CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Did that upset you?” Max asked, sounding confused.
“Uh, yes.” Might as well be honest about it. That phrase had been stuck in my head for a while now. “You think I’m boring and plain.”
“What?” he said it with so much incredulousness that I felt kind of stupid for saying it in the first place. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. What I meant by it was that you’re not a snob and you’re real, just yourself without a bunch of pretension. Those are qualities that I appreciate. They’ve been in short supply in my life.”
“Oh.” His words filled my veins with tiny fizzy bubbles of lightness, like I’d been carrying something heavy around and now I could put it down.
“Do I need to explain it more, so that you don’t have the wrong idea?” he asked, and I knew that he would. That he wouldn’t be angry about me misinterpreting it or roll his eyes and tell me to get over it. He would sit with me and talk about it for as long as I needed him to.
That made the fizziness in my veins intensify.
“I think I’ve got it,” I said.
“Good.” He reached for the ketchup bottle, and like some minion of the devil, he proceeded to pour it on top of his scrambled eggs.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
He paused, holding the bottle midair. “Putting ketchup on my eggs. They taste better this way.”
“Whatever demon is whispering lies into your ear telling you to do this abomination, I’d advise not listening. Although I suppose it is your right to let that creature lead you astray.”
Max grinned at me and continued to douse his eggs. “I didn’t know my eating habits would put my eternal soul at risk.”
“Maybe you should have paid more attention in church.”
Now he laughed. “One more thing I have to be worried about now.”
“If you need more stuff to add to your ‘Worry About This’ list, I can recommend a whole bunch,” I said as I poured syrup onto my pancakes.
“Do you have a lot of fears?” he asked.
“I do scary stuff,” I responded, bristling a bit at what felt like an implication. “I moved to New York, which is not easy when you initially get here. I thought I was a somewhat sophisticated person, and the first time I was surrounded by skyscrapers, it overwhelmed me. All the people, the cars, the noise. It was a lot.”
“Monterra is very different,” he said. “Very quaint and self-contained. New York is the opposite.”
“How so?” I asked, and while we finished up our food, he told me everything he loved about his home country, the beauty and serenity, the amazing skiing, the privacy, given that no paparazzi were allowed.
His last declaration felt a bit odd—I’d never worried about paparazzi ever because they had no reason to take my picture.
I was about to ask for clarification, but he spoke first. “Do you ever think that your fears might be holding you back?”
“Some fears are good,” I countered. “They keep you alive.”
“And sometimes they keep you trapped,” he said. “Sometimes they keep you from experiencing something that might be great for you because you’re too afraid.”
There was some truth there. My fear of rejection was keeping me from being open and honest with him. What if it was holding me back in other ways that I hadn’t realized?
He threw some large bills onto the table, tipping an insane amount. “Can I show you something?”
Anything you’d like, my hormones purred. “Sure.”
“Let me grab some tickets first,” he said, pushing buttons on his phone. “There. Let’s go.”
While the rain had lightened up, it wasn’t completely gone. He got us a rideshare and we drove to a building I didn’t recognize.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
He took me into an elevator and pressed the button for the ninety-second floor.
“I am not BASE jumping or walking on a tightrope,” I warned him. He was cute, but not that cute.
Okay, he was, but I still wasn’t willing to risk my life just because he was hot.
We went out into a giant room filled with mirrors and massive windows. There were people everywhere, taking photos. I could see the entire New York skyline spread out beyond the windows. It was a gorgeous view, but not one I wanted to examine more closely.
He held on to my hand firmly as we walked toward the edge. I realized that there were glass skyboxes that jutted out over nothing. There was just blackness, empty space, with lights sprinkled in.
Max stepped out onto that glass ledge, and for one hysterical second, I imagined him being like a cartoon character who would realize too late what he had done, hovering in place until gravity finally reasserted itself.
I tried to swallow back the lump of fear in my throat. “I did tell you that I nearly had a panic attack last year at a rooftop event, right? And that I was nowhere near the edge?”
“We can leave if you want,” he said. “You are totally safe, though. I’m here with you and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I believed him, but I couldn’t chase off the clawing panic I felt in my gut. “How high up are we?”
“A bit over three hundred meters.”
“I don’t know what that is in actual distance!”
“About a thousand feet.”
I put my hands on my knees, bending over slightly. That was so very many feet. “Is there a weight limit in that thing?”
He smiled sweetly at me. “Do you trust me?”
Then he held out his hand.
I let out a giant breath, straightened up, and took his hand. “Yes, I trust you.”
Without letting myself think or my body react, I stepped out onto the glass ledge. We were completely encased in glass, I logically knew that I was safe, but I was still trembling.
I took several deep breaths and was intensely grateful that it was nighttime. If it had been during the day, I would have been able to see everything beneath me. As it was, it was almost like standing in a night sky with the lights of the city twinkling like stars all around us. I could appreciate the view even if I was still slightly terrified.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“Beautiful,” he echoed in agreement, only I turned to see his gaze fixed on me.
