CHAPTER SEVEN
Heart palpitations. Actual heart palpitations. I wondered if the bar had an emergency defibrillator.
While I knew Max was just being nice and probably flirted the way other people breathed, I couldn’t help my giddy and embarrassed reaction, which was currently rendering me speechless.
My phone buzzed with a text from Vella, and I was grateful for the excuse to break eye contact, as I was about to do something completely socially inappropriate with this gorgeous man.
Good job on talking to a human. He’s cute.
Cute? The man was retina-melting hot. If I actually were a superhero, he would be like what my archnemesis would construct in her lab to distract me while she conquered the world.
And her evil plan would work.
“Trouble?” he asked, probably due to my annoyed expression.
“No, my roommate is checking up on me,” I said. “She forced me to come out tonight so that I could meet someone.”
“I’m supposing that means you’re single.”
Was that a hopeful note in his voice or was I projecting? “To quote my meemaw, I am only single because none of mankind’s champions have yet proven worthy.” That sounded so much better than “Yes, I am desperately alone and have been for a very long time, thank you.”
“What’s a meemaw?” he asked, appearing confused. “Did you grow up in a Dr. Seuss book?”
I laughed and said, “No, ‘meemaw’ is a nickname for ‘grandma’ where I’m from.”
“Ah. So you were saying that your roommate is trying to get you to meet someone—I’m assuming there’s a reason for it.”
“There is. I’ve had a crush on my boss for the last four years and he told me today that he’s marrying his longtime girlfriend. She’s worried that I’m only interested in unavailable men.”
While I knew there was a rule that you shouldn’t talk about this kind of thing when you were meeting someone you might date, my brain could logically accept that there was zero chance of that happening. It was kind of freeing, knowing I could just say whatever I wanted and it wouldn’t change the outcome of this night.
I didn’t have to play any games.
“Ouch. I’m sorry,” he said.
He might have said it out of politeness, but I detected a real sincerity there that touched me. “Thank you. I don’t think I’m ready to meet anyone, though. I feel ... a bit emotionally unavailable myself.”
Although if Max made me an offer, I would seriously consider it.
I added, “She wants me to get someone’s phone number.”
“I have a phone number. I can give you mine.”
“That’s ...” I trailed off, not sure how to respond. Was this like, a pity thing? His good deed for the day? I didn’t want to be his charity case. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Last time I checked, phone numbers were meant to be shared.” He put his hand out for my cell and I unlocked it and then handed it to him, a little thrill going through me. He sent himself a text, and I heard when it buzzed.
“There,” he said, giving the phone back to me. “Now you can tell your roommate you fulfilled all of her demands.”
“Thanks.” It had been a kind gesture on his part.
“You know, I get the pushy-loved-one thing. My relationship ended a few months ago, and ever since then, my cousin has been nagging me to go out and have fun. I keep telling her I’m fine. I’m not depressed, I’ve just moved to a new city. She doesn’t listen, though. She was particularly relentless tonight, and I thought it would be fun to come out and watch the Reali game.”
“Reali?” I echoed.
He pointed at the television screens. “The Monterran Reali football team. ‘Reali’ means ‘royals.’”
Another reminder of how little I knew about Monterra. “Is your cousin here babysitting you, too?” I asked.
“No, but she did make me send her a picture of myself at the bar to prove I’d left the house.”
“So we’re both here under duress.”
“It doesn’t feel quite like that now,” he said with what could only be called a shy smile, but I was pretty sure this man had never been shy or unsure of himself a day in his entire life.
Heaven save me from a kind man who was just being nice, because I was fully misreading everything he was saying and doing as if he were hitting on me.
It really had been too long since I’d been in a relationship. Or even had an actual date. And this was the result—attributing all kinds of flirtatious meaning to regular conversation.
Maybe dating was something I needed to make time for in my real life. If I wanted to get over my crush, then I should start trying to meet people.
People who weren’t unrealistically hot and weren’t still hung up on their ex-girlfriend.
What kind of woman would Max date? I found myself intensely curious.
“Do you have a picture of her?” I asked, knowing it was entirely inappropriate for me to be asking. He had every right to shut me down and tell me I was being too invasive.
Instead he looked adorably confused. “A picture of who? My cousin?”
“No, your ex-girlfriend.” I knew I was being weird and that it was an odd request. I wondered if he’d ask me the reason why.
It was partly due to my insatiable curiosity, but mostly because I wanted to prove my theory about the kind of woman he’d be in a relationship with.
He frowned slightly. “Probably. Hold on.”
