An Apartment On The Eastern End Of Diagon

Rachel gasped audibly. "Why Nick! What's the matter?!" she exclaimed. "Have you been crying?!"

"Maybe," he murmured. "It's just a tough day, you know..."

"What happened?!" she said, pouting slightly on the other end of the phone. "Tell me."

Nicolas sighed. "Just... stress. I keep getting loads upon loads and I'm always coming home exhausted. Not a lot of time for you and Sophia, you know..."

"Well, you lithen up Nick!" said Rachel. Yes, she actually began to lisp. "You ROCK! You're the GREATETHT huthband anyone can have! You're handthome, intelligent, and you have great charithma, and most importantly you have a COMPASSION THOUL! YOU HEAR THAT?! A COMPASSION THOUL! And thothe people at work?! They're just jealouth! They're jealouth that they don't share any of those wonderful traith you do! Tho Nick, keep your chin up and remember, I'm ALWAYTH here!"

Nicolas was silent for a moment, and he smiled widely on the other side of the phone. Ignoring the lisp, he said with his voice cracking, "Thanks, Rach. You always know what to say!!"

"It's fine!" she said, with the lisp mysteriously disappearing. "Now, how about you talk to Max? I bet he'll talk to you!" And without waiting for an answer, he handed the phone to Max.

"Hey." said Max gravely. "Why do you have the waterworks on?"

"NO, DON'T DO THAT!" Nicolas hollered, but once Max started talking he fell silent. "Oh, it's nothing. Just stress. You know."

"What? About work?"

"Uhm, yeah... Holidays are pretty much the busiest times of the year where I work."

"Well, listen up Nicole. You're just having a bad day, I'm having a bad CAREER. Have you ever worked goblins before?! Not pretty!" he snapped. "They threaten to KILL YOU if you don't bring enough treasure. I'm pretty sure that people you work with are more humane. So, set down the knitting and take off the skirt and put on a pair of pants!" And he gave the phone back to Rachel, but not before leaving him with one final note.

"By the way, you know the first day we met? I took PITY on you, when I sat by you."

"I actually have worked with goblins!" Nicolas stuttered, before Max left the final note. Then, he fell silent. He had to just be saying that out of frustration, right? There was no way his best friend had taken pity on him. But once he thought about it, people had always taken pity on him, and it seemed more likely that Max would be the one to do that.

He couldn't even brighten up when he heard Libby yelling at Max about how much of a jerk he was for doing that. Wait, Libby was there? Had Max invited everyone BUT Nicolas?

Rachel grew quiet. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, she spoke up again. "I'll... come home now." And she Apparated home, instead of bothering to walk home like she did earlier to Max's house.

It was about a couple weeks later, and Max was sitting on the couch, reading a magazine, and just relaxing after a long day of work.

Libby was standing above Max, her arms crossed. "Max?" she started tentatively, "We need to talk."

He looked up at her. "Sure!" and he threw the newspaper aside, which landed in the goldfish bowl, and fish promptly began to freak out. "What is it?"

"Your girlfriend. She's evil," Libby said with a completely straight face.

"Elaine? Oh..." Max brushed his hand off a little, as though Elaine was a little ant climbing up on it. "We're not dating anymore. She's kind of boring. Besides," he looked straight at her. "There's someone else I'm interested in."

Thank God they're not dating anymore, Libby thought to herself, smiling. "Oh, really? Who might that be? Someone from work?"

Max didn't say a word. Instead he got up, and grabbed his now drenched magazine from the fish bowl, and shook out the water. He flipped through a couple pages, with a growing frown on his face.

"Darn it, I can't read a word of it."

"I'd imagine so, throwing it into a bowl of water," Libby sighed. "Hey, I'm going to be home a bit late tomorrow. I'm meeting someone after work."

"Oh, no problem. I might be late too, anyway. There's a meeting and it might go on for a bit longer."

"Alright! Well, goodnight, Max." With that, she turned on her heel and headed off to bed.

Max came home indeed later that evening, later then Libby was expected to be home. His hair was all bushy and messy looking, and his face was pale with dark circles under his eyes. The most striking part about him though, was how he was hunched over, and how angry he looked.

Libby was in the guest room, packing up a trunk. She had decided that she could use the money she was putting back from her job to get a really small apartment, just to stop free-loading off of Max. It had been, what, a year? Something like that. It would be a nice surprise, she had thought.

However, she froze when she glanced over her shoulder and saw Max stalking by. Slowly, she set down the shirt that was in her hands, and stepped into the hallway. "Max?" she called out. "Are you okay?"