I swallowed hard and turned my face back to the skyline. “There’s the Empire State Building,” I said. “I should take you there sometime. No tour of New York City is complete without it.”
“Are you doing okay?” he asked.
Admittedly, my limbs were still shaking and my breaths were coming out in sporadic bursts, but I was managing. “I think so.”
“I’m sorry if I sprang this on you,” he said. “I think so highly of you. I wanted you to see that you can do things that scare you.”
I can if you’re with me.
While I didn’t say the words, he seemed to sense them and pulled me against his side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, and we stood there, pressed together, staring out into an endless night.
I had stopped shaking, his presence soothing me. “I’m ready to leave,” I told him.
We walked back through the bigger part of the room and Max mentioned that there were other exhibits that we could visit, but I’d had more than my fill of being up so high. “I’m good.”
“Then I should probably get you home. It’s late.”
“Sounds good.” It didn’t sound good, though. I wanted to stay with him.
We went back down in the elevator, and he used an app to get another ride, as the rain was still dripping down. I was very grateful to step foot onto the sidewalk. Even if I’d faced my fear, I much preferred having the firm earth beneath my feet.
Our car arrived and Max opened the door for me so that I could climb in first. He got in and there wasn’t much room for both of us. His legs were pressed against mine, and I was tingling from the contact. He took my hand and held it near his knee. He was rubbing his thumb along the back of my hand and it was all I could focus on. He was sending out little waves of pleasure along my skin and I didn’t know if anything could feel more amazing.
And I held that belief until the moment when he lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss there. “You were really brave tonight.”
I certainly didn’t feel brave now, his gentle lips causing tremors that traveled along my nerves. “I don’t know about that.”
He put our hands back on his knee. “You were. Sometimes the only way to get over something you’re afraid of is to just do it.”
Everything Max said felt like it was loaded with some double meaning that I couldn’t figure out. Like we really were speaking two different languages.
“And sometimes things aren’t as scary as you thought they would be,” he added.
“Uh, that was every bit as terrifying as I would have imagined,” I said.
He smiled. “But you did it anyway.”
“Because you were with me.”
There was something in his eyes I couldn’t read. Not only because it was dark, but because it was unfamiliar.
We arrived at my building and he got out, offering me his hand to help me onto the sidewalk. I took it and we walked over to the door. I expected to say our goodbyes, but he asked, “Is it okay if I walk you up to your apartment? I can assure you that it’s motivated purely by selfishness.”
His words had me feeling lightheaded. “Oh?”
“I won’t be able to sleep well tonight if I’m not a hundred percent sure you got into your apartment safely.”
That made me grin. “I wouldn’t want you to suffer, Mr. Lincoln.” Casimir opened the door for us and we went into the lobby, over to the elevators.
While we waited he asked, “What are your plans tomorrow?”
“Working mostly. Coordinating, calling people, following up, getting things arranged. All the fun organizational stuff. I’m also going to watch that royal wedding at like, four thirty on Sunday morning. What about you?”
“I was going to go for a run in Central Park tomorrow with Basta, if you wanted to join us.”
“I only run if something is chasing me,” I told him as the elevator doors opened. We stepped inside.
“I could chase you,” he offered.
Ha. I would lie down and let him catch me. “I’ll pass.”
“You don’t do the whole jogging-in–Central Park thing?”
“Alone? Given that I’m female? No. I choose life.”
We arrived on my floor and started walking toward my apartment. Every step ratcheted up my heartbeat another notch until I felt like I actually had gone for a run.
But was Max chasing me?
Or was it all in my head?
“This is it,” I told him, reaching out to touch my door. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it; I’d never done it before. Maybe I just needed to feel grounded by something that I knew was real.
“Thank you for walking me up, even if it was selfish,” I added.
Max moved closer to me, his icy blue eyes glittering in the low light of the hallway.
My breath caught at his expression.
“Thank you for letting me dance with the prettiest girl at the bar tonight.”
I could feel my face fall. “You don’t have to say that kind of stuff to me, Max.”
He blinked, confused. “Do you mean the truth? I do have to say it. According to thousands of years of religious and governmental laws, anyways.”
I didn’t want him to joke his way out of this. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean.”
He studied me, and the air between us was charged, like the storm outside. As if lightning were going to strike at any moment, only I would have welcomed it. He brought my hand up to his lips for the second time tonight and kissed the back. As if he really were an escapee from an old romance novel, like Vella had said.
The kiss lasted longer than what would have been considered proper back then, though.
Then he flipped my hand over and pressed another hot kiss onto my palm and I hissed as my fingers curled inward. I was unprepared for that onslaught of sensation.
But he released me, letting my hand drop, and started back down the hallway. I collapsed against the door, needing the physical support.
What was that?
He stopped, squared his shoulders, lifted his head, and then turned around slowly to face me.
“Just so you know, I never say things I don’t mean, Everly.”