Max scrolled through his phone and then turned it toward me. There was a picture of him with a dark-haired woman, both of them smiling at the camera.
She looked like someone had given an illustration AI one instruction—to create an image of the most beautiful woman on the planet.
My good mood evaporated as my suspicion was confirmed. It was replaced by a sinking feeling because I knew that a man who dated a woman who looked like that would never, ever date someone like me.
Max Colby was completely out of my league.
I’d understood this since he’d sat down, but the picture took away any tiny sliver of hope I might have held on to.
“Why did you break up?” I asked.
He put his phone down on the table. “There were a lot of reasons. At some point I realized she had become a selfish person. It got worse the longer we were together, but she was my college sweetheart and I kept thinking she’d go back to the person she used to be, the woman I’d first fallen in love with. It never happened and I’m upset with myself that I tolerated it for so long. For the last year or so, we weren’t even living in the same country. I think we stayed together long after the relationship actually ended because it was familiar. Comfortable.”
“How old are you?” I asked him.
“Twenty-five.”
I heard the question in his voice, as he wondered why I’d asked him that. Depending on when he’d met her, he had been with her anywhere from three to seven years.
That was a long time either way. It showed he could obviously commit to a long-term relationship, and in my experience, that wasn’t true for most of the men I’d come across so far in New York, who all suffered from Peter Pan syndrome. “So what made you finally end it?”
“She sent me a text clearly meant for another man.”
“Oh no,” I said, feeling so much sympathy for him. Obviously his ex-girlfriend was the stupidest person alive. Who would cheat on Max? “That completely sucks. The lying would be the worst thing for me. My dad used to always lie to my mom and me about everything. We would know he was lying, but we were all supposed to pretend like he was telling the truth. I hated it.”
Something flickered across his face and I wondered if he’d had a similar situation growing up.
“It did indeed suck,” he agreed. He leaned toward me, radiating warmth and some delicious scent that I wanted to bottle up and sell to other single women because I would make a fortune.
Even though he’d put his phone down, I could still see the picture of the two of them together.
I told my overeager hormones to calm down and face reality that this wasn’t going anywhere. Not only because I still had my own emotional hangups from my soon-to-be engaged boss and my emotionally distant father, but because I understood how the world worked. So I said brightly, “Given that you’re new to the city, I’d offer to set you up, but I honestly only have the one friend and I’m pretty sure she’d eat you alive.”
I gestured toward the bar and saw that Vella was kissing someone. I let out a groan.
“What is it?” Max asked, turning that direction.
“My roommate is kissing Otis.” I would recognize that raggedy, oversize hipster beanie anywhere. What was he doing here?
“And that’s bad because?”
“He’s her ex and their relationship was terrible. Their love language seemed to be humiliation and toxicity.”
Our waitress returned then and handed the bottle to Max. He thanked her, but she didn’t respond and instead hurried off.
“She left the cap on and didn’t give me a bottle opener,” he said to me, sounding slightly bewildered.
Was it because he’d turned her down, or because she was really busy?
“Seriously?” I teased. “You can’t open it? Hand it over.”
He gave it to me, a bemused expression on his face.
“Do they not have bottled beer in Monterra, city boy?” I took the bottle and lined the cap up with the edge of the table, slamming it down with my other hand to pop the cap off.
“Impressive,” he said as I gave it back to him.
“I can also open it with my teeth, but nobody wants to see that.”
He gave me a look that made me think he very much wanted to see me do it, and it sent little shivers up and down my spinal column. “That sounds like a good skill to put on a dating app. ‘Can open beer bottles with my teeth.’”
“Yes, I’m sure that will have all the men of New York City beating a path to my door. I’m not on dating apps, though. I hate that whole mutual scamming/hobby arms race going on there. I wish you could be honest and just say, ‘I’ll like you fine, but please don’t make me hike or row a canoe.’”
That earned me another laugh. “No hiking or canoeing. Noted. What kind of guy do you like?”
I like guys named Max Colby, I thought.
He added, “Maybe I’ll meet someone I could set you up with. What’s your type?”
Mortal men with actual flaws were my type. Not this demigod and whatever heaven he’d obviously fallen out of.
Sadly, though, I couldn’t have asked for a clearer sign that he wasn’t even a little bit interested in me, given that he wanted to set me up with someone else. Message completely received. “My type is a man who can open his own beer bottles.”
Another laugh, but I felt a bit deflated. Even though I knew better, I had let myself get the tiniest bit caught up in what was clearly a fantasy.
“I guess that rules me out,” he said with a grin.
