Page 93 of Party Favors

My lips were tingling and I reached up to touch them with my fingertips, still in awe over what had just happened between Max and me. I caught him watching me and his expression told me that he wished his lips were doing the exploring instead of my fingers.

I caught my breath and his eyes were lidded, heavy. I could see him breathing faster. His cheek twitched like he was clenching his jaw tightly, barely containing himself.

“Here we are! Y’all have fun,” Hollis said when we returned to the first floor, and I heard the teasing in his tone.

“Thank you again,” I said, amazed at my ability to walk and speak at the same time.

“Y’all come back anytime!” he said cheerfully as he walked us through the lobby. “Good night!”

I think I returned his farewell, but I wasn’t sure. When Max and I got outside, I wondered what would happen now. I didn’t want to be separated from him and I knew he felt the same way.

He signaled for a cab and one came over to the curb. He opened the door for me and I got in, scooting over to make room for him. Where would we go now? I was both excited and a bit nervous about what would happen next.

But Max leaned his head in through the open door and told the cab driver my address and then said to me, “I have to get up early for my flight. We’ll talk soon.”

He closed the door, and the cab pulled away from the curb before I could respond.

What had just happened?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Aw, you’re home,” Vella said with as much disappointment as I was currently feeling.

“Hello to you, too. I do still live here.” I dropped my bag on the floor and kicked off my shoes, not even attempting to clean up after myself. I was too depressed.

“I was kind of hoping you’d be having such a good time with Max that you wouldn’t come home at all.”

A disbelieving sound escaped me, and I reached behind my back for my zipper. I wanted to take this dress off and get rid of it. Maybe I’d burn it. While I was struggling, she gasped.

“You kissed Max!”

I froze. “How can you possibly know that?”

“It was from that time I was training to be a psychic.”

“You can’t train ...” I trailed off, not willing to argue. I was too defeated. “Can you please help me with my zipper?”

“Sure,” she said, coming up behind me to tug it down. “Too bad Max isn’t the one doing it.”

“I don’t think he would want to,” I said with a huge amount of self-pity. With a whoosh, my dress slipped off me, puddling onto the floor. I put on a shirt and yoga pants. Vella was