Page 66 of Party Favors

His eyes shuttered. “Everly, I was only—”

“Why did you come over and talk to me the first night we met?” I asked before he could finish his sentence and tell me that he’d meant it a platonic way because we were pals. “Was it just because you wanted to save me?”

I didn’t want him hanging out with me because he thought he needed to rescue me. I couldn’t deal with his teasing and joking if I knew that was the reason behind it—that he was doing all of this out of pity.

He considered my question before answering. “I came over because I saw you doing a Wonder Woman spin and it made me want to talk to you.”

There was nothing he could have said that would have surprised me more. Well, other than reiterating seriously that he’d like to seduce me. “Why?”

He shrugged the shoulder that I was holding on to. “It was just sweet and ... What’s that expression? It tugged at my heartstrings.”

This was so much worse than I had thought. “I made you sad?”

“What? No.”

Maybe it was just a translation thing and he wasn’t saying he’d thought I was pathetic. “If something tugs at your heartstrings, you feel sad.”

“I didn’t feel sad. I felt ... enchanted. I wanted to meet the girl who would so fearlessly twirl around in front of all those people because I wanted to know why she had done it.”

Enchanted? Was that another language mix-up? I tried to not let it give me too much hope.

“I did it to give myself a boost of confidence,” I confessed. “Which didn’t work, given that right after, I cried all over your dog.”

“That part did tug at my heartstrings.” He took my hand and laid it against his chest, putting his own hand on top of it.

I couldn’t help my sharp intake of breath at the intimate gesture. I could feel his heart beating beneath my fingertips. I wanted to flatten my hand and explore him, to feel his heartbeat and warmth against my palms.

“There’s something I want to tell you,” he said in a voice that I felt more than heard.

“You can tell me anything.”

“I know I can,” he said, and I swore I felt him nuzzling the side of my head. I sighed while my synapses sparked with excitement and anticipation. “I’ve thought a lot about something we talked about—how my past affects my future. I have a hard time trusting people. I didn’t expect to get cheated on.”

His evil, stupid ex-girlfriend. “People in relationships usually don’t.”

“I haven’t really dated since Arabella and I broke up.”

Now the evil, stupid ex had a name. Arabella. Of course it had to be pretty and delicate like that. It couldn’t have been Gertrude or Agatha, something I could have secretly relished. “Now it’s my turn to say that I find that hard to believe.”

He flashed me a brief smile. “It’s not because of a broken heart or not being over it. It was not really finding anyone that I wanted tospend time with. Someone I could trust. But Everly ... I know that I can trust you.”

Were those things all connected? Him trusting, talking about wanting to spend time with someone, considering it dating? Or was I reading into things? I came to a stop. Max still held me in his arms, but we were no longer moving in slow circles. “You trust me?”

He nodded. “I wanted to thank you for that—for being someone I could trust.”

I would forsake sleep for a year if he would keep looking at me the way that he was right then—like I was the actual Wonder Woman and he was in awe of me.

Was I supposed to sayyou’re welcome? It felt like it would be anticlimactic.

When I didn’t speak, he filled in the gap. “I knew I’d be able to trust you from the moment we met.”

“How could you know that?”

“Basta liked you and she doesn’t like many people.”

That made me smile, but I understood that he was joking, maybe as an attempt to lighten the mood, which felt very heavy and serious between us.

But his smile faltered when he added, “And I hope you feel the same way.”

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