I wrote 96% of this before Episode 10 came out and meant to get it up before Episode 10 blew everything to hell, and, wow, they really did that within the first few minutes. This story is a lot longer than intended and can basically be summed up by saying: Tobin and Zoey bond (because apparently them being friends is something I've decided needs to happen), Zoey has feelings about Max leaving, and Leif occasionally sulks in the background. Rating is due to Tobin making this a hostile workplace environment. I don't own Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist.

Timeline of this is kind of wonky because the timeline of the show is pretty wonky, but it's meant to occur after the end of Episode 9 (on Tuesday) or before the beginning of Episode 10 (on Wednesday). Right now I'm leaning towards Tuesday because it fits with Zoey avoiding Simon, being Max's official last day on the 4th floor, but it doesn't entirely fit. Also, this occurs in an alternate universe in which people actually cared that Max left and are decent human beings.

Reviews are always appreciated, enjoy!

Zoey was in the middle of a build that Max usually would've helped her with and having considerable trouble focusing. She hadn't slept well last night, hadn't slept well really for about the past week, and she had a raging headache. She was also trying very hard not to think about the fact that it was Max's last day and how much faster this would be going with Max around to help her. She'd barely seen Max since he'd gotten in this morning, when he'd formally told her he was leaving.

She wasn't surprised to hear it, but she'd plastered on a smile and told him she was happy for him. Zoey had signed off on his paperwork and then they had a brief discussion about his remaining work and how it should be transitioned. He'd told her that Ava wanted him to come up and meet the team, spending his day with the team on the 6th, getting oriented to how they did things up there, and she'd said that was fine. Because what else could she really say? He went upstairs; she watched him leave, and then she sighed and put the paperwork on Joan's desk along with a memo discussing the transition plan and a job notice for Max's position. She didn't expect to see him until well after lunch.

Then Tobin came bounding up to her with an enthusiasm Zoey already knew she didn't have the energy for. She couldn't hear about another problem right now. It didn't help that he was wearing the most obnoxiously neon green sweatshirt she'd ever seen; it hurt her eyes to look at it, and now she'd remembered that green was Max's favorite color on top of everything. "I swear to God, if you call me Fire Crotch again, I'm going to send an email to HR." She picked up the pace of her typing, trying to get back into the flow of coding.

Tobin just laughed, and Zoey rolled her eyes. He put a hand on her desk, leaning into it. "So, am I your new BFF now that Max is gone?" he asked without ceremony. Did he sound a bit gleeful about it?

Still, she was a little bit relieved he wasn't coming to her with a problem or to talk about his feelings or some harebrained scheme, she guessed. Tobin was just coming here to gossip, okay. But a part of her would almost rather have that than actually being forced to talk about Max's transfer.

"Does everybody know already?" she asked through clenched teeth, her fingers stilling on the keys. She'd scheduled a meeting for 2:00 pm to announce it, was even going to step out at lunch time to get Max a cake from that fancy bakery he liked. How did they all know? Neither her nor Max had told anyone yet, and she needed to actually talk to Joan about it before telling everyone.

Zoey glanced at Tobin. He nodded. "Sorta." She frowned, peering around him and past Max's empty desk to see if Leif was in. Maybe Joan had read the memo and told him? "Is it a secret?" Tobin asked excitedly, tapping his fingers together. He was way too excited about this. He was also looking for some kind of drama to spin into this, probably because the whole thing seemed very out of character, and Zoey wasn't about to give that to him. Max was one of the last people anyone would've expected to move up. Which was probably why he should.

"No," she said, a little bothered, "just something I wanted to tell you guys myself." Zoey looked back up at him briefly. "And he's not gone," she added a bit defensively. She looked away and went back to coding and ignoring her emails. She aimed at being casual about it. "He's just moving up to the Sixth Floor. It's not a big deal." She didn't realize she was shaking her head until a strand of hair fell into her face. She blew it away.

"Suure it's not, Zoey," he said skeptically, sitting on the corner of her desk. He brushed some files aside to make more room for himself, getting comfortable, and Zoey made a face at him in response. "I'm just saying," he began, holding his hands up, "I'd be moping around for months if my boy Leif up and left like that. And I'm not even his boss." Zoey blinked, wondering if Tobin was trying to make her feel better or worse about this. It was sudden, and she wasn't sure if that was a mercy because it gave her less time to think about it or a curse because it meant she had no time to get used to the idea.

Was he asking how she was? She tapped her fingers against the keys distractedly, not pressing down. "I'm fine, if that's what you're asking?" Zoey looked over at Tobin questioningly, and, yep, judging by the pitying look on his face, he did not believe her at all. Her eyes caught on Max's plant for a moment before she shook her head a little and went back to the program she'd been working on. There was no way a plant would survive on the dimly lit sixth floor. "Nothing to mope around about since he's just going upstairs." She realized it was stupid and very clearly untrue the moment she said it, but she'd rather die than admit that to Tobin.

Tobin made a tsking noise, peering over her shoulder, and pointed out a mistake in her code. Zoey was mortified. It was a rookie mistake, one she never would've made in her right mind, and Tobin was usually the one making those kinds of mistakes. "Pretty rough, eh?" She didn't say a word but fixed the mistake and then frantically scanned back over her code to see if she'd made any other errors. Mercifully, Tobin didn't say anything about it, but, then, he clearly didn't need to.

Tobin shifted on her desk, putting his hands palms down behind him. He leaned in a little. "So you don't feel betrayed by him leaving?" he asked seemingly expectantly, kind of like he was a journalist trying to trap her. Genuine interest danced in his eyes. She hadn't expected that either.

Zoey blinked. "No, why would I?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. Admittedly, when Max first said he'd been offered a new job, she had felt a prickle of something like betrayal, when she thought he had actually applied for an outside job. She'd felt that he'd decided the resulting awkwardness was too much and she in general was too much, and he'd just decided to get away from her. And, as upset as it made her, she couldn't even blame him. She didn't have the right to demand anything of Max, after all, or take up any more of his time or life than she already did. And he'd said he wanted a break from their friendship, so it almost seemed like just another dramatic step towards that goal.

Still, it had felt personal, like he was saying she wasn't a good boss, up until Max had said he was recruited. She shouldn't have been so relieved to know that—honestly, Ava trying to snake an employee out from Joan was pretty scummy, and she'd be losing an experienced programmer—but it meant that Max wasn't out-and-out running away.

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that the others didn't know all the details and that they might also have feelings about Max leaving, which she hadn't really thought about. Max certainly was more friendly with the guys here than she was, but he wasn't especially close to anyone besides her. It was bad that she didn't think the others would really care about him going upstairs, right? "It's a great opportunity, and I'm happy for him," she said, meaning it, though it sounded a little rote. She even managed a smile.

She was happy for him, but there was that small, selfish part of her that wasn't happy about it. She was sure there was a long German word for that feeling.

Tobin tilted his head to the side and gave her a look, kicking his legs out. "Are you, though?" Why did everyone seem to be surprised that she didn't begrudge Max this offer? He was good at his job, even if Joan (and no one else) really seemed to appreciate that, and he deserved an opportunity like this. He was great at giving advice and pep talks, and something like this was exactly what he needed to get to the next level. She hadn't been the best friend to him lately, but she was a good enough friend to know that she wanted him to do what would make him happy.

"Of course I am! I'm very proud of him." Zoey would've gone on further with her attempt at protesting, but Tobin wouldn't let her get another word out.

His eyes narrowed. "Mm, no... You're being weird about it," he said almost accusingly. He was looking at her like he knew something or was looking for something, and she didn't like it.

Zoey tensed, her fingers hovering above the keys. Had he picked up on something? Tobin was generally self-involved and so oblivious to other human beings, and she didn't think anyone else had noticed the recent distance in her interactions with Max. Everyone was too busy between the watch, the Chirp, and their own personal lives to notice. But maybe Tobin was more observant than she was giving him credit for.

"I am not being weird!" she burst out a little too loud, flinging her hands out far more dramatically than she meant to. Tobin raised his eyebrows. He looked a little like he was holding in a laugh, but his wide eyes said exactly how crazy he thought she was being. Zoey huffed out a breath, trying to calm down a little. "Okay, not weirder than usual." At least Tobin hadn't pointed out that things had been weird between her and Max ever since she'd gotten promoted. Or, God, maybe things were just so bad between them now that even Tobin had noticed? But she could still feel him staring at her. "It's called being a mature adult, Tobin. Maybe you should try it some time."

He backed away a little, holding his hands up surrendering. "O-kay, easy, Big Red. I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears." Zoey looked down, feeling a little bad about lashing out at him, but Tobin didn't seem to take it personally. He reached down and picked up a Rubix cube from her desk. He started to toss it from one hand to the other. Zoey gave up a little and just watched him throw the cube around. Every now and then, Tobin would stop and turn one of the rows, then go back to juggling it without making a serious attempt at trying to solve it.

She felt a little like that cube, being twisted in all different directions. As she watched him throw it around, Zoey remembered that Max had bought her that particular Rubix cube because she'd been so anxious one day that she was making him nervous. "I know you'd rather be taking apart an appliance or electronic," he'd said with a smile, "but I don't think they'd like you taking apart your work laptop. This was the best I could do." Then he'd thrown it at her, and she'd just barely managed to catch it. It was strange the things you remembered.

The more she watched Tobin throw it around, the progressively more frustrated she became. He was sitting on her desk, playing with her belongings, and now his leg was touching her elbow because he was manspreading because of course he was. Zoey was normally pretty patient, but she had less patience today than usual. Maybe because she was unaccustomed to being Tobin's sole target. God, how was she going to put up with him without Max around?

