Page 40 of Party Favors

While his reaction was amusing, it also let me know that we were fundamentally incompatible because I one hundred percent wanted to get married and have a family. This realization felt like a large stone sinking down from my chest and settling into my stomach.

Such a shame.

“I know that,” he said. “I just can’t imagine myself getting married. I prefer having fun.”

That sinking feeling intensified, but I focused on the indignant flame that was coming to life inside me. As I’d suspected, a total playboy just out to have a good time, moving from one woman to the next. I knew he didn’t mean it as some kind of attack on my personal choices, but it sort of felt like one. “I guess that’ll be sustainable for a while, especially while you look ...” It probably wouldn’t have been a good thing for me to say “Like someone asked Santa Claus for the hottest guy imaginable as a Christmas present and he brought you.” I settled for vaguely waving my hand in his direction. “Like that. But as my meemaw loves to remind me, looks fade and you’ll want to find somebody you enjoy being with all the time, someone you can build a life with, someone who has the same goals and aspirations that you do. It’s not a bad thing to spend your life with your best friend.”

“Your Dr. Seuss grandmother sounds like a wise woman,” he said with a smile.

He was avoiding what I’d said by skirting the subject and redirecting my attention. I wasn’t going to let him do that. “Do you think your feelings about marriage are a reaction to your last relationship not working out?”

Considering that my own mother hadn’t dated anyone seriously since her divorce, it would have been valid for Max to feel that way.

He looked a bit surprised, as if I’d taken him off guard. “Possibly. Maybe I am scared to go down that road again. To trust somebody with my heart a second time. It seems easier to just stay casual.”

Yes, casual as he flitted about, sharing himself with all the women of New York. “If you don’t trust anybody, if you don’t take that risk, you’ll also miss out on all the rewards,” I said. I paused and then added, “Not that I’m the expert at that sort of thing. Like Alice in Wonderland, I am good at giving out advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

Max smiled at me, and even though Adrian’s apartment had new lighting, the wattage of Max’s smile put every other light source to shame. “Which is why Vella forced you to go out last night. Have you thought about her theory?”

I blinked slowly, not sure what he meant. “About reptilian aliens secretly running the government?”

His smile somehow got bigger and brighter. “No, her theory about why you go after emotionally unavailable men.”

“Oh, she’s made sure I know the reason why. As she so often tells me, I’ve always been attracted to men who aren’t attracted to me because it’s safer.” She spent six months majoring in psychology in college and felt like this gave her some sort of license to psychoanalyze me.

“Safer how?” he asked.

“If I keep everyone at arm’s length, then I don’t have to worry about my heart getting broken.” While I was attributing the words to Vella, I did have some insight as to why I made the choices I did. I decided to go for broke. “I use my workload as an excuse, and even though it is a valid one, the truth is I’m too scared to be with anybody. Relationships terrify me.”

Adrenaline made my limbs feel shaky. Why was it so hard to admit that? This being more open and putting myself out there more thing sucked.

“Because of your parents’ divorce?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said. “Which I know is super cliché. My dad being completely unfaithful, never being there for my mom or me, messed me up and gave me some serious self-esteem issues. We were never good enough for him. That’s not the only reason, though. The few times I’ve let my guard down and let myself be excited about someone, it’s never turned out well.”

“In what way?”

So I told Max the story of what had happened to me in high school at the dance, how humiliated I’d been when I was ditched and mocked. The time in college when a guy who had invited me to meet him at a basketball game stood me up and then ghosted me. When a girl in my economics class had offered to set me up on a blind date with her brother and he’d stayed for about ten minutes and then made up an excuse about a sick ferret and all but sprinted to his car.

While part of me was freaking out at telling Max all these things, internally warning me that I was presenting myself as so unattractive and undesirable, the other part of me wanted to be honest.

I wanted to be seen.

Even if it made him come up with an excuse for his own hasty exit.

But when I finished, he didn’t run off flailing his arms like Kermit the Frog.

He stayed.

I felt compelled to fill in the silence. “My dad constantly cheating on my mom is probably the main reason why it’s hard for me to trust men. I think some part of me expects that it will happen to me, too. I want to protect myself.”

Max was silent for several beats and finally said in a rough voice, “And then when you take a chance, you get let down time and time again. All of that must have been incredibly difficult to deal with.”

I felt tears burning at the edge of my eyelids, and I was not going to cry in front of the hot man who just wanted to get his phone back. “Well, you know what they say. What doesn’t kill you makes you weird about intimacy.”

His eyes crinkled, like he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He gave me a sad but supportive look that somehow made me feel worse, even though I could tell he wanted to comfort me.

To my dismay, he kept his hands to himself. I would have bet his hugs were fantastic. I let out a big breath. “Wow, I’m glad we skipped over the playful-banter portion of our day and went straight into our own personal therapy session.”

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