Page 69 of Party Favors

Why was I reading something into that? He was agreeing with what I’d said, not making some comment on whether or not he wanted to be in a relationship with me.

If I wasn’t mistaken, and I was entirely willing to concede that I might have been, there had been a tone in his voice that caused me to believe he’d meant something else.

“There’s a diner not too far from here that meets the criteria of being American, open, and available. The good part might be more subjective,” I said.

Max laughed and said, “Lead the way.”

As we walked, he asked me how the birthday party was coming along.

“I’m trying to get in touch with my teenage self, but it’s been a while. I wish I knew more about Monterran teenagers.”

“They definitely live in a different environment than kids in America. Their secondary school, which might be comparable to high school in the States, requires students to choose a major to focus on.”

“What did you choose?”

“The same thing I studied at Yale. Languages.”

As in plural? “What other languages do you speak?”

“French and Spanish, some Portuguese. I’ve been using an app to work on Mandarin, but it’s very different from Romance languages, so I’m struggling a bit.”

A distant part of my brain registered that he had just admitted that something wasn’t coming easy to him and it made me like him more, but the rest of me could only focus on the fact that he was fluent in French.

After Monterran and Italian accents, French rounded out my Top 3.

“You speak French? Can you say something?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you want.” It wouldn’t really matter because I wouldn’t be able to understand him anyway. He could have read me his grocery list and I still would have found it sexy.

I had taken two years of French in high school but had retained none of it. Which became entirely evident when he started speaking.

His words apparently disconnected my eyeballs from my brain and I wasn’t processing visual information correctly or paying attention to what was happening around me.

And as a result I stepped off the curb and directly into oncoming traffic.

“Everly!” Max jerked on my hand, whirling me back so that I collided directly into his chest, almost knocking him over. Icy panic flooded through me as a car sped past us, blaring its horn. My heart beat inside my chest like a fast drum, and I clung to him. I couldn’t quite process what had just happened, how close I’d come to being run over. One second I’d been swooning over his French and the next I’d nearly been flattened.

I couldn’t stop shaking and felt incapable of getting my breathing under control. I’d never had a panic attack before, but I imagined it would feel something like this.

As sensations started to return to my limbs, I became more aware of the situation I currently found myself in. Max was holding me tight, his own heart thundering inside his chest. I felt his lips brush against the top of my head.

He reached up to put both of his hands on the sides of my face, angling it up so that he could look me in the eyes. His voice was thick with fear. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” I finally said, trying to calm both of us down.

Max let go of my face and wrapped his arms around my waist again. This time he was the one burying his face into my neck, and I instinctively reached up to stroke his hair, to soothe him.

I was the one who’d almost become a human pancake, but he seemed more freaked out.

Maybe it was because I was just so happy to be held by him again that the fear had quickly evaporated. Some detached part of my brain realized that Max must have lost his cowboy hat when he’d rescued me, because I was able to run my fingers through his dark, soft hair. I thought about pointing it out to him but I didn’t want him to release me in order to look for it.

“I’m okay,” I repeated, feeling like he needed to hear it.

“The world would be so much worse without you in it.” He said it like the words were being wrenched from him. He clung to me like he needed the reassurance that I was there and safe.

A few minutes passed and we stood there on the corner, holding each other. I felt his heartbeat slow, his breathing even out. He finally released his hold, but he didn’t move away. We stood there, staring at each other, and I’d never experienced anything like it.

---