She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but she looked morosely at Max's empty desk instead. This is what it was going to be like from now on, she reminded herself. Just her against all the brogrammers and idiots, no one here to have her back or prevent her from rolling her eyes back into her head. She tried to console herself by saying at least she'd have Max as a peer, and it did seem like Joan and possibly now Tobin respected her... but that wasn't really the same.

"So... The Sixth Floor, huh?" Tobin said, throwing the cube in the air and snatching it from the air with his other hand. The way he said it made her realize Tobin didn't know the full story, and she pressed her lips together, wishing she hadn't told the office's biggest gossip. "Max must've done something big to impress Ava Price." She was a little impressed he hadn't made that into a sexual innuendo somehow. He gave her a questioning look, but Zoey could only shrug. He must have, but Zoey couldn't think of what it was, and Max hadn't told her.

He wasn't telling her much of anything anymore, it seemed.

Tobin twisted the cube before throwing it up in the air so that it spun before falling back into his hands. "Never would've thought he'd go over to the Dark Side," Tobin mumbled, making a tsking noise. She looked over at Tobin, really looked, and noticed that he actually seemed impressed. Then Tobin looked over at her, catching her staring, and he stopped tossing around the cube. The way he was looking at her made her feel like he was blaming her for Max leaving, so she hurriedly broke his stare and went back to the program before, Heaven forbid, he made a more explicit Star Wars reference.

"People can surprise you," Zoey said, though she was thinking more of Tobin than Max in the moment. Tobin made a faint humming noise in assent. She heard the sound of plastic hitting skin again and let out a breath, relieved that Tobin wasn't going to press it further. She managed to type a few more lines of code mostly uninterrupted and was beginning to feel a little more normal.

She heard the sound of papers crinkling and frowned. Tobin had leaned back a little, making himself comfortable. He was still throwing the Rubix cube from one hand to the other. Zoey shook her head silently and then went back to writing code. At least she was in a formulaic part that didn't require too much thought. Then all of a sudden, he stopped, having dropped the cube. "Wait, isn't the only position open up there the manager gig?"

Zoey bit down on her bottom lip but didn't say anything. They all got the emails from HR about open positions. Hell, Leif had probably applied the day it was first posted. Secretly, Zoey wondered if she should maybe be a little concerned that management positions opened up so frequently at SPRQPoint. Then again, given how much being a manager had already sucked for her, maybe she wasn't that surprised.

She heard the rustling of paper as Tobin bent down to pick up the Rubix cube. "So Max is actually getting promoted? He's going to be one of the big shots now up at DRQPoint?" DRQPoint was the office nickname for the Sixth Floor, mostly due to its depressing lighting scheme and office concept, but partly also due to the rumors about what went on up there. Zoey tapped her fingers on the keyboard, not quite knowing what to say to that. "Man, it really pays to be white!" Tobin plopped back down on her desk, once again throwing the cube around.

Zoey stifled a laugh, then covered her mouth guiltily. "It's not like Max is going to become a different person overnight. He's still the same guy you've known for five years," she said, biting the inside of her cheek. Tobin stopped tossing the cube to give her a skeptical look. She wished she was as sure of that as she'd made it sound. "And it's not like we're never going to see him again. He's just two floors up. We'll probably still see him every day," Zoey pointed out, still trying to be positive. She was also deliberately ignoring the look Tobin was still giving her. Due to Joan and Ava's rivalry, their units didn't really mix much except for competition. The team on the sixth floor was also generally pretty close-lipped.

It was strange to think of him up there. Max was the exact opposite of literally everything on the Sixth Floor; it didn't seem like he would or should fit in up there. She and Max used to speculate about what they did up there and make jokes about how serious everyone on their floor looked. She missed those days. But a selfish part of her was hoping that she and Max could change that and maybe still have lunch together every day or... whenever. "The only difference is that you won't always be looking at him," she said, once again attempting to go back to her coding.

Tobin shook his head, finally dropping the Rubix cube he'd grabbed. Zoey winced at the sound of it hitting the laminate of her desk. He put his arms on his thighs. "That's more of a you thing."

Was Tobin intending to insinuate things about her or Max? "What?" Zoey asked, a bit flustered, jerking to the side. Her fingers froze on the keys. Her voice had gone up a little too, which was hard to play off. She hoped she wasn't flushing. Maybe Tobin hadn't meant that, and she was just being too sensitive about it.

Tobin nodded obliviously, reaching down to pick up a SPRQPoint stress ball. "Yeah." He started squeezing the purple ball. "You two are always staring at each other, like it's a tennis match or some freaky form of telepathy." Zoey turned her focus back to her computer screen, staring at it like it was fascinating. If he wasn't intentionally getting at something, he seemed to be getting awfully close. Zoey ran a hand through her hair; she didn't really look at Max that much, did she?

They did look at each other, of course. The wave if they got in at different times, a friendly smile when one of them was feeling stressed out, an eye roll or shudder at their coworker's antics, a raised brow, a sympathetic face, wide eyes at a surprise, anxious looks when Joan walked past... And Tobin was right about them communicating like that without saying a word. She'd definitely thought that she and Max could read each others' minds until recent events had proved otherwise. She always looked to Max. She always looked to him for a reaction, and why was she only realizing that now?

Then Tobin turned slightly and pointed at Max's empty desk. He'd brought a box from somewhere, but he hadn't yet packed up or moved his things upstairs. "Matter of fact, you keep looking at his desk every few minutes like you expect him to pop up," he said a little smugly. Zoey definitely felt her face turn hot and guiltily looked away from Max's desk. Where she had been looking. She hadn't even realized she'd been doing that, but if she was, it was only because Tobin had gestured to it. And that was where her eyes naturally fell anyways because their desks faced each other. It didn't mean anything.

"Just wondering when he'll be back from upstairs," she managed tightly, after a while. She really needed to get better at lying, because Tobin's face said he still didn't believe her. He started throwing the stress ball in the air. "We still have to work out all the details," she insisted, which had the benefit of being true and something she was somewhat concerned with. She clicked save and then squared her shoulders, deciding to go to her email since she wasn't getting much of anywhere with Tobin perched on her desk like a parrot.

"Uh huh," he said, unconvinced. "Why is Max really leaving?" he asked and then threw the stress ball at her. She hadn't been expecting either the ball or the question, so it felt like a gut punch. The ball hit her in the boob and bounced harmlessly off onto the floor, and Zoey crossed her arms over her chest because of course she'd felt Tobin look at her chest like the perv that he was. She didn't just wear sweaters and button-ups because they were comfortable and practical.

"What do you mean?" she asked slowly, glaring at him. "It's not a conspiracy. And he's just moving to another part of the company." Tobin bent down to pick up the stress ball, but he didn't bother to apologize. He just brushed the ball off and went back to squeezing it with way too much energy.

"I mean, the dude has always said he's happy where he is. He's more ambivalent than ambitious." Zoey fought the urge to roll her eyes when he pulled out his dictionary words, but at least she knew what those meant. The verbal thing was more of Max's thing than hers. Zoey clicked through several fortunately routine emails and felt her heart skip a beat when she saw she had two emails from Simon. "Clearly something had to change for him to make such a huge move," Tobin insisted, pressing the ball into his other hand.

She skimmed the emails, barely understanding them, and didn't dare click on any email from Simon with Tobin around. She shrugged evasively in response. "Max didn't really give me a reason." Of course, she neglected to mention that he'd basically asked her if she wanted him to say without saying it, and she'd failed that test. She recognized now that she'd partially been giving him an out, even thought a little that she'd kind of forced his hand by assuming he'd take it (but he wouldn't have brought it up if that wasn't what he intended to do anyways, right?)... but, ultimately, she wouldn't and couldn't have told him anything different.

Tobin exhaled loudly, frustrated. "Come on, you're his best friend, and he really didn't say anything to you about why he decided to peace out and leave us all high and dry here?" Zoey had been composing a boring email to HR reminding them to switch Max's pay over to Ava's accounting line after today, but that made her turn to look at Tobin. Were his abandonment issues jumping out?

"Max doesn't tell me everything," she said, looking away before Tobin saw something in her eyes. Like that she was wondering just how long Max had known he was in love with her and if it had maybe been before the first time he'd sang to her. She generally tried not to think about Max's feelings for her because it made her feel bad, and she was a little too curious about it. "I'm sure Leif doesn't tell you every single thing he does." Tobin snorted, but he looked a bit discomfited at the reminder that Leif was now keeping things from him. "And he's not leaving us high and dry. We're all still part of the same SPRQPoint team," she insisted a bit reproachfully.

"I don't know about that," Tobin argued, squeezing the stress ball so hard it looked like it was on the verge of breaking. Was he actually mad about this? "I think it's supes shady that he's being beamed on up to the Sixth Floor out of the blue. Doesn't even tell his bestie he's interviewing." He kicked his legs out so hard that Zoey had to roll her chair to the side a little so that he didn't accidentally hit her. Then he squinted at her, and she saw his jaw drop a little. "Wait, did you two have a fight or something? Is that what this is about?" he demanded, getting more worked up.

She'd definitely turned a shade paler since he'd just hit on something real, but hopefully he didn't notice. She felt her heartbeat thudding in her chest because she was so perilously close to just spilling the whole thing out if he said the slightest right thing. Zoey somehow managed to remain calm and sent the email. "No," she said slowly, as if she were talking to a toddler. Her voice was calm, even if her heart rate wasn't. She went back to the program she'd been working on from before. "Why would you think that? No one looks for a new job because they had a fight with their friend." She'd said it like she was trying to explain something obvious to a sixth grader, but judging by Tobin's face she'd sort of forgotten to deny that they were fighting, which kind of undermined everything.

