Page 20 of Party Favors

A newbie. “Well, I’ve been here for four years, so if you need a tour guide, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help.” I’d also be happy to bear his children, but I figured I should leave that part out.

“Thank you, I’ll remember that. I’m Max, by the way.”

He offered me his hand and I hesitated for a moment before shaking it—given how I was reacting to him just from our proximity to each other, I didn’t know what would happen if we touched. Realizing that I was going to make this more awkward than it needed to be, I took his hand. When we made contact, his warm palm against mine, it was like static electricity times ten thousand. Like he was a live wire, sending volts directly into every nerve ending in my body. All the cells in my body lit up at his touch.

I quickly pulled back because my inclination was to sit there and keep his hand in my possession all night long, which he might object to, and he’d probably be so unreasonable as to want said hand returned to him.

And it shouldn’t have made me giddy that I knew his name. “Max? Is that short for Maximus or Massimo?” I couldn’t think of any other Italian names that might have Max as a nickname.

“I don’t know you well enough to share that information with you,” he said with the sexiest wink that had my stomach doing somersaults.

“Do I at least get your last name?”

He hesitated for a moment before he said, “Colby.”

Max Colby. If I were still in middle school, I would be writing his name in my notebook over and over again. Mrs. Max Colby. Everly Colby. Max and Everly.

Colby didn’t sound like an Italian surname, but thanks to the research Vella had done this afternoon out of boredom, I now knew that people from all over Europe immigrated to Monterra.

“And you are?” he prompted.

Why was I so awkward? “Everly Aprile.”

“Like the month?”

“Yes, but it has anEon the end.”

“I suppose you’re fortunate that your parents didn’t name you March,” he teased.

“Oh, I don’t think you can make fun of anyone else’s name, Mr. Cheese.” I was rewarded with another laugh, and even if the conversation ended at this very moment, I would consider the night a complete success.

“Everly Aprile,” he repeated, and I felt a little lightheaded at the way his accent caressed my name. “I like the alliteration.”

Technically it started with two different vowels, but I wasn’t going to correct the sexy man. “It kind of makes me sound like a superhero, right?”

“Are you?”

Ha. “Not quite.”

“You seem to me like the kind of woman who has a secret superpower.”

While I wished that were true, he could not have been more off base. “Do you mean besides making the worst possible decisions in my personal life and the ability to whip up the world’s most perfect grilled cheese?”

He grinned, and that “I’m about to faint” feeling was back. “What about your power to put men under your spell?”

I couldn’t help but laugh before I said, “I think I’d know by now if that was true.”

He seemed to move even closer to me. “It might be truer than you think.”

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.

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