Page 37 of Party Favors

I put my phone down on the table near my bed and lay there for a bit, thinking about my call with my mom and my encounter with Max.

Before last night, I would have said that I had some sort of feelings for Adrian. I knew him better than anybody else in the world, and he was very handsome and wealthy and on paper was a total Prince Charming.

But all it had taken was Max smiling at me and being polite and I’d been ready to drop Adrian like a bad habit. It made me think that my feelings for Adrian were pretty superficial and I was a much shallower person than I’d realized.

Or maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to Adrian getting engaged—latching on to someone else as a way to make myself feel better.

I wasn’t sure.

And I wished I had someone to talk to about it. My mom would have taken it all wrong, and Vella only seemed to care about whether or not I hooked up with Max for the good of all womankind.

Meeting Max last night and my mother’s comments this morning had me reevaluating my life.

I didn’t want to be alone. I absolutely wanted to find my person, my prince, who would make me feel like I was in my own fairy tale. My own parents’ relationship had been so spectacularly unhealthy that I had resorted to wanting a mythological romance that seemed to exist only in books. Like I had to find the opposite of what they’d shared. Work hadn’t really allowed that to happen, as I always had so much to do. I’d been stuck in a holding pattern for a very long time.

My phone beeped—it was one of the online alerts I’d set up for Nico and Kat. They had gone to the opening of a new hospital with their kids, and I looked at the picture of their family.

Kat had been a regular American girl just like me who’d turned her life into something worthy of storybooks.

Why couldn’t I do the same?

If she were in my position, what would Kat do?

Huh. Maybe I should make that my motto. WWKD?

I started writing a list with changes I was going to make in my life. They included:

Put myself out there more—in business and in my personal life. I would try to meet people and stop hiding in this apartment so much and using work as an excuse. I would speak up in the office because I had good ideas.

Fake confidence until I felt it for real. I would stop second-guessing myself at work.

Be a good friend. Kat was an amazing friend, fiercely loyal and loving.

Remember to be kind. The queen was thoughtful and caring to the people around her.

Let go of my crush on Adrian. In some ways it was holding me back. I used our “what if?” potential to shove other men away as possibilities.

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