Zoey licked her dry lips, typing code almost blindly. "Look, maybe..." She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to hurt. "Max just realized he wanted more than what he had here." God, that was true in more ways than one.

"Are you saying he left because we're not enough?" Tobin asked accusingly, gesturing dramatically around the office space. And she'd thought he was worked up before. He pressed the stress ball between his two hands, trying to flatten it. "That our team isn't good enough for him? That he didn't like it here enough? That we did something to... drive him away?" Zoey bit down hard on her chapped bottom lip; that last one had hit a little too close to home for her.

Admittedly, if she thought about it, maybe some of the others had gone out of their way to make the workplace a kind of hostile environment for Max, Tobin more so than the others. But not as much as the two cretins (Mike and Rich) Joan had fired a few years back after they'd been publicly identified as alt-right trolls at the Unite the Right rally. Zoey shook her head no. "That's not what I'm saying. Chill, Tobin. I'm pretty sure it's not personal." For him, at least. His shoulders relaxed a fraction, and some of the tension went out of his arms.

She shrugged a little. "Like I said, I don't know what his thought process was, but it's a great opportunity. I'm sure he'll get to do plenty of things over there that he won't get to do here. I don't see how anyone could turn it down." Ava didn't exactly take no for an answer either. Tobin still looked suspicious, but he'd at least stopped crushing the poor stress ball. She held her right hand out, and Tobin huffed but placed the ball back in her hand.

She set the ball back down on her desk. Tobin was still next to her, sulking, and something occurred to her. She saved what she was doing and officially gave up for now on the program. She wasn't getting anywhere with it, and she'd noticed herself repeatedly typing things that reminded her of Max and kept having to delete them. God forbid she screwed something up, and Tobin pointed it out again. "Tobin," Zoey began patiently, leaning back from her chair and putting her hands in her lap. "Are you maybe going to miss Max?"

Tobin tried to scoff but was unconvincing. He sat up bolt upright and suddenly looked much less comfortable. "What? Me? Nooo..." It didn't help that his voice got a lot louder too. He tried to wave it off, but she wasn't buying it. It was almost cute, really.

Zoey gave him a look of her own, trying not to smile. "Not even a little?" She pressed her thumb and index finger together and held them up.

Tobin sighed, slumping forward slightly and kind of crumpling one of Zoey's papers (to her slight annoyance). "Well... okay. Maybe just a little," he admitted reluctantly, not looking her in the eyes. Zoey kept staring at him, nonplussed. "But only because I'm used to him being there," Tobin insisted with an abrupt hand gesture.

She'd wanted to say something sort of sarcastic, but, surprisingly, what he said had actually gotten to her. Zoey eased up her stare. I am too, she thought sadly, biting her bottom lip. She was trying very hard not to look over at his desk now that Tobin had pointed out her habit. So she merely nodded sympathetically. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Normally, just saying that was enough to make Tobin shut down and leave. Was that what she wanted, or did she actually want to talk to Tobin about Max because she didn't feel like she could talk to anyone about this and was just using this as an excuse? It wasn't like Tobin had even sung to her; she didn't have to do this. Yet, strangely, Tobin kept talking. "I mean, Max is kind of an asshole-"

Zoey's eyes narrowed. She cut him off, crossing her arms over her chest. "Need I remind you that you called him Maxipad the first two years we worked here?" As expected, Tobin giggled, and Zoey rolled her eyes. "And Mad Max." Tobin rarely called him that, as Max was almost never angry. Max was more the quietly disappointed type, which was worse than shouting in Zoey's opinion. She'd let him down so much recently and hated herself for it, but at the same time, she didn't know how not to let him down.

"Maxine." Tobin had, however, gotten a lot of mileage out of that one, generally using it whenever Max did something that wasn't textbook macho. Max did a great many things that were not "alpha male behaviors." Like singing and baking and having emotions and never once hitting on her. She knew it annoyed Max a little, but he always had a comeback ready about how he was secure enough in his masculinity to just be himself, or that masculinity wasn't about being a toxic asshole no one wanted to be around. That usually shut Tobin up. "Folgers. Among many other things?" she deadpanned.

Tobin frowned a little, almost like he felt bad about it now. "Eh, we're all a-holes here," he said a moment later, waving it off. He bowed his head slightly. "But he can be really nice sometimes," he admitted a bit more reflectively. Zoey felt herself relax, a bit of her ire and need to defend fading away. Max didn't usually go out of his way to be nice to Tobin because of all of the aforementioned issues between them, but he was kinder to Tobin than he usually deserved. He'd said once that he imagined having Tobin around was like having a little brother. He'd described Tobin once as annoying but hard to be mad at because he clearly didn't know any better. "Like how he always gives me the grapes whenever he has any candy."

Zoey felt a smile tugging at her lips. Max hated grape-flavored anything. Max believed anyone could be bribed by food and would occasionally leave Tobin snacks; he liked Flamin' Hot Cheetos, anything neon-colored, and some kind of wasabi chips. "And he always gets me a present for Diwali," Tobin continued. Zoey hadn't actually known this, but Tobin explained later that it was always something small, usually sweets or a gift card. Apparently it had even gotten to the point where Tobin reciprocated by giving Max a Hanukkah present.

Tobin's expression was turning progressively more thoughtful. "And he's really fun at karaoke!" Zoey nodded, stifling a laugh. Max was a great singer, but he went full ham at karaoke, and it was hilarious. She still remembered the time he'd managed to get Leif and Tobin to sing "I Want It That Way" with him. She had tons of videos on her phone (it had later become an entire iCloud folder) as evidence slash blackmail material, not that Max was ever embarrassed by any of it. She picked up her phone, idly pressing on the screen, before she stopped herself. Now was not the time.

Max was always the first to volunteer to help plan happy hours and social events, and he always had great ideas of ways to bring people together. He'd started their weekly Karaoke Night about two and a half years into their tenure during a particularly stressful period of beta-testing the SPRQ Watch. He said that singing helped him relieve stress, and, even more strangely, the rest of their team had really gotten into it, even the ones she wouldn't have suspected like Tobin and Leif, and they'd all ended up bonding as a result. Everyone had liked it so much that, as soon as the weather got nice, Thursdays became Karaoke Night. She wondered if the tradition would continue once Max had moved on, or if he'd try it with his new colleagues.

"And he actually has some pretty deece advice on girls." Zoey's eyebrows went up at that. Max gave Tobin girl advice? Tobin actually asked him for advice? Compared to the other guys, Max was kind of the office Romeo. He didn't need several drinks in him like Leif to be at ease in a social situation, and he didn't almost swallow his tongue talking to a hot girl the way Tobin did. Knowing Max, his advice about women was probably to just listen and treat them like human beings and NOT BE A DICK, and why did she doubt that Tobin actually took the advice?

Zoey was dying to ask more questions about that, but Tobin just kept going. Maybe she just needed to hear someone else talk about Max so she didn't feel so alone in all this. "And... even though I always make fun of him for it, I secretly like it when he bakes and brings it in." Max had a habit of procrastibaking. He said that baking calmed him down, so he liked to bake when he needed to think through a problem or couldn't sleep. He gave a lot of it to his landlady, but sometimes he'd stop by with a pudding or jello for her dad. He tended to bring big things in sheet pans into the office, like cookie cake or challah or Rice Krispie Treats.

In fact, he'd brought in a tin of extra-fudge brownies today like a consolation prize. He probably remembered that it was her favorite, and even though she'd already had two of the corner brownies, they'd tasted like glue in her mouth. She let out a bark of laughter in spite of herself. "I think Max knows," she said, smiling faintly, given that Tobin was the office glutton. The pan was always empty at the end of the day, and most of the crumbs were on Tobin's desk.

"Man, why'd I have to realize now that Max is actually kind of cool? This sucks," Tobin whined. He slammed his hand into her desk loudly enough to make her and twitchy Trevor both jump a little.

She suppressed a laugh. "I know." That was as close as she was going to get to admitting that she was anything less than thrilled for Max. She couldn't afford to dwell on her feelings about it. "I've been telling you for years how great Max is, but you never wanted to listen," she said smugly. In fact, Tobin had always covered his ears and said something about not wanting to hear how awesome and perfect her work husband was and that he didn't need to know how Max was in bed, thanks, just because he knew it would make her turn as red as a tomato if he added that last bit.

Surprisingly, he didn't take the bait to do any of that. Instead, he just nodded, pensive, and stared off into space for a long, long moment. Long enough for Zoey to look up again at Max's still frustratingly empty desk and take a peek at the clock on her computer. She unlocked her phone, looking to see if Max had texted her, but, no, he still hadn't texted her since three days ago, and she hated it. She didn't like looking at the string of kind of desperate texts he hadn't responded to, so she ended up clicking on his contact photo.

She'd caught him mid-bite of a Philadelphia roll; he was grimacing, and the look on his face was so funny that she'd taken a picture without even thinking about it and set it as his contact photo. Max was always saying she made funny faces and making them her contact photo, so it was payback, really. He'd managed to swallow the half of the roll that was in his mouth, though he'd looked like he was swallowing cod liver oil, and a second after she'd taken the picture he'd pronounced that there was something off with the sushi. She'd gestured to the surroundings and asked him what he really expected from a food court (that was why she'd stuck to ramen). She'd taken it at the food court at lunch, about fifteen minutes before Max had sang to her. Now she thought that maybe the sushi hadn't been off at all. Maybe he'd just been too nervous to eat. That had only been a week or two ago, but it felt like a lifetime.

