Page 131 of Party Favors

One of the most amazing event planners in the business thought I was going to be wildly successful.

And she had given me the best start possible.

Despite the fact that I had been planning for a week what I would do and say when I saw Max again, all of my plans and backup plans went out the window when I returned to New York.

I considered calling him, but I knew he was going to come by at seven o’clock. I spent time getting ready because this was going to be an important moment in my life, one way or the other, and I wanted to be prepared for it.

Vella told me she was going to go say goodbye again to Otis. I tried to talk her out of it, but she informed me that she had to make her own mistakes so that she could better discover who she was.

Given that I’d made some not-so-great decisions lately, I didn’t feel qualified to stop her and just said, “Call me if you need help moving a body.”

Then it was just me in the quiet of the apartment, waiting, watching the clock.

Precisely at seven o’clock, Max knocked. I walked over to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it.

“Everly?” His mouth dropped open.

He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept at all the entire week I’d been gone. It was the worst I’d ever seen him look. He was still drop-dead gorgeous, but lines of exhaustion and worry were etched on his face.

“Hi, Max.” Well, that was an entirely inadequate response for whatever was happening between us right now as we stood in the doorway.

He shifted his body and I saw his hands raise slightly, like he wanted to touch me, hold me, but he didn’t.

“Come in,” I told him. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

He came into the apartment and I closed the door behind him. My hands were sweating, my heart racing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this nervous.

I walked over to the couch and sat. Max did the same. He took off his coat, laid it on the arm of the couch, and then started wringing his hands.

He said, “I’ve imagined this moment so many times and now that you’re here and willing to talk to me, I don’t know how to start.”

“You could—”

“First, your job,” he cut me off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“No, go ahead.”

“With your job situation. My dad has a friend who is a friend of Elevated’s CEO. I will get your job back.”

“I don’t need you to do that.”

He misunderstood me. “I’m not trying to save the day here or anything, and I’m not trying to rescue you. I want to help you get it back because I am responsible for what happened and I want to make it right.”

“No, I didn’t say that because I wanted you to stay out of it. I’m saying it because I don’t want to go back to Elevated. I think I’m going to try and start my own company. I have some seed money thanks to Sunny and a list of potential clients.”

He gave me a shy half smile. “I thought you might say that, so I paid the graphics designer at the non-profit to make these up.” He took out his phone and opened an app and handed it to me.

It was a bunch of different logos and business cards with “Aprile’s Showers” on them.

My breath caught. This was unbelievably thoughtful and kind.

And exactly the kind of thing Max would do.

I gave the phone back to him, my hand shaking. “Thank you. But you should know that it wasn’t really your fault that I lost my job and I shouldn’t have blamed you. I’m sorry I did that. I was just really angry with you.”

“You had every right to be. And you’re not the one who should be apologizing here.”

I nodded.

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