CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Despite the fact that I had a pile of work at home, I immediately said yes and began to walk out into the hallway.
“Wait, don’t you need to get your stuff?” he asked.
“Hold me a minute,” I said, and my eyes widened as I realized what I’d just said. “I was going to say ‘hold on’ and then ‘give me a minute,’ and instead it came out ... the way it did.”
Not at all mortifying.
I could feel the color rising in my cheeks.
He gave me a playful smile. “We all misspeak sometimes.”
“I’ll be right back.” I paid careful attention this time when I spoke so that the right words came out and not some weird combination that made it seem like I was hitting on him.
Max waited by the door while I got my coat. I slipped the rose he’d given me into my purse. I wished I had a second to collect myself, or to do a Wonder Woman spin before I went out the door with him.
For a second I hesitated, wanting to cry off and tell him that I had a lot of work to catch up on and wasn’t free, but my body wouldn’t let me. My feet were already bringing the rest of me over to join him at the door.
“Let’s go,” I said. “What are you in the mood for? Something very touristy, or something more real New York?”
“I pick touristy,” he said.
“Okay.” I took out my phone and looked down my vendor list. “I know a guy who can get us orchestra seats to any Broadway show the day of the performance for like, a quarter of the price.” I sent a quick text and got an immediate response. “Done. We have to hurry, though—the matinee show is going to start soon. Then afterward we’ll go to Times Square, and if you’d like, I know a great restaurant with this chef that does the most amazing catering. I was thinking of getting him for that Monterra party I’m doing. Maybe you could tell me what you think of the food.”
“That sounds like a plan. Where can I send you money for my ticket?” he asked as we got to the elevator. The doors opened immediately and he held them open, letting me step inside first.
Another gentleman point for him.
“I’m the tour guide, it’s on me,” I said as I sent the money to cover both tickets over to Peter via an app. Again, Max was making it very clear that this was not a date by offering to pay for his half. Which was entirely my fault for the friends-only thing, but it was still deflating.
Then I quickly texted Vella to tell her that I wasn’t going to be home this afternoon to start watching Columbo , the next show in our rotation. I’d made it a habit to text her when I had a date. My mother and grandmother were utterly convinced that I was going to get mugged or assaulted every time I went outside because they thought New York City was so dangerous, and some of their paranoia had managed to rub off on me.
Instinctually I knew that Max was safe, but I still sent the text.
Sending that note to her was probably more because I couldn’t believe that I was about to spend the afternoon with him.
Vella didn’t respond, which surprised me. Her phone was usually glued to her hand. I had expected another string of inappropriate emojis.
The elevator reached the ground floor and we stepped out into the lobby. The doorman, John, waved to me. “See you soon, Everly!”
“Have a good day!” I called back to him.
“Do you know everyone in New York?” Max asked as we went outside.
“It’s part of being a good event planner. You’d be shocked at the kind of people I have at my fingertips. I know someone who can set up a petting zoo at the last minute. Another who has a portable tattoo parlor. A hot-air balloon girl. A balloon-animal maker. Tent, table, linens people. Floral arrangers. Caricature artists. Arcade vendors. Hairstylists and makeup experts. Caterers of every kind of food imaginable. I never know what a client will ask for, and most of my job is connecting clients with the right vendors for their events, and then making sure those vendors do their jobs. It helps to have good relationships with them.”
“That’s impressive,” he said, and I preened over his admiring tone.
“It’s a good thing I’ve built up this kind of network. That birthday party is going to be a very last-minute thing, but I’ll be able to pull it off because they’re spending a lot of money and I know the perfect people to call. That’s what you’re hiring when you get a good event planner.”
“Have you always wanted to be an event planner?”
“I mostly wanted to be a princess when I was younger,” I told him. “I joined student government in high school and discovered that I really enjoyed planning our activities. Then when I found out it was an actual job, I moved here to New York and did college online while working full-time to get practical experience. I figured the best events in the world would be here, and I was right.”
Never mind that most of the events I’d done so far hadn’t been very much fun. “What about you? Did you always want to work for a nonprofit?”
“I changed my mind a bunch of times growing up,” he said. “But what I’m doing makes me really happy. I love giving back.”
“What kind of work are you doing?”
“Right now we’re assisting single mothers from under-resourced communities in getting their degree. We pay all their bills for them and their children, including their room and board, and pay for their tuition. We help them find their first job in their chosen field and their own place to live. One of the unexpected side benefits they’ve discovered over the years is that the children go on to get college educations as well, emulating what their mothers have done. In a small way we’re helping as many families as we can to break the cycle of poverty.”
“Wow,” I breathed. I really loved my job and making people happy, but Max was doing real, lasting, serious work. Things that were changing the lives of people for generations to come.
It made me like him so much.
Which intensified when he said, “We’ve also started a program to help mothers of infants to get all the necessary supplies they need. I had no idea how expensive diapers and formula were.”
Oh, my heart and my ovaries were aching. He was the absolute kindest, sweetest person ever and all of this was just making me want him more.
I cleared my throat. “That’s really neat. It must be so rewarding to do that kind of work.”
“It is.” He nodded.