When Tobin spoke, she'd nearly forgotten he was there. "He's a really good friend, isn't he?" She hastily clicked out of the photo and conversation and nearly threw her phone face down on her desk as if it had burned her.

"The best," she agreed, swallowing over the lump in her throat. She'd gotten a little choked up thinking about it, and the absolute last thing she wanted to do was start getting emotional in front of Tobin, of all people. He would either call her hysterical or ask her if she was on her period and then quickly retreat only to pelt her with tampons later. Zoey blinked hard, tilting her head back slightly, and tried to turn her mind to other things like the program she'd been working on earlier or... But it was impossible because everything came back to Max, and she was surrounded by reminders of their friendship.

Like how Max refused to buy or get a stapler from the supply room, so he always came over to her desk to use her stapler, even though he called it a baby stapler and said it looked like one of those little cheeses. Or the Great Stairs where they liked to sit and work together, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Or the Cereal Bar where they had lunch on days when they couldn't leave the office, and that time Max had made her laugh so hard that she'd choked on Lucky Charms in front of Simon, but she couldn't even be mad at him for embarrassing her in front of her crush because he'd a. saved her life, and b. it was still so damn funny that she kept laughing afterwards.

He was silent for a long moment, so long that Zoey almost thought (hoped?) he'd left. "He would never have missed your Friendiversary, would he?" Tobin asked quietly, picking at a snag in his jeans.

Oh, Zoey thought. "We've never really celebrated that because it's more of a work anniversary," she said awkwardly, a bit too quickly. And then they'd also have to celebrate the day they met Tobin and Leif. Max had suggested it a few times, though, but he'd made a face and agreed when she'd pointed out the second part. At least she thought he had. Maybe Max agreed to lots of things for the wrong reasons, and she was taking advantage of him. Zoey bit down hard on her bottom lip.

"Yeah, but I heard what he did for you with Danny Michael Davis," Tobin interjected a bit more insistently. Zoey felt her face turn hot and knew that her face was beet red. Just what she needed, another reminder of everything Max had sacrificed for her to be her friend. The more reminders she got, the worse she felt. It was becoming clearer and clearer to her that she just held him back here.

"Yeah, I was sure Leif had told you and probably everyone else in the office about that," Zoey said in a strangled voice. He'd clearly been enjoying it a little too much, but he'd probably been pissed anyways that she was the one who got to present on the Chirp. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing that their founder had liked it and that it hadn't hurt anyone's careers.

"I saw how the dude ran to the conference room when he saw you on top of that table, okay. That wasn't planned." Zoey hoped her blush was receding but doubted it. She also ignored his implied question. Was she still surprised that so few people had asked her why she'd been singing in the office and generally having a mental breakdown? Yes. Her office was clearly full of much bigger weirdos than her.

"But if you needed him, he'd be there," Tobin pressed. She turned to look at him, brow furrowing. Was Tobin trying to drive the knife in further? But when she looked over at him, Tobin was staring into space... or, more correctly, into Joan's office. She peeked over her shoulder to check, and, sure enough, Leif was there working very closely with Joan. She would've rolled her eyes, but Leif caught her looking and then froze. Almost like he was jealous or suspicious of Tobin talking to her. She turned back to Tobin; he was still staring somewhat morosely into the air.

He wasn't singing, at least, but clearly there were still problems between him and his best friend, and she was going to have to involve herself in them. But not today. She didn't have the energy for it today. "Max would never not show up to something important to you." The grammar nerd in her wanted to correct his double negative, but she bit her tongue and nodded, all the while trying not to think of the many times Max was there for her. How he'd been there for her since she'd told him about her dad, always interested but never prying or trying to push her. How he listened to her talk about all of her pathetic relationships and heard her swear over and over again that she was swearing off all men and love, and how he'd still tried to give her advice even though his face said that he thought this relationship was a trainwreck that was absolutely not worth saving (and he was always right).

How he'd given her a pep talk she needed to go for the promotion and how he'd always supported her. How he'd listened to her gushing about Simon and how much that must've hurt, even though he'd laughed at the time and said she was never going to actually talk to him. How he'd won the lottery for Handpicked and immediately invited her because going out to new restaurants was one of their things. How he'd brought her dad butterscotch pudding because he remembered that he could only eat soft things and thought he'd like it. How he talked with her father like nothing had changed and now visited a few times a week. How he'd been her hype man in her first team meeting and every one since.

Then she remembered how he'd been her hero the dark night of Simon's engagement party. How he'd gone after her after she'd nearly burned the place down and been publicly humiliated and tried to cheer her up and make sure she was okay. How he'd immediately moved to comfort her when she found out about her dad. How he'd helped her into her coat without her even having to ask. How he'd insisted on getting her to the hospital and understood about her dad. How he'd sang and held her hand (and dammit, her heart still sped up a beat when she thought of it) and even insanely threatened to fight a hipster to get her a scooter. How he'd steered them safely to the hospital, even when her whole body felt like jello, and her stomach was full of acid and knots, and her brain felt like it was in a swimming pool, how he'd been steady and reassuring at her back even when she felt like she was about to pass out.

She remembered how calm but serious he'd been in the hospital, how he'd listened intently but hadn't said too much, and how he'd squeezed her hand when she felt like she was going to collapse. She remembered how he'd been relieved when her father was discharged and how he'd helped David get her dad into the car and buckled him in. She remembered how Max had let her silently cry on the shoulder of his newly-tailored jacket in the back seat for the length of the half-hour drive back to her parents' house, how he'd just wrapped an arm around her and stroked her hair without saying a word. She remembered how Max had helped them get her father back into the house, settling him on the couch and then helping to bring down and set up the bed for him like it was nothing. He'd never even complained.

She remembered how he'd hugged her at the end of that night, how he always gave the best hugs, and how she'd felt like everything might actually be all right, if only for a moment. And she remembered how she'd gone upstairs and looked out the window and saw him standing against that streetlight. He was probably waiting for an Uber, but she'd been so happy that he was still there and looking at her. And then he'd started to sing that song again but it came out as more of a ballad, and it made her smile and feel like she was in My Fair Lady or something. She found herself blinking back tears, and only her mortification at possibly crying in front of Tobin made her snap out of thinking of all of the things he'd done for her.

"If you need him, he's just there for you, no matter what," Tobin said, sounding a bit awestruck. Zoey could only nod and swallow hard, trying to regain a bit of her equanimity. Yes, he was, even if it hurt him. She blinked harder. "Like, that's a legit friend." Zoey's lips quirked upwards at the corners. "I mean, he's a real ride-or-die." She couldn't help but laugh at that statement. Maybe Tobin wasn't actually that bad. Oh, God, maybe he really was going to become her new best friend in Max's absence. That was a jarring thought.

Zoey hesitated, but, after a moment, she reached up to pat Tobin on the shoulder gingerly. He was more solid than she would've thought for someone who seemed to survive off of potato chips and energy drinks. "Sounds like you're actually going to miss him," she observed.

Tobin was frowning to himself. "I guess I didn't really appreciate him until now," he mused, sounding almost regretful but also like he hated to actually admit it. It was a pity, really, that Max wasn't here to witness this. Max would never believe her if she told him about this. She patted Tobin on the shoulder again absently. She knew that feeling all too well. She'd never exactly taken Max for granted, given that he'd been her only friend, up until recently, but she'd taken it for granted that he would be there. That they would always be to each other what they had been.

And lately she was starting to wonder if maybe trying to keep things the same was destroying their friendship more than even attempting to examine her feelings for him. She hated how awkward it felt between them now, how it didn't feel like there was anything she could say to fix it or make it right. The more she knew how impossible it was to have a normal conversation with him, the more she wanted to tell Max everything, like she used to. She did have Mo now, but it wasn't the same because Mo didn't understand her the way Max did. Mo didn't know all of her stories and history. Mo didn't get their inside jokes. Zoey shook her head, trying to shake free of the thoughts. "He is pretty special," she said distractedly.

"I should definitely sign his card, then, right?" Tobin asked, sounding even more uncomfortable. Zoey nodded vigorously and turned to the left to pull the card out of the folder she'd stashed it in. He flipped the card open and looked at her with a kind of anxious expression. "And write something nice?" Zoey nodded again, bemused and unsure why he was asking her. Not for the first time, she felt like Tobin was a child, always needing reassurance and explanation to do the right thing. Max would say it was related to Tobin's mommy issues.

"I know that's not your normal instinct," she said as Tobin slid off the corner of her desk to start writing. She immediately started straightening the files he'd moved and trying to flatten the paper he'd crinkled. "But I think Max would really appreciate it if you wrote something from the heart rather than something superficial," she continued, barely resisting the urge to peek over his shoulder and see if he'd written something appropriate. She could always cross it out if he didn't.

Tobin gave her a somewhat suspicious look and frowned at the card. "You say that, but what you wrote could've been from anyone," he interjected, pointing at it. "I mean, it could've been from Jared!" Jared was their newest programmer, who'd only been here for about three months and still barely knew who anyone was. Jared's social skills were so questionable that there was a running joke that he was either a robot or a serial killer.

Zoey had been somewhat distracted while writing in the card (it had been before her first cup of coffee, okay?) and didn't want to put too much effort in. Mostly because she was really trying to get through today without crying. "I mean... We're going to miss you, but congratulations on the new job! I know you're going to be a great manager," Tobin said, mimicking her voice and then miming a gagging expression. "You didn't even write his name or sign it with Love, Zoey."

