Page 87 of Party Favors

“Where?” I asked, reaching up to feel around for it, growing more concerned with each passing second that I looked ridiculous.

“Here. May I?” he asked, and I nodded.

I held my breath, bracing for impact. He reached up with his thumb and gently rubbed the icing off of my upper lip. His thumb was warm and firm and my lip tingled in response to his touch, my blood heating in my veins.

Then my stomach flipped completely over when he lifted his thumb up to his own mouth and licked off the frosting. Even though he wasn’t touching me, it felt like he was. I leaned back against the counter as I didn’t know if I was still capable of supporting my own body weight.

The kitchen door opened. My eyes flickered briefly in that direction and I saw Claudia.

I straightened up. I’d had no idea she was coming here tonight. She noticed me and came over, smiling.

“Everly! Tonight has been magnificent. You have done a truly incredible job. I hope you are proud of yourself!”

“Thank you so much,” I said, feeling breathless, both from her compliment and from what Max had just innocently done.

“I’m going to personally oversee the cleanup and takedown tonight,” she said, and it surprised me. That was the entire point of being senior staff—getting to delegate things like this to the underlings.

I hoped she didn’t think I wanted to leave. “I’m happy to stay.”

“Oh, this isn’t a comment on your performance. I know you would be the last person here if I needed you to be. You did a fantastic job, and I want to end the evening with a senior member of our team as the point of contact. We are trying to win over the Albrechts and their friends, and I think it would be better if I was the one they interact with when tonight ends.”

That made sense. It was unusual, but so was this event. We were trying to establish a foothold in this space, so I understood why Claudia, who had a lot more experience with clients, wanted to be the person seeing them off.

“Sure thing,” I said, and handed her my clipboard. There wasn’t much left to check off.

“You should go and have fun. Celebrate.” She shot a meaningful look at Max and I worried that I might have appeared unprofessional. But she smiled, as if enjoying some private joke, and left with the clipboard.

“So you’re free?” he asked.

“It would appear so.”

“Do you want to go get a drink?”

“I really do.” It was exactly what I needed. This had been a long, strange, stressful evening and the idea of unwinding and relaxing sounded perfect.

“I know a wine bar not too far from here.”

“Yes to all of it,” I said. He came with me while I grabbed my bag and coat, and we left. The night was perfect—cold but clear. Max took my hand and it made things even better. My skin was still flushed with excitement and the chill felt good against it.

“She was right,” he said. “You did a great job with the party.”

“Thank you.” Strangely enough, his praise meant more to me than Claudia’s.

“Are you worried that your boss is sticking around to take the credit?”

“Claudia is not my boss and she’s not like that. This is a chance for her to network with the other potential clients at the party and schmooze the Albrechts. They will feel special that someone so high up is personally overseeing everything.”

“Was tonight a nice change? From what you usually do?”

I let out a little laugh. “Leaps and bounds better. I can freely admit that corporate events are usually total snoozefests.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I would pay to attend a snoozefest.”

I laughed harder this time. “In my experience, snoozefests are not nice, peaceful events. They are stressful. The event I had a couple of days ago was free, no tickets required, and no security. A man showed up and locked himself in the main bathroom. I had to get the manager to help me direct attendees to a bathroom on the second level. I finally managed to coax the man out and he was escorted from the hotel.”

“That sounds like the opposite of a snoozefest.”

“Definitely much more exciting than anyone had anticipated. I’d told the client that we needed security and tickets, but they didn’t want the expense, so they didn’t listen to me. It’s annoying when you can seeso clearly that something’s going to go spectacularly bad and nobody believes you. Like I’m Cassandra.”

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