never would’ve thought.” He backed upwhen he saw her lean over the counter to smack him. “I know you too well Lex.”

She brought her hand back and backed up and leaned against a counter running along the back wall. “Apparently so.”

“Everyone from our grade will be there. It’s a once a year kinda deal…” He continued in attempting to convince her to join him at the party.

“Not everyone. Callie won’t. And you know I only usually go to those stupid parties because Callie wants to.”

“Lexie, once again you hurt me with your words. What about me? Just because Callie’s been taken to the other side of theocean by her parents, does that mean I have to suffer?”

Callie Brennan and her parents were spending their summer in England. Her mother was from there so they had a whole whack of relatives there that Callie barely knew. Most people would love to spend eight weeks abroad but Callie had wanted to stay with Alexandria and Max for their last summer as high school students. Her parents would have none of it and so six days earlier, the three of them had said their good byes.

Alexandria sighed melodramatically and looked down. She missed Callie and she was worried that by attending a party where everyone in sight would be so drunk they could barely walk, that she would end up missing her more because Callie had always been the reason she’d have fun at them in the past. But Max did have a point. Well he’d made a few true points. She did have him here, and she was beginning to act like a hermit. She looked up at him to see him staring at her as if trying to read what her answer would be before she even said it. She sighed again. “I guess I can make an appearance.”

Max smiled widely. “Well don’t sound so enthused buttercup.” He’d called her that since grade three when she went through a phase that involved being obsessed with buttercups. “Even if the party is a bust, which it so won’t be, cuz really Jade Hanson’s parties are slammin’, you will at least get to meet the new edition to this small middle of no where shit hole.”

She raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “New edition? We’ve got a new kid in town? Since when? Why the hell didn’t I know? And hold on, back up, did you just say slammin’?”

It was rare that anyone new their age came to town and when it did happen it was big news and generally it was talked about for weeks. People moved away, but usually only elderly people moved in because it was such a quiet town.

Max ignored her mocking and replied, “Yes we have a new kid in town. Two actually. My new neighbours, you know the Teether’s moved out a month ago. Well the new people finally moved in. I thought I told you that. Ben, he’s actually really cool. We’ve been hangin’ a bit. And then he’s got a younger sister, around your sister’s age I would think. Her name’s Hailey.”

Before Alexandria could reply there was a dinging signaling that some customers had entered the parlour. Max backed away and let Alexandria serve the family of four unfamiliars. Obviously just passing through, he thought to himself. Living in Cedar Falls meant that you recognized everybody and pretty much could name everyone you saw. Suddenly the bell was going off again and Max turned to see more people heading in. He realized it was getting busy and it was going to be a while before Lexie would be able to talk to him again so he went up and stood beside the unfamiliar family and when Lexie took a quick second to glance at him while scooping the last cone for the family he let her know that he’d stop by her place around eleven to get her. She smiled and nodded and he waved goodbye and headed out the door. He didn’t mind Molly’s when it was dead like it had been just five minutes ago but when customers were there he hated it. He wasn’t really big into customer service. Not to mention it never failed at Molly’s to be either completely dead or crazy busy at all times.

Alexandria watched Max leave and was jealous for a minute. It should be her leaving right then but no she had to be a good friend. Why couldn’t she be a not-so-good friend for once? But that wasn’t in her nature. Business was steady for the next hour and when she finally got a moment to stop and breathe she realized she had agreed to go to the first drunken bash of the summer. “God what have I gotten myself into…” she mumbled under her breath before plastering that fake smile on her face she had mastered from having to serve customers at various venues during the previous two summers,when she heard the bell signaling more people had entered in search of quick relief from the summer heat.