"I can't write that in a work card!" Zoey said a bit defensively. Tobin scoffed loudly. Yes, she ordinarily would've signed a card to Max that way, but that was before she knew that he was actually in love with her and it just felt a little too... mean and awkward to do that now. And she couldn't have done that in a public card anyways because Tobin and Leif and, God forbid, Joan, would never let her live that down. She could only imagine the jokes about calling HR. Tobin just looked confused, and Zoey looked away so as to not encourage him.

She'd actually gotten Max another card, a private one just from her to him. With a corny joke on it that she knew he would chuckle at, and a long, somewhat rambling sappy note full of inside jokes and memories that she'd written when she'd had another glass of wine after another night hanging out with Mo. She liked hanging out with Mo, but she really would've rather been watching Jim Carrey movies with Max, who didn't judge her for not knowing a song. Mo had decided that Zoey needed more musical education, so he'd taken it upon himself to make her watch an episode of Behind the Music before a classical musical every night they hung out. Zoey begrudgingly agreed but couldn't help but think of how jealous Max would be.

As a former theater kid, he loved musicals, and he'd been begging her to watch another one with him for years. She had acquiesced once, on one of his birthdays, and it had actually been nice... up until she realized that the male lead she had been crushing on looked an awful lot like Max. Mo would also mock her mercilessly for the card if he knew. Not that Zoey even knew if she was actually going to give that card to him, or if she was too chickenshit to do it. It was burning a hole through her bag.

She tore her eyes away from her purse and cleared her throat. "Anyways, this isn't about me," she said dismissively, "We talked about it earlier, and Max already knows how I feel about him going upstairs." Well, he knew, but he didn't really know. She couldn't really put it into words, and it was probably better that she didn't. She once again attempted to go back to her computer and her work.

Tobin glanced at her and raised a brow. "Does he?" he asked, scribbling something in the card.

Zoey nearly slammed her face into her keyboard but managed to restrain herself. "Why are you trying to make everything a question?" She meant a veiled innuendo, which was the sort of thing Leif preferred to do and was better at. Tobin was direct in just about everything and bound to say the cringiest thing possible if given the chance. She tried to relax a little. If Tobin knew, he'd have said something awful to her or Max earlier. "Are you training for Jeopardy?"

"No, already been on it three times," Tobin said slowly, signing his name with a flourish. "You're just obviously not taking this well." Zoey blinked. And he was trying to get her to admit that? God, if it was obvious to Tobin, it was going to be obvious to everyone else. "What? I notice things too!" Tobin said defensively. She took the card and pen from him and tucked the card back into the folder. "Like how you serenaded him last week."

If her face wasn't pale enough before, it was now definitely the same color as her desk, if not puce. Oh God. Why did that day continue to haunt her? She wouldn't have thought singing to Max would somehow be the worst thing she'd done that day, that his song would be the one with the biggest consequences, since it was the only one she hadn't held in. "I don't know what you're talking about." She pressed her computer keys to take her computers out of sleep mode methodically.

This time, however, Tobin did press and continue. "I didn't hear what song it was, but Leif said you two were looking pretty cozy over by the ping-pong table." Somehow, Zoey managed to avoid wincing, mostly because she was relieved that Tobin hadn't actually heard what she sang. Also, really, Leif speculating about her and Max when he was having his own ill-advised office romance, really? She was never going to be able to look at that damn ping-pong table the same ever again. "And Max totes winked at you when you went to go see Joan." It sure seemed like Tobin had noticed a lot when he was supposed to be fixing the calendar on the SPRQ watch.

"You're imagining things," Zoey said shortly, beyond irritated with him again. She got up and started to head up to the Cereal Bar before she did something stupid like improvise a gag for his mouth. She knew she shouldn't have gotten so mad, but him bringing up that day rubbed her nerves raw. Tobin teased her and Max about each other all the time, and it was annoying but she should definitely be used to it. He'd even told her about three years ago (entirely seriously) that he thought she and Max were married for the first year and a half they'd all worked there. He'd once spent an entire day asking them if they'd banged yet after a work conference in Vegas; they'd given him the silent treatment until he stopped.

Max had never told her this, but one night, two years ago, when they didn't know she was still around, she'd overheard Tobin and Leif asking Max if he thought about sleeping with her and what he imagined Zoey would like in bed. Tobin had some... very horny opinions, though Leif was more reserved. Max had refused to engage, saying it was wildly inappropriate (though she'd noticed the color in his cheeks) and told them that it was wrong to reduce Zoey, their coworker, to a sexual object. Judging from what little she overheard, it wasn't the first time Tobin had tried to get Max to take part in that kind of conversation.

Countless times Tobin had made some little comment like asking Max if she'd gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning or saying she was so uptight because he wasn't giving it to her good enough. Or even admonishing him by saying, "I know Zoey's the boss now, but you're literally all up in her vagina, and no one wants to see you sucking her off." Or "God, Max, stop slobbering on her dick, okay? Have some self-respect, man." Not to mention Tobin's annual Christmas party stunt where he tried to contrive a way to get them both under the mistletoe (he had not been successful). Though, last year the peer pressure had been so intense (and Tobin had been so obnoxious) that Max had finally leaned over and pressed a five-second kiss to her cheekbone to make him stop. Her face had burned all night.

She stopped at the top of the stairs when she realized they'd turned it into a Frozen Yogurt Bar instead. She blinked dumbly and very nearly turned around, only to collide with who else but Tobin. "Oh, sweet, Fro-Yo!" he cried with joy, pumping his fist in the air to celebrate. He said it as if he hadn't said anything, which just made it more frustrating when he immediately made a beeline for the fro-yo machine. He grabbed a bowl and pulled on the lever for yogurt. Zoey thought about leaving, but she could stand to eat her feelings and half of the cereal was here as a topping anyways.

Zoey picked up a bowl and put in a scoop of granola. She looked over her shoulder to see if Tobin was still using the machine; he was piling yogurt impossibly high in his bowl. It was almost obscene. She shook her head and moved to get a spoon. She put two scoops of berries into the bowl with the granola and briefly contemplated eating it like that, but then Tobin was finished with the frozen yogurt machine, so she went over to it while Tobin went apeshit on the toppings. It really seemed like he was putting one of everything in it somehow.

Once she'd finished, she dug into the yogurt, mixing it up and putting some of the berries on top. Then she sat down and started eating. Frozen yogurt tasted surprisingly good right about now. She could almost forget about how it was going to be all downhill from here.

A minute or two later, Tobin plopped down next to her, and she wondered again why he wasn't leaving her alone. Did he think she would break if he left? Or was he just trying to take her mind off of Max's last day by constantly bothering her and continuously bringing up Max. Yeah, neither one really made sense. He leaned into her personal space, peering over into her yogurt cup and made a face. "Boo, why is yours healthy?" Then he promptly stuffed a large scoop of marshmallow fluff and gummy bears into his mouth. She shook her head; he wouldn't be hungry for lunch and would crash in about three hours.

For a few moments, they ate together in companionable silence. It was almost nice. Zoey surveyed their office from above, watching with a frisson of glee as Leif left Joan's office, looking around for them, though she was mostly focused on the area near the elevator, watching to see if Max was coming back. She should know better since he wouldn't be back for hours, but she couldn't help herself.

Then, naturally, Tobin had to be himself and ruin it. "Hey, is Max leaving so he can finally make a move?" Tobin asked casually, sliding a big spoonful of fro-yo and chocolate chips into his mouth. He had so much whipped cream smeared across his mouth that he looked a bit like Santa Claus, which made it just that much more ridiculous.

Zoey choked on her fro-yo. "What?!" She started coughing violently and patted her chest in a feeble attempt to stop it or at least ease the burning sensation. She got up and went to get a glass of ice cold water and drank it slowly. "No. I told you. He's not leaving."

"Don't avoid the subject." Tobin gave her a knowing look and nudged her with his elbow. "Like you haven't noticed? Dude totally has a thing for you." She hated herself for actually considering it for a second. It said something about how little she'd actually thought about what Max had offered her that her being his boss hadn't even crossed her mind, but it would definitely be easier for them to be something, at least to HR, if he wasn't her direct report. Not that that was why Max was going upstairs. Obviously the exact opposite reason was probably much closer to why he'd really decided to take the job.

She waved it off, silently dismissing it, and took a normal bite of the yogurt. "Oh, come on, girl." She raised a brow, and Tobin dug his spoon into the mountain of impossibly bright colored fro-yo. Had he poured food coloring on it? It almost looked like a rainbow, and some of those colors were not seen in nature. He gave her a pitying look. "It's all in the way he looks at you. How his eyes follow you around a room. And that stupid little smile he saves for you and only you. And how he's always complimenting you. It's like watching a Netflix romcom." He was gesturing rather intensely with the heaping spoonful, and Zoey tensed, wary of getting a face full of strawberry syrup and caramel. "Dude looks like he could break into song at any minute," he said, sounding a little nauseous, though not disgusted enough to not put the spoon in his mouth.

That made her blush and remember every single love song. Zoey took a large spoonful of her own yogurt and stuffed it in her mouth, so she wouldn't have to say anything either way. She didn't exactly trust herself to convincingly deny the obvious. Pretending Max didn't have feelings for her hadn't exactly worked out so far. Tobin shook his head almost fondly and licked his spoon clean. "He thinks he's playing the long game, but he's such a simp." Simp, like simpleton, maybe?