His perfect face ruled him out. “I guess so,” I agreed.
“Why is it that you’re throwing a party based on Monterra but you don’t know anything about the people there?” he asked.
“I’m currently working as an administrative assistant at an event planning company, and I was trying to sell a moody teenager on a theme, so I used something I love and get excited about. I’m kind of obsessed with Monterra’s royal family. All the women in my family are. Princess Chiara’s wedding is coming up, and my mom and meemaw are so excited about it they can’t stand it. Royal weddings are kind of like our Super Bowl. Or whatever the soccer equivalent is.”
“The World Cup?” he offered with a charming grin that made my insides flutter.
“Yeah, that,” I said as I tried not to sigh. It should be a crime to be this good-looking.
Because some people, like me, had absolutely no defense against it.
“What would you like to know?” he asked, and for a second I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wanted to know everything about him. What did he eat for breakfast? How long had he had Basta? Why had he fallen for an evil, stupid woman? Why was he alone when probably every woman in this bar would have gladly gone home with him, including the ones in relationships?
“About Monterra?” he added when I didn’t say anything.
“Everything. I mean, I know what I see in the sanctioned photo ops the royal family puts out, but I’m not up to speed on like, the minutiae of everyday life there. Or how they celebrate events. But let’s start with birthdays.” I grabbed my purse and pulled out a notebook and a pen. I opened the notebook and clicked my pen, waiting for him to start talking.
“Pen and paper?” he said.
“Yes. I have to handwrite when I’m taking notes. It really sears it into my brain, and it’s also faster. I’ve never quite mastered the art of typing with two thumbs on my phone. Which I know is an embarrassment to my peers and I should probably turn in my Gen Z card.”
He grinned. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Why did I like the idea of sharing a secret with him? Also, did he think it was ridiculous that I carried around a notebook? “I’m always prepared,” I said by way of explanation, a little embarrassed. “It’s part of being an event planner. So many things could go wrong in this bar right now and I have something in my purse that would fix it.”
“Too bad you didn’t have a bottle opener.”
I grabbed my keys and triumphantly showed him that I did, in fact, have one.
“Why didn’t you get it earlier?”
“How would I have impressed you, then?” I asked, putting my keys back in my purse.
“Good point,” he said with a laugh.
“Back to birthdays. Do Monterrans have an equivalent of Sweet Sixteen?”
He thought for a moment and then said, “No. The big birthday that’s celebrated is eighteen—when a child becomes an adult. It’s often a formal event, and all of the celebrant’s friends and extended family come to it. There’s no other special traditions, though. It’s basically good food, a cake and singing, maybe fireworks, and dancing all night long.”
He had the best voice. There was almost a melodic feel to it, and I could have happily sat next to him all night just listening to him talk. I forced myself to take notes, though.
It was discouraging that they didn’t have something special or unique to celebrate a birthday. The formal part was interesting, though. We could require ball gowns and tuxedos.
“Are there any holiday events around this time of year?” I asked.
“One of the big ones is the carnival that takes place in the capital city every winter, usually right around Christmas.”
That sounded vaguely familiar to me. I was sure I remembered an interview with Kat when she’d talked about going to that carnival with Nico.
My mind was flooded with ideas. A winter wonderland. Ice sculptures of a castle, a carriage, a prince. I’d get candles, cascading blue and white flowers as centerpieces, glass ornaments, snow falling, white trees covered in white lights, garlands of flowers with blue lights intertwined coming down from the ceiling like giant icicles, and we’d have everybody in their fanciest clothes. It would be elegant and fun. I’d get performers and the most incredible food. I knew exactly who to call.
“Where did you just go?” Max asked.
“I think you just helped me figure out what I’m going to do for this party. If the client agrees.”
“I’m glad I could be of service.”
He could service my —I told my inner voice to knock it off. That wasn’t what was going on here.
I managed to say, “Thank you,” instead.
Unfortunately, my mouth started speaking before my brain could stop it. “Why did you come over and talk to me tonight?”
I wasn’t sure why I was asking. Some part of me believed that we’d been fated to meet, that like in some mythological story or fairy tale, he had shown up right when I needed him. The perfect person to help me on my path, like a birthday party fairy godfather.
He looked down at his bottle and my stomach dropped. “I saw that you were crying and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
My fears earlier about him seeing me as someone to be pitied came rushing back. I was over here having a great time with him, and he’d felt compelled to sit and talk to me in an attempt to make me feel better.
I felt crushed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone approaching and heard them ask, “Do you mind if I interrupt you?”