Page 81 of Party Favors

“What happened in here?” she asked after she’d woken me up. “Did you rob a bakery?”

“Max came over to watch the royal wedding with me and brought a whole bunch of Monterran breakfast food and I was eating my sorrows.”

She sat down on the couch next to me. “Why would you need to eat your body weight in carbs?”

“He’s having dinner tonight with his perfect ex-girlfriend and I’m so jealous I can barely see straight. Or my vision impairment might be due to a sugar overload.” The one thing I was glad about was that he hadn’t told me about his date with his ex until after the wedding was over. His revelation didn’t taint the memory I would treasure of eating delicious food and watching something I loved with him.

“Huh.”

“‘Huh’?” I repeated. “I need let’s-light-his-hair-on-fire Vella, not huh Vella.”

“I mean, I could do it, but it would probably mar his face and no one in the world wants that.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. “He and I are just friends, nothing more. I have no right to be jealous. At all.”

“You may not have the right, but I am giving you permission to be as jealous as you want.”

“I don’t think you have the authority to do that,” I said with a weak smile.

“Sure I do. I’ve granted it to myself. By the power vested in me by me, I hereby allow you to be jealous that Max is having dinner withhis ex-girlfriend and to be annoyed about it and even petty if you want to be.”

“I am feeling very petty. Like, I’d let the air out of her tires if she owned a car and I knew where it was.”

Vella made a pshaw sound and opened up the pastry box on the coffee table. “You think way too small.” She picked out a treat and started to eat it.

“It’s because my brain is too crowded right now. What I am thinking about is how you said stuff is happening between Max and me just because he wants to rescue me.”

“I never said that.” Her mouth was full when she spoke, but I could make out what she was trying to say.

I ignored her response because she pretty much had, even if she wanted to deny it now. “Does that mean I’m going to have to almost get run over every time I hang out with him?”

She swallowed her bite. “He doesn’t like you because he stopped you from getting flattened like Wile E. Coyote. He liked you before that.”

“He doesn’t try to spend time with me.” I crossed my arms, like I was determined to be difficult. At her raised eyebrows, I added, “Other than this morning.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re constantly telling him how busy you are and he’s being considerate of your schedule. Wouldn’t it be worse if he was always trying to hang out with you and distracting you from your job?”

“I guess,” I mumbled. I decided to say the scary part out loud. “But if he does like me, why doesn’t he say so? Or try to kiss me?”

“He’s probably being respectful or whatever because you told him you only thought of him as a friend. I don’t know how people like you do relationships.”

“Max Colby doesn’t like me.” I needed to say it out loud, if only to remind myself.

Vella finished off her food and let out a long sigh. “Let me put it to you this way. Dating is like a foreign country for you. You’ve never really visited—maybe a couple of day trips, but that’s it. I have lived here for most of my adult life. I am fluent in the language and know all the customs. So please allow me to translate this for you. I’ll even ignore all the other events and only count what happened today. A man who surprised you with delicious pastries at four thirty in the morning does not want to be just friends. No guy watches a televised wedding of people he does not know and doesn’t care about for no reason. He did it to make you happy.Because he likes you.”

Surprise gripped my throat, rendering me momentarily speechless. I wanted to protest but found that I couldn’t. I forced myself to think about my list of all the reasons things couldn’t possibly work with him. I wanted to share it with Vella, but I knew she would just shoot them all down.

I weakly settled on, “I don’t have time right now to worry about dating.”

“No one is asking you to worry. Dating is in the fun section of the program.” She stood up, dramatically smacking her hands together as if she were washing them clean of this whole situation. “Is there more food in the kitchen?”

I nodded. “There’s gelato in the freezer, too.”

“Oh! Gelato!” She opened the freezer door to survey her choices. She glanced back over her shoulder at me. “I am sorry about the kissing, though. Not only that he’s not doing it but, as I said, given how he dances, he probably won’t be all that great at it.”

I probably should have kept my response to myself but I didn’t. “You’re wrong. I know that it’s going to be so good between us. If I get this excited because he sits close to me or holds my hand, it’s going to be Mount Vesuvius good if he ever kisses me.”

“Hopefully your love will not bury a bunch of people in lava. Is it okay if I eat the pint of chocolate?”

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