Zoey frowned and pointed her empty spoon at him. He took another big scoop of fro-yo and stuffed his face (was that a Marshmallow peep?), and she grimaced. "I don't know what that means, but it sounds offensive." Tobin smirked, which means that it definitely was. She could also see that his mouth was full of mango yogurt, gross. Great, now she'd have to look that up in Urban Dictionary. She dipped her spoon into her yogurt and took a reasonable-sized bite. "And," she continued, knowing it was a bad idea but still needing to spell it out. She gave Tobin a sharp look. "-Not that this is really any of your business, but Max is not moving up so he can come onto me-"

Tobin shrugged one shoulder infuriatingly nonchalantly, taking another swipe of his yogurt. "It's gotta be hard for him to admit he wants to hit it when you're his boss. That's a real boner killer." Zoey bit down on the inside of her cheek, privately thinking that it had actually weirdly become much easier for Max to talk about his feelings for her after she was above him. She wondered if Tobin had talked to Leif about that. Tobin cocked his head to the side. "Unless he already took you to Poundtown and that's how he got promoted?" he speculated. Zoey's face was definitely as red as the berries, and, great, now she was thinking about the fact that Tobin thought Max was good enough at sex to get a promotion based off of it. And now she was wondering, and she did not need to-

She made a disgusted face, though the visuals didn't exactly disgust her right now because the image of Max shirtless was flashing through her head, and she definitely remembered the way his hipbones- "Ugh, Tobin, why do you have to be so perverted all the time?" she groaned, shoving him so hard he almost fell off of his stool. He clutched his fro-yo protectively. "For the billionth time, Max and I are just friends." She'd said it to him so often that it came out reflexively. Maybe she was becoming a decent liar after all. "I'm sure he was promoted for completely normal, nonsexual reasons-"

"I guess he could've gone to town on Ava instead," Tobin mused, ignoring her, tapping the soon against his lip. Zoey stopped eating, as that thought made her feel genuinely ill. Max kind of liked to be bossed around, so he might even be into that, and ew, nope, nope, nope. Stupid Tobin for putting these thoughts in her head. She shook her head, pressing her hands to her eyes like that would remove the visuals. "Maybe she likes white chocolate."

"Are you trying to make me throw up?" Zoey moaned. She remembered a second too late to change the subject that he called Leif "White Chocolate" occasionally.

Tobin cackled, making another big scoop. "No, that's just a bonus." He looked puzzled. "I'm trying to make sense of this. I mean, how else did Max end up with that job?" The "over me and Leif" remained fortunately unspoken. A lot of the team was going to be gossiping about this, weren't they, because they all thought Max was just a mediocre programmer. But maybe he'd just do better somewhere they actually appreciated his potential. Ava clearly saw something in him, and she didn't just pick anyone to join her team.

"I don't know, Tobin. Maybe Max just has talents and skills you can't appreciate," she retorted, on the verge of losing her patience with him. Tobin stuffed his mouth full of avocado, which, yes, had also been in his frozen yogurt somehow. He couldn't make the comment he would've made, no doubt one speculating about Max's sexual prowess again, but his face said it all. "And knock it off already!" She reached out lightning-fast to smack his arm. Tobin winced, muttering an ow. "You know he's not that kind of guy." She stared down at her yogurt. "And he's definitely not into me," she said, stabbing her spoon into the yogurt and swirling it around. The berries were becoming red smears.

Tobin swallowed down the last of the avocado. "Uh, no. He def is," Tobin argued. "Dude's so into you he can barely breathe." Zoey's brow furrowed. That sounded like a lyric to a song that Mo had sung through her walls numerous times, but she couldn't quite place it. Someone high and breathy. "We're not arguing about this." Tobin took another big swipe of his fro-yo, this time one with cherries and fudge. Zoey picked her spoon up again and resumed eating it since it was melting fast.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, something she definitely neither wanted nor needed to hear, but just then his phone beeped, and she was saved. Zoey stared down into her yogurt like it was the most fascinating thing on Earth while still peeking out over the railing. She saw Simon and promptly looked away before he saw her. She ate a few more spoonfuls but stopped when she noticed Tobin wasn't eating anymore. "Did you finally realize you can't finish it all?" She saw both kinds of orange slices in his yogurt along with some brightly-colored gumballs that stared out at her like eyes.

"Huh?" he muttered, briefly glancing up at her before fixating once again on his phone. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she moved closer to Tobin to look at his phone. Her blood went cold when she saw the name at the top of the text chain: Abigail. She immediately snatched the phone out of Tobin's hand. "Hey!" he exclaimed, reaching out for the phone. She leaned away from him, holding the phone high above his head. "Give it back!"

She gave him her best stern look, the one that usually made him call her Miss Frizzle. "No. You better not be creeping on Abigail." He made a grab for the phone, but she shoved him away, shaking her head. "She's a nice kid who just wants to intern and possibly work here-" And, yes, she did realize the irony of her lecturing Tobin on appropriate workplace relationships. She didn't want him to ruin this opportunity for Abigail by saying the wrong thing and being another gross guy. "And if you ever want to see her here after graduation, you'd better be on your best behavior!" And now she was apparently pointing her index finger in Tobin's face as he continued to reach for his phone.

"It's not like that," he tried to protest. She moved her hand further out of Tobin's reach. She gave him a knowing look, and he sighed, shoulders slumping. "Okay, so maybe it is," he admitted, taking his hat off and running a hand through his hair.

She brought the phone down to her chest. To her relief, Tobin didn't reach for it. "You can't talk to her like she's an Instagram model you're thirsting after or some girl from Tinder, okay? Suppress all your urges with this one," she lectured, surprising even herself with the fierceness with which she spoke. Tobin pouted and turned back to his yogurt, only now he was picking at it. "Have you sent her any eggplant emojis or-" She grimaced but made herself go on. "-Any real life eggplant emojis?"

Tobin tittered, and Zoey felt a wave of panic come over her. God, she was going to have to apologize to both Abigail and Howie, wasn't she? Poor Abigail. "I haven't, by the way," he said, picking up his spoon just as she was starting to spiral. "No eggplants, no peaches, no papayas, no water droplets... no dick picks either, thank you very much." He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth, and Zoey realized he looked almost bashful about it. Like he felt uncomfortable not being a fuckboy all of a sudden. "If you don't believe me, you can look at the texts. I promise they're all above-board, Mom."

She didn't one hundred percent believe him, given how far off Tobin's general behavior was from what everyone else considered appropriate. She pulled the phone away from her chest, but it had gone to Tobin's lockscreen, which was a picture of him with his dad rather than the previous picture of him and Leif out in the club surrounded by women who didn't know better. She handed it to him, and he unlocked it with the swipe of a finger before hunching back over his fro-yo.

She was a bit wary to actually look, not knowing what she'd see, so she held her breath and slowly scrolled through the texts. So far there were no red flags, though he did seem to use the winky face a little too often. They'd been chatting a lot since they'd met apparently, kind of a lot. A fair amount of it was, surprisingly, him helping her work out bugs with her software program. It also seemed like she'd even FaceTimed him and that they were going to meet up at least once outside of SPRQPoint on Saturday since she'd arranged for him to speak to a bunch of freshmen Computer Science majors at her college. Their current texts were Tobin attempting to set up a time to get coffee with her before she left for Kenya.

In fact, the more Zoey looked at the texts, the more she couldn't believe they'd come from Tobin. He was texting like a completely different person, like a real person—someone who was a bit timid, thoughtful, and almost sweet. She stared at him in disbelief and slowly handed him back the phone. "See, I can be appropriate," he sneered, cradling the phone. He stuffed more half-melted fro-yo into his mouth, and she stared down at the mostly melted remnants of her own.

"I'm glad." She had a bit more faith in humanity now, actually. Zoey scraped up the rest of the soupy mixture and ate it in three spoonfuls. She was even a little proud of him, not that she would say that. Zoey glanced over at him slyly. His cheeks were puffed out from the yogurt and toppings, but he was still staring at his phone mutely. "You like her, don't you?" she asked teasingly, enjoying turning the tables on him for once.

He fumbled with the phone in his hands, nearly dropping it, and swallowed convulsively. "What, no-" It wasn't any more believable than it had been when he'd been talking about Max. Tobin dropped his head to the table. "Okay, fine, yes, I do. Are you happy?" he conceded, his voice slightly muffled by his arms. "She's pretty and smart, and I'm trying really hard not to screw it up by being me." He groaned. "Not that there's even anything to screw up because she's going to Kenya in a month. With my luck, she'll probably meet some legendary deaf activist or perfect Prince Harry type humanitarian out there."

The whole thing was pretty funny, except for how genuinely agonized he sounded. She felt a burst of sympathy for him; she knew what it was like to screw up relationships by being herself. Now was probably another time to reach out, right? She leaned over and patted Tobin on the back. It didn't feel any less awkward than it had before. "I don't think you're doing so bad, actually."

"What do you know?" he muttered.

She actually did know something, which was that Abigail had told Zoey via text that she thought Tobin was cute (after Zoey had sent a preemptive text asking if Tobin had been appropriate and apologizing for his behavior). Abigail had texted back that Tobin had been a gentleman and that she'd really enjoyed their conversation. Zoey'd had to read the text five times (because obviously she could not possibly be talking about Tobin Bhatra) before she finally believed it. She'd kept looking over at Max, wanting to show him, the way she would've without even thinking about it before, so that he could tell her she wasn't losing her mind. But he just worked and didn't look at her once.

And, great, now she was thinking about Max again. Zoey pinched the bridge of her nose and once again tried to cast him from her surface thoughts, turning back to Tobin. Tobin was probably most tolerable from a long distance, but she wasn't about to tell him that or what Abigail had told her earlier. "Just make sure you treat her right. Because her dad was in the military, and he and I will both join forces to kick your ass if you don't." Tobin tilted his head to the side and opened one eye to look up at her before snorting. If he'd met Howie, he would know to be more scared. It was a testimony to how much Tobin was freaking out about this that he didn't even insult her, just closed his eyes again.

