Winter and Thom took Coach with them to their room, where the three of them sat down. Having shortly explained the situation to Thom on their way, he too had gotten a grim expression.

Winter felt like Max disappearing had happened before. Just being ‘gone’ was one thing, or ‘not knowing where he is’. But this was not to be made light of. Thom sat deep in thought, which Winter wasn’t used to seeing, Coach looked miserably at his phone and Winter tried to gather as much information he could from the things left unsaid.

Coach wasn’t in a good mental state, and Thom wouldn’t know more than Winter himself, so the best course of action would be to pinpoint questions that he couldn’t do without, while not putting too much pressure on Coach as that would no doubt worsen his state.

Max was gone. It most likely wasn’t the first time. Not only that, but Thom and Coach was worried. Could this mean Max had a history of disappearing? If that was the case, where would he usually go, and when did he usually come back? And why did he go in the first place?

“Around when does he usually come back?” Winter decided to ask, figuring it would only make sense that Coach had already checked the place, if there was a ‘usual’ one.

“How did you…?” Coach showed a bit of a shock in response, but decided quickly it wasn’t important to know how Winter knew.

“Sometimes hours… Other times, days… One time, it was two weeks” Coach mumbled. Winter noticed Coach counted with his fingers and fiddled a lot around with them.

Winter thought for a bit about this new information. Would Max be able to be away for weeks if he didn’t have a ‘place’ to stay at? He couldn’t quite see Max as someone who would run around on the street going by from day to day. He seemed like one of the ‘proper’ rich boys here.

So then, was it a family issue? If that was the case, why wouldn’t he say anything?

Unless, of course…

“What’s Max’s last name?” Winter asked, finishing the thought out loud. Both Thom and Coach stared at him directly with horror in their eyes. Bingo, Winter thought as he gave a heavy sigh.

“Max… Max Centillic” Coach hesitated a bit as if he was giving out a part of himself with Max’s last name.

Winter sighed, rubbing his head. This was a bit more than he originally thought he would have gotten mixed up in, but it explained everything. The Centillic family. A common name amongst the infamous and the rich, as well as the infamously rich. A name that would entice bad people to do bad things, such as kidnap the heir.

It would also explain the reactions of Coach and Thom. Both of them most likely knew the real possibility of this being case, it having probably happened before, but it’s not something you talk about out loud in this kind of place. Just mentioning the word out loud would bring rumors to the school, putting most of the boys attending into danger, as it would make it seem unsafe. It would also explain why Max didn’t take his phone with him, as well as why there wasn’t ‘A place’ he usually went to.

In other words, there was a real risk of Max having been kidnapped because of who he was.

Winter sighed out the last bit of air he had unconsciously been holding in. Well… Fuck. What now?