CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When we got outside, Max asked, “Do you know of any good places to eat?”
Did I ... “Are you ready for this conversation?”
He laughed.
“I’m going to need some parameters so that I can narrow it down,” I said as we started walking along the sidewalk. I glanced down at where our hands were joined and was thrilled that I was doing something so ... typical. Something other people did all the time without thinking. It shouldn’t have been a big deal and Vella would have teased me mercilessly if I waxed poetic about it in front of her, but it was a big step for me.
And it was exciting.
“Okay, how about something good, American, and open?”
“And no waiting,” I told him. Ever since he’d brought up food, my stomach hadn’t stopped rumbling. There were a lot of different restaurants I could have taken him to, but they would have had long lines.
“I don’t want to wait, either.”
Why was I reading something into that? He was agreeing with what I’d said, not making some comment on whether or not he wanted to be in a relationship with me.
If I wasn’t mistaken, and I was entirely willing to concede that I might have been, there had been a tone in his voice that caused me to believe he’d meant something else.
“There’s a diner not too far from here that meets the criteria of being American, open, and available. The good part might be more subjective,” I said.
Max laughed and said, “Lead the way.”
As we walked, he asked me how the birthday party was coming along.
“I’m trying to get in touch with my teenage self, but it’s been a while. I wish I knew more about Monterran teenagers.”
“They definitely live in a different environment than kids in America. Their secondary school, which might be comparable to high school in the States, requires students to choose a major to focus on.”
“What did you choose?”
“The same thing I studied at Yale. Languages.”
As in plural? “What other languages do you speak?”
“French and Spanish, some Portuguese. I’ve been using an app to work on Mandarin, but it’s very different from Romance languages, so I’m struggling a bit.”
A distant part of my brain registered that he had just admitted that something wasn’t coming easy to him and it made me like him more, but the rest of me could only focus on the fact that he was fluent in French.
After Monterran and Italian accents, French rounded out my Top 3.
“You speak French? Can you say something?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you want.” It wouldn’t really matter because I wouldn’t be able to understand him anyway. He could have read me his grocery list and I still would have found it sexy.
I had taken two years of French in high school but had retained none of it. Which became entirely evident when he started speaking.
His words apparently disconnected my eyeballs from my brain and I wasn’t processing visual information correctly or paying attention to what was happening around me.
And as a result I stepped off the curb and directly into oncoming traffic.
“Everly!” Max jerked on my hand, whirling me back so that I collided directly into his chest, almost knocking him over. Icy panic flooded through me as a car sped past us, blaring its horn. My heart beat inside my chest like a fast drum, and I clung to him. I couldn’t quite process what had just happened, how close I’d come to being run over. One second I’d been swooning over his French and the next I’d nearly been flattened.
I couldn’t stop shaking and felt incapable of getting my breathing under control. I’d never had a panic attack before, but I imagined it would feel something like this.
As sensations started to return to my limbs, I became more aware of the situation I currently found myself in. Max was holding me tight, his own heart thundering inside his chest. I felt his lips brush against the top of my head.
He reached up to put both of his hands on the sides of my face, angling it up so that he could look me in the eyes. His voice was thick with fear. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I finally said, trying to calm both of us down.
Max let go of my face and wrapped his arms around my waist again. This time he was the one burying his face into my neck, and I instinctively reached up to stroke his hair, to soothe him.
I was the one who’d almost become a human pancake, but he seemed more freaked out.
Maybe it was because I was just so happy to be held by him again that the fear had quickly evaporated. Some detached part of my brain realized that Max must have lost his cowboy hat when he’d rescued me, because I was able to run my fingers through his dark, soft hair. I thought about pointing it out to him but I didn’t want him to release me in order to look for it.
“I’m okay,” I repeated, feeling like he needed to hear it.
“The world would be so much worse without you in it.” He said it like the words were being wrenched from him. He clung to me like he needed the reassurance that I was there and safe.
A few minutes passed and we stood there on the corner, holding each other. I felt his heartbeat slow, his breathing even out. He finally released his hold, but he didn’t move away. We stood there, staring at each other, and I’d never experienced anything like it.
Oh, I liked him so much. So, so much. I didn’t want to be just friends. I never had.
I’d been so busy protecting my heart that I’d done exactly what Vella accused me of—I’d had Prince Charming waltz into my life and I’d told him I wasn’t interested in becoming his princess.
“Max—” I said, but I lost my ability to speak when he reached up to stroke the side of my face. He ran his fingertips along my chin and down to the bottom edge of my lip. I wondered if he even knew he was doing it.
“Are you sure you’re okay? The car didn’t clip you?” His voice was rough and laced with something I couldn’t quite identify.
“I’m fine,” I promised him. “Thank you for saving me.”
He cupped my face again. I reached up and wrapped my hands around his wrists. I held on to him as we breathed together.
Was he going to kiss me?
My pulse had recently returned to a normal rhythm, but now that I thought there was a possibility that I’d finally get to know what it was like to kiss Max Colby, it started racing like it was in the Indy 500.