She bit her lip. She needed to say something to reassure him, and she found herself wishing Max was here to help her. He always said the perfect thing, always knew exactly how to make anyone feel better and more at ease. "Look, I don't know about what's going to happen in Kenya, Tobin, but neither do you. For all you know she'll be there with a bunch of children and nuns and no entertainment but texts from you." Tobin lifted his head up off of the table and gave her a look that made her realize maybe she'd laid it on a little heavy there.

She thought about saying that sending letters or emails could be kind of romantic, but he definitely would've rolled his eyes at that and called her Anne of Green Gables. "Point is, there's no use worrying about what's going to happen a month from now. Especially since she wants to see you tonight. And this weekend." Tobin sat up more fully, and she took her hand off of his back. However, he'd gone back to staring at the text, though, so she wasn't sure that was much of an improvement. She scraped the sides of the bowl idly and took a sip of her water. "And, lucky for you," she began, grinning at him. Tobin looked at her like he thought he was in hell, but Zoey continued, unbothered, "Your boss says you can get out of here before seven, maybe even before six, so maybe you can take her to dinner rather than drinks or coffee."

Tobin looked up at her and blinked, unable to believe his luck. "But what about Joan?" Joan generally frowned upon people leaving work in a timely manner. Some days they were lucky to get out of here after seven.

Zoey waved it off, taking a sip of her crisp water. "We don't have a deadline for weeks. I'll take care of her if she asks, and I'm sure Leif would cover for you." Tobin just stared at her for a long moment, and she could sense the joy rising up in him. Hopefully he wouldn't burst into song again... though it seemed like she was already helping him without a song. Huh. "Now, are you gonna text Abigail back or not?" she asked, motioning to the phone.

Tobin turned back to it and started to finally type out a message before stopping halfway through. His brow furrowed, and he turned at her looking mildly terrified. "Where do I take her? I don't go to nice restaurants!" Tobin usually either went to In-and-Out or ate with some of his large extended family; when he was feeling crappy, he'd go to a hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant and order something that wasn't on the menu.

Fortunately for Tobin, Zoey had an idea. "Why don't you take her to an African restaurant? Max knows a good one." She realized after she said it that it was a bad idea by the way Tobin's eyebrows went up, but he at least finished the text before bringing Max up again.

He spun on his stool to face her and leaned in a little. "Speaking of Max," he began expectantly, enjoying the way she'd squirmed and looked longingly towards the staircase, "why are you avoiding talking about him so much?" She tried to tell him she wasn't because obviously they'd been talking about Max for what felt like possibly an entire hour, but Tobin wasn't having it. Zoey ran a hand down the side of her neck and twisted the bowl around. "Why do you keep acting like you're not upset he's leaving?" He stuffed another big spoonful into his mouth and raised his eyebrows expectantly. "You obvs feel some type of way about it."

"For the last time, he's not leaving!" she snapped, smacking her hand down on the table. Her bowl rattled. He gave her that wide-eyed look again. She was going to deny the rest, even though denying it made her feel like a sociopath, but Tobin just shook his head and took another bite. Zoey sighed. "What do you want me to say, Tobin?" She turned the bowl around again and again, watching it move like it made sense of the universe.

She took a deep breath, playing with the spoon. It had all happened so quickly that none of it felt quite real, and it hadn't really sunk in yet. "Yeah, I'm bummed about it," she admitted, tapping the spoon against the bowl. But she didn't have the time or the right to be upset about it, or to think about how much less fun she'd have without him. It was easier not to face it, like many things with Max. "But this isn't about me." She tried to say it like she fully believed it, but she had her doubts. "They want him, and he wants to go. I'm not going to stand in his way."

"I'm not saying you had to, like, ask him to stay or anything," Tobin said through a mouth full of ice cream. She grimaced at him, dropping her spoon, and hurriedly looked away. "Just that it's okay to feel something about him bailing-" She made a noise of dissatisfaction and started to correct him, but Tobin kept talking and eating. "You're not a computer." She cringed a little at each chewing and squishing noise. "And maybe you should let him know that you're not perfectly okay with him leaving. Otherwise, he might think that you don't care."

She definitely didn't want Max to think that. Zoey turned to look at him and squinted. She immediately regretted it as he'd practically unhinged his jaw to finish the rest of his fro-yo. Aside from being horrifying, it was starting to turn her stomach. "Are you giving me advice, Tobin?"

He was silent for a long moment, and she looked over warily only to find him chewing on a congealed mass of gummy worms. She picked up their bowls and spoons, scooped out the food trash, and put them in the used bin so she wouldn't have to keep watching him eat. "Yes!" he interjected, spinning around on his chair and putting his hat back on. He got up and sidled up to her before, unbelievably, reaching out to grab a handful of Sour Brite Crawlers from one of the containers.

She wrinkled her nose and decided to head back to the bullpen. Tobin stuffed the first handful of gummy worms in his hoodie pocket, then snatched another handful and stuffed it in there. Zoey made a mental note to ask Joan how often housekeeping cleaned the buffet and made her way to the stairs. "I'm just sayin'... if beefing with Leif taught me anything, it's that sometimes you lose out when you don't speak about it."

She startled a little at his choice of words. As the lyrics played inside her head, she jolted at the realization that that song could now just as likely apply to her and Max. "It's worth it to tell people how you really feel rather than living with it inside of you."

Zoey froze on the top stair. After last Thursday, she was of two minds on that particular subject, but it was a surprisingly insightful thing to come from Tobin. She turned to compliment him or say something to that effect only to find him guillotining a gummy worm with his mouth. She shook her head, turning back around, and started going down the stairs. What was she thinking?

She heard Tobin's footsteps fast behind hers. "Hey, wait up!" he cried, grabbing her arm. She stopped, raising a brow, and Tobin panted, not used to the exertion. He was a little too close to her because she could smell the artificial sugar and milk on his breath, so Zoey leaned back, out of his way. "Are you going to miss Max?"

She slumped back into the banister, and it finally hit her. She didn't know what about it had set her off, except that he'd clearly thought he had to ask her if she'd miss her best friend. Suddenly, she couldn't get away from it anymore. She couldn't push those feelings or thoughts to the side. She couldn't just think about something else or pretend like nothing was happening or changing. Next thing she knew, she was blinking hard, trying desperately not to burst into tears in front of Tobin. Tobin hadn't expected the sudden onslaught of emotion, so his jaw dropped.

Zoey tried to look away from him, tried to stare at several boring architectural features, but of course her eyes had found the catwalk where she'd talked to Max about his feelings for her, where it had all gone wrong. Her eyes next found the isolation pod she'd tried to hiding from him and the world in, and, after that, those yellow chairs Max liked so much, and that stupid effing ping-pong table with the paddles right where they'd left them almost a week ago. Then, suddenly, she was looking at the hallway leading to the elevators again and thinking of all the times they'd walked in together, shoulders and arms brushing. And they would never walk in together like that again because he didn't work on this floor anymore.

She must've wobbled pretty alarmingly because Tobin reached out an arm to steady her. He was even looking at her like he was actually concerned. She thought about all of the stupid little things she knew about Max. How he always laughed at her stupid jokes and puns. How his brow furrowed when he was confused, the way his voice changed when he was flirting. How sometimes, when he was bored, he'd roll the Play-Doh at his desk into little snowmen for their mutual entertainment. How he never failed to sing along every time "Africa" came on the radio (and pretty much any eighties power ballad or nineties boy band song came on). How he missed snow and complained about traffic and how chill and not neurotic everyone here was.

How he watched Gilmore Girls when he was sad, and that his favorite Avenger was Thor but that he had a perpetual soft spot for Spider Man because he'd related to him as a kid growing up in New York. How he needed a lumbar pillow because he had back problems. How he fidgeted with his hands when he was anxious or uncomfortable, and how he rolled up his sleeves when he was getting serious about something. How he'd picked his apartment because it came with a piano and was two blocks from hers.

She regretted not being the friend she wished she was in that moment. A better friend would've actually fully supported his decision rather than remained in this fake limbo where she was mostly pretending like she did rather than really showing she supported him. She should've really talked with him about it, not just surface stuff. She should've helped him work on his speech. She should've sat down with him over lunch and given him advice about what she'd learned and what to do on his first day to win his team's trust.

But, mostly, she just thought about how it kind of already felt like she was losing him. And that she was afraid Tobin was right, and Max really was leaving, and that was specifically leaving her behind, and there was nothing she could do to fix it. "Zoey?" Tobin's voice broke into her thoughts.

She blinked, her eyes still a bit too full. By some miracle, no tears had fallen. "Of course I'm going to miss him," she murmured, finding it even harder not to start bawling when she spoke. Her voice broke mid-sentence, and she winced, briefly closing her eyes. "I'm going to miss him every day." Probably multiple times a day because, undoubtedly, something would remind her of him. Her eyes were misty, but she could see that Tobin looked even more embarrassed and uncomfortable than she was.

She was so obviously not okay that he didn't ask her if she was, but it was plain that Tobin was in over his head and had no idea what to do here. "Uhh... Sorry I asked." She took a deep breath, tilting her head back since she couldn't very well risk wiping her eyes in front of him and losing all plausible deniability. At that moment, Tobin's phone chirped, saving the both of them, and he took his hand off of her arm, pulling out his cell. Since he was safely looking at presumably Abigail or Leif's message, Zoey took the opportunity to wipe her eyes, pressing her fingers to the moist skin underneath her eyes in an attempt to get herself to stop.

