Page 53 of Party Favors

If we actually had been on a date, it was still early enough that we could do more.

But since we were only friends, we probably should call it a night.

My hormones definitely needed a break.

“Sure,” I said, and we walked toward the subway.

“Everly, there’s something I want to clear up,” he said, and my heart skipped a beat.

Maybe he was going to say he wasn’t interested in us being only friends. Maybe he’d agreed to it only because I’d said it. Maybe ...

“I don’t want you to think that I’m taking advantage of your good nature.” He sounded worried. “You can say no to helping Sunny. I should have told you that earlier. I know you’re busy.”

“Max, it’s fine. If I didn’t have the time, I would have said no.” I was going to have to give up some unnecessary things, like showering and sleeping, but I would find a way to make it work.

And not because I was a people pleaser. I genuinely wanted to help him, someone who had been nothing but sweet to me. He had gone out of his way to be helpful to me last night when we met; I could do the same for him.

Max came to a stop and I heard the guy behind us cursing as he nearly crashed into us. New Yorkers hated when people blocked sidewalks. Max pulled me by the hand, leading me over to a storefront so that we were out of the way.

“I don’t know anyone like you, Everly. You are truly kind and selfless.”

We stood there, neither one of us speaking. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it.

I coughed and then licked my lips so that I could talk. He seemed to be watching me intently, and he was wrecking my ability to regain my composure. I started walking toward the subway stop because I needed to move.

If I kept standing there staring at him, I was going to do something that friends didnotdo.

His long strides made it so that he caught up to me quickly.

I didn’t want him to think those sorts of things about me. His admiration weakened my resolve.

“My motives are entirely selfish,” I told him as I crossed my arms over my chest. I was not the person he seemed to think I was.

“How so?”

“Have you ever heard that story about Abraham Lincoln? He was on his way to give a speech somewhere and he was arguing with his traveling companion. Lincoln said that all actions, both good and bad, were always motivated by selfishness. His friend disagreed.”

Max went to my left, putting himself between me and the street again. I wondered if he even realized that he did it, or if it was just instinctual.

“You were saying?” he prompted me.

Oh, right. The Lincoln story. “They heard a mother pig squealing because her piglets were trapped in mud. Lincoln had the driver stop, and despite the fact that he was about to appear in front of a large crowd, he waded into the mud to return the piglets to their mom. His friend was smug, saying Lincoln had just proved his point with a good, selfless act. Lincoln responded that it had been motivated by his own selfishness—that he would have spent the rest of the day worrying about that mother pig and had saved the babies for his own peace of mind.”

“Are you trying to convince me that you helping people is completely selfish?” he asked with a laugh as we headed down the stairs into the station.

“I’m saying there is an element of it. If I had said no to you, I would have worried about Sunny and what she would do.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I don’t have to.” Max had spoken so highly of her, and I knew how close they were. That was good enough for me.

Because somehow, in the space of less than twenty-four hours, Max Colby had become very important to me.

I would have done a lot more if he’d asked for it. This was kind of a drop in the bucket.

The lighting in the subway station was terrible, and so it was impossible for me to read his expression.

There seemed to be something there, though. Something that made my breath catch in my throat.

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