I hadn’t had anything to drink tonight, but I felt very drunk on Max. My brain was hazy, I wasn’t reacting as quickly as I should, and it seemed like I was about to make a very poor decision.
And I don’t know how long we would have stayed in that moment if it hadn’t suddenly started pouring. The forecast hadn’t predicted bad weather, but the skies opened up and rain was barreling down onto us, like little heat-seeking water missiles.
“This way!” I said, grabbing his hand and running for the diner.
This time I made sure to look both ways before I went into the street. It took us a couple of minutes and we were completely drenched by the time we got to the diner. We ran inside and a bell chimed. Nearly everyone turned to stare at us as we came in.
I turned to look at Max, ready to share a laugh with him about having to dart through the rain, when stuff started happening in slow motion.
Max reached up to push his soaked hair away from his forehead and I practically heard music watching him do it. He smiled at me while rivulets of water ran down his face, tracing paths I wished I could follow with my fingers.
Or my mouth.
I wasn’t picky.
“I’m so wet,” he said, shaking the rain off.
All I could do was nod, shivering. And whether that was from being cold or my brain stem being detached from the rest of my body due to the overwhelming amount of sexiness I was witnessing, I wasn’t sure.
“Grab a table anywhere,” a waitress said as she passed by with a pot of coffee.
“How about over there?” Max said, pointing to a booth near the back.
“Sure.” My teeth were chattering as I followed him to the table. He slid in on one side and I took the other, resisting the urge to follow him in so that we would be seated side by side.
As soon as we sat, a different waitress came over and handed us some menus. We thanked her and I pretended to look it over while I was actively trying to calm myself down.
Had we nearly kissed out there? Or was that a product of my overactive and wishful imagination?
Why was he so gorgeous? And why was he even hotter soaking wet? It was disconcerting.
As I pretended to read the menu, my brain floundered for something to talk about. I couldn’t bring up what had almost just happened a few minutes ago. I didn’t have the ability to shrug it off and pretend like it was nothing. As if it didn’t matter to me, like the entire earth hadn’t temporarily shifted off its axis completely.
Oh hey, we almost kissed, right? Or was I making that up?
Nope, not a suitable conversation for people who were supposed to be friends.
“What are you in the mood for?” he asked, and although it had been a perfectly normal and innocent question, it still had my blood pounding in my veins.
Because I was in the mood for Max and to follow through on where things had been going until Mother Nature had decided to personally interrupt us.
I finally settled on, “I always love getting breakfast for dinner. It was a big treat for me growing up. My meemaw used to do it the first Sunday of every month.”
“Me too! I love breakfast for dinner.”
Some part of me thought he was saying it to be nice, but I heard the sincerity. Another thing we had in common.
They seemed to be piling up.
The waitress returned, asking if we knew what we wanted. I ordered the chocolate chip pancake platter and Max asked for the protein breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage.
“I’ll get that right out for you,” she said, taking our menus, and I nearly asked for mine back.
Because Max was looking at me with that intense gaze of his, the one that made me feel like he could see into my soul, and it made me shift in my seat. I liked him. I felt safe with him.
But he also caused these inexplicable feelings of uneasiness and discomfort. In a good way.
I didn’t know how to explain it.
“What are you working on currently?” I asked him, desperate to fill the silence between us.
He explained how his organization was in the process of trying to acquire a building that they could fix up to provide housing for the women in his program who were obtaining their degrees. He said that they were having a hard time finding donors to help cover the cost.
I internally sighed. He was so selfless and kind and I hadn’t ever met anyone else who had devoted their entire life to serving others. I never would have guessed that altruism could be this sexy.
“It’s just difficult to line up donors in general,” he said with a grimace.
How could anyone ever tell Max no? I would have guessed that he could have just walked into a roomful of rich people and they would have had their checkbooks out before he even opened his mouth.
He said, “We need a lot of supplies for our first-time mother program and we’ve been struggling.”
It suddenly occurred to me that I was supposed to have told him about my upcoming plans. “I know it’s not going to be a lot, but I’m going to use Sunny’s baby shower to help you stock up.”
“You are?”
I explained to him my idea for the shower to be a charity event with all of the gifts and prizes going to him and how excited Sunny was about it.
He had gone still while I talked, and I worried that I might have somehow inadvertently offended him. I hoped he didn’t think I was implying he couldn’t do his job.
“So we’ll just need to coordinate how to get everything over to you,” I finished up, feeling a bit foolish. Maybe I should have asked his permission?
But he reached across the table and enveloped my hands with his own. Would this ever not feel amazing? Could it become commonplace?
“Thank you,” he said, and I was surprised at the emotion in his voice. “How are you like this?”
“Like what?” I asked.
The waitress returned with our food and Max let go of my hands so that she could put our plates down.
He thanked her, but all I could think about was what he’d just said. He’d obviously meant it in a good way, but I needed more information.
An explanation, even if things didn’t end up the way I hoped they might. But before I even skirted the subject of whether or not he and I might be something more, there was something I needed to know first.
When the waitress left, Max picked up his fork and the words fell out of me.
“Why did you tell Sunny that I was down-to-earth and simple?”