Tobin seemed to take extra long to read and answer this text, which gave her enough time to gain back a measure of her composure. She put the feelings she had about Max back into a box to examine later, maybe tonight after talking with Mo, and then started back down the stairs as if nothing had happened. Surprisingly, Tobin kept following her. "I didn't say it earlier, but thanks for helping me out with Abigail." She stopped and turned around to look up at him. She couldn't recall Tobin ever thanking her for something that wasn't routine or sarcastic. He was looking down at the stairs and had pushed up one of his sleeves, still uncomfortable, but he was smiling a little. He met her stare. "And for before, with Leif. It helped."

Zoey nodded, offering up a formulaic "you're welcome." She couldn't help but look down into the bullpen; sure enough, Leif had definitely noticed them and was glaring daggers at her. She wondered how much her talk with Tobin had really helped, since Tobin didn't know about the most important recent development in his best friend's life and Leif was still very busy with the Chirp. She turned back to Tobin, deciding she should repay the favor.

She wasn't exactly sure her talk with Tobin had helped, or even if she felt better or worse afterwards. But it was something, a way of processing it, she supposed. "Thank you for letting me talk about Max. I was, uh... a little in denial." Or more like she didn't want to talk about it because it hurt too much. He just looked down in response, unused to the gratitude. In that moment, she realized they'd just made an unspoken agreement never to talk about this, and she felt a little relieved. She wasn't about to say Tobin was right. She kept walking down the stairs, and Tobin moved over to the other side, so that they were now more or less walking side to side. It felt weird to walk down the stairs with someone who wasn't Max or Simon.

When they were almost at the bottom, something occurred to her. "Hey, is that why you've been sticking to me all day?"

Tobin stumbled but caught himself. "What? I don't know what you're talking about," he scoffed, unable to look at her. Did Tobin actually care about her or how she felt? She felt like she was seeing a whole new side of him. Zoey gave him a skeptical look, and Tobin let out a breath, putting his hands into his pocket. "I don't know..." He toed the edge of the step. "I guess I figured you'd probably be wrecked from your best friend l-" He briefly looked down at her and stopped himself before saying it this time. "-Moving on up." He shrugged. "You looked like maybe you needed someone to talk to."

Zoey smiled weakly, making eye contact. Tobin made a dismissive gesture with his hands, as if to say he hadn't done much, and kept walking down the stairs. She started walking back down too in silence. It was nice to know that maybe Max wasn't the only person who cared about her on this floor.

The silence didn't last long, though, because Tobin immediately started oversharing about Abigail and what he was going to do on their date, even though he wasn't sure it even was a date. Zoey was only half-listening since he was speaking so fast. "We should do that again," Tobin announced once his feet hit the floor, clearly riding high on sugar. Zoey was so surprised she nearly fell over. She grabbed onto the railing abruptly, reminding herself there were only two steps left, and she couldn't afford to humiliate herself further by falling head over heels from a height of less than two feet.

Her instinct was obviously to say "what?!", but that would've been rude. It felt kind of like a trap. Did Tobin actually mean it? "Do what? Get fro-yo or have a real conversation?" she asked instead, when she could come up with something to say. This time she watched where she was going and only looked up when she'd set foot on solid ground.

Tobin shrugged a little too casually to be really believed. "Both. Either." She blinked stupidly and registered the sound of the elevator chiming in the background. Either Tobin was really committed to sucking up to her, or maybe they'd really turned a corner here. He took a step closer and lowered his voice. "There's a way better fro-yo place around the corner. Maybe we can go there some afternoon." She found herself nodding before she could think better of it.

Tobin grinned and patted her on the shoulder. "Keep your chin up. The sun'll come out tomorrow, Annie!" Zoey scowled at him, unimpressed. It was April in San Francisco. It was going to rain tomorrow too, though hopefully it would be less gloomy than it was today, at least. And that was when Max strolled up to them, just when Zoey had stopped expecting to see him. He was dressed in all black, like he was going to a funeral.

"Hey guys, am I interrupting something?" he asked, looking between them. He seemed taller somehow, sharper, more confident. Tobin immediately took his hand off of her shoulder. She could feel the smug look he was giving her, but she couldn't stop looking at Max. She also was apparently incapable of speech now, which was new.

"Nope," Tobin said brightly. "I was just telling Zoey to smile more." Max frowned and opened his mouth, ready to lecture Tobin on the misogyny of telling women to smile, when she forced herself to smile at Tobin. Judging by the look on his face, he clearly knew what he'd just done and was enjoying baiting Max and irritating her at the same time.

She reached out to push Tobin away. "Thanks, Tobin," she said before Max could get a word out. "Don't you have an app to be working on?" Tobin's shoulders slumped a little, but he nodded dutifully. Did he want to stay and watch? He then saluted her mockingly before heading back to his desk. She rolled her eyes at his retreating figure and started to make her way back to her desk, Max in tow.

When she turned to look at him, Max was giving her a perturbed look. Great, had he already seen through her? Zoey swallowed hard and prepared herself to come up with something, anything but the truth. Whatever that even was. "What was that about?" he asked, tilting his head in the direction of Tobin's back.

"What?" She shook her head, feeling uncomfortable. Max was looking at her like he'd never seen her before, and she really didn't need him looking at her closely today. She didn't want to ruin this for him with her feelings. "That was nothing," she said, waving it off. He gave her a puzzled look because he'd never seen her willingly hang out with Tobin, much less sober, but she wasn't about to explain. "You're back early," she observed.

"Yeah, I forgot my journal," he said, reaching into the box and pulling out the journal she'd given him. Zoey smiled slightly, pleasantly surprised. Judging by the beat-up side pages, he'd been writing in it as intended. She shouldn't have been surprised, though, after all, she'd more or less told them all to do it... and when did Max not do exactly as she'd asked. Her smile faded away at the thought. Max almost smiled at her, then tucked the notebook under his arm. "You auditioning to replace me, Tobes?" he called out jokingly, raising his voice a little.

"Auditioning, Max-a-million? More like I got the part," he answered with his typical bravado. She wondered if Max had noticed that he'd given him a nicer nickname for a change. "Zoey and I have a special bond now. We even made friendship bracelets and everything." Tobin didn't miss a beat, but he also gave no sign of all the more complex emotions he'd displayed with her earlier. Was it easier for him to open up to her than the others? For a second, it seemed like Max had forgotten everything, because he turned and gave her a surprised look, the way he would've before, and it made Zoey's heart ache a little. She just shrugged. "You jealous, Richman?" Tobin retorted.

Leif certainly was, judging by the way he was now glowering at her. Not that that was anything new recently. "I've never been jealous of you before, Bhatra, and I'm not about to start now," Max replied back. "Even if you succeed in stealing Zoey away from me." She saw a pained expression briefly flit over his features, and she felt guilty, but then the expression was gone and he'd turned back to look at her. "Over my dead body," he said in a stage whisper. He was joking around, which must mean that things had been going well upstairs. Either that or he'd somehow forgotten he hated her on his last day. Or maybe it was a deliberate choice to make him leaving less awkward. It was hard to tell because Max always joked when he was hurting.

Zoey took a step forward, offering him a cautious smile. He felt so far away from her now, and she hated that she was on the other side of her desk saying this. Still, she met his gaze in a way she hadn't in what felt like days. "No one could ever replace you, Max," she said softly. He gave her a look that was part warning and part disbelieving, and she was forced to amend the statement. "Okay, except the programmer we will literally have to hire to replace you, but it's not going to be the same."

He nodded solemnly. Before, he would've cracked a smile at her attempt at a joke. "I know, Zoey." She looked down again because his stare was too much. It was too deep the way he stared into her. Max didn't say that he was going to miss her and all of them, though it would've been appropriate to say. He didn't make a joke either, like he normally would in a situation this awkward. Instead, he just swallowed and turned to put a few more things in the box on his desk. She silently watched him put each little trinket in, watched as his desk started to get more naked and devoid of personality. It felt wrong. The words she'd told Tobin earlier were burning inside her chest like acid reflux.

She noticed Tobin stand up out of the corner of her eye. He looked a little frustrated and was unsubtly making faces at her, silently urging her to go for it. So Zoey took a deep breath and opened her mouth. She couldn't keep it in any longer. "Hey, Max, I-"

"Yes?" he asked expectantly, glancing up from his desk. The look on his face made her stop. His face was so bright and hopeful, like he was just waiting for her to say something, the right thing. He looked at her like he would've given up on the Sixth Floor entirely, right then and there, if she so much as asked. But she wasn't going to say the right thing. She was incapable of saying what Max needed to hear.

So she swallowed the words she wanted to say, about how she was going to miss him desperately, and instead smiled. "Don't be a stranger, okay?" she said lamely.

She saw the light in his eyes dim a little and hated herself. But Max recovered fairly quickly, at least. He nodded, pressing his lips together, and shifted the notebook in his hands. Huh, he'd rolled up his sleeves. Then he looked at her for a long moment, before turning his gaze across the length of the floor, like he was committing it to memory. Even though he'd be back in a few hours.

"I will see you at two," he announced quietly, walking out from behind his soon-to-be-old desk. He tapped her desk, brushed against her plant, as he passed. He kept looking, and there was a kind of longing in his eyes that stole her breath. She couldn't give him what he wanted. She nodded, feeling numb, and then he turned his back on her. And she sat back in her chair and watched as he made his way to the elevators, all the way until the doors closed, wondering if it was an end or a beginning.

- Loren ;*