Then he proceeded to make everything worse. There was a green glass bottle on the ground in front of us. He picked it up, took it over to a recycling bin, and threw it away. It made my insides flutter. If someone had stepped on it, they could have gotten seriously hurt. He was thoughtful, aware, and considerate. He hadn’t done it to impress me—it was just instinct—and so it impressed me even more.
Meemaw had always wanted me to find a gentleman, and they were a dying breed as far as I could tell.
Max was apparently launching a one-man effort to revive the species.
I desperately needed to think about something else. “No Basta today?”
“She has a doggy playdate.”
“Like she has a boyfriend?” I asked with a laugh.
We came to a stop at the corner, waiting for the light to change. “In a way. There’s a woman in my building who goes to the same dog park nearby, and we met. Basta and Champ hit it off right away, so she offered to take them to the park with her a couple of times a week, and then they hang out afterward at her place.”
“Do you go, too?” I asked.
“Not usually.”
I pressed my lips together so that I wouldn’t smile. That poor woman. I bet that really frustrated her clever plans of getting to spend some alone time with Max. Well, if nothing else, she was getting in good with his dog, and that seemed as smart a scheme as any other, given how attached he was to Basta.
“How long have you had her?” At his quizzical expression, I added, “Basta, not the neighbor.”
“For a couple of years. I had another dog before her named Gelato, which was her favorite thing to eat. Her favorite thing to do was to chase squirrels.”
“Do you have a lot of squirrels in Monterra?” I asked.
“The same as anywhere else, I guess.”
“Well, maybe Gelato is still chasing squirrels up in heaven.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me,” he said with a smile. “Although it makes me feel bad for the departed squirrels. They have to spend their eternity evading dogs?”
I thought about that for a second. “Maybe squirrel hell is doggy heaven. Like a two-birds-with-one-stone situation.”
That earned me another one of his delicious smiles. “And what sorts of mortal sins have squirrels committed on Earth that warrant that kind of torment?”
“Squirrels are just rats with fluffy tails,” I told him. “Adorable, and I would keep one as a pet if I could get away with it, but they can be very devious and destructive. Plus, they know those bird feeders are not intended for them.”
“What about the good ones?”
“Maybe the reverse is true. Squirrel heaven is dog hell. Because no dog would ever end up being eternally punished. They’re too pure and perfect.”
“I totally agree with you,” he said as we went down the stairs to get on the subway. “I also think dogs are much smarter than we give them credit for. Basta knows a lot of human words, but I don’t understand any dog barks.”
This led to a long but interesting debate on what we thought of animals’ levels of intelligence—like how an ape could communicate with sign language or parrots could speak and comprehend things, but like Max had pointed out, it never seemed to work the opposite way.
It wasn’t really date-like material, but I found myself fascinated with all of his thoughts and ideas and couldn’t agree with him fast enough. He was easily one of the most interesting people I’d ever met. I loved the way his mind worked.
I also probably stood a bit closer to him than was necessary on the subway. We were both holding on to the handrail and standing, as there was nowhere to sit. A man was edging closer and kept “accidentally” bumping into me even though the car was not that full. I moved away from him—I knew where this was going and wasn’t in the mood to be randomly groped.
Max seemed to understand what I was doing and wedged himself in between me and the other man. I was pressed up against Max’s side and discovered a well of self-control that I didn’t know existed as I refrained from wrapping my arms around his waist.
It got worse when he put his arm around my shoulders, like he had at the bar last night, in a protective gesture. My brain basically short-circuited entirely and I could only nod and listen as he talked, incapable of contributing anything to the conversation.
We got off on the Times Square–42nd Street stop. Max took his arm away from me and I mourned the loss of his touch.
How was I supposed to be friends with this man?
I’d somehow managed to keep my hands and lips to myself with Adrian for the last four years. Surely I could do the same with Max.
The only problem was that it all felt completely different.
Like I’d never been as attracted to Adrian as I was to Max.
We walked a few minutes to the theater, where they had begun letting people in. I showed them our tickets and we got our programs. I made my way down to the second row, scooching past people to get to our spots.
“These are really good seats,” Max said as we both settled in.
“They are!” I agreed. “Peter always delivers.” I leaned forward, trying to take my coat off, and struggled with the position I was in.
I felt Max’s fingers against my shoulders, moving down my arms as he helped me remove it, and everywhere he touched left tiny fiery trails of sensation.
I tried hard not to shiver.
When he had my coat off entirely, I said, “Thank you.” I sounded breathy and desperate.
Not good.
“My pleasure,” he said in a growly way that made all the tingling feelings inside me intensify.
I could only gape at him, wishing I had another article of clothing that he could remove for me without us both getting arrested for public indecency.
His gaze held mine, and then it drifted down to my mouth and my breath hitched.
“Everly, I wanted to ask you something,” he said.
“Yes?” That was a question, but it also felt like my answer. Anything he wanted, I was going to say yes.
But whatever he’d planned on asking was drowned out by the orchestra playing the overture.
I cursed the rotten luck that kept him from finishing.
And instead of enjoying the show, I spent the next three hours wondering what Max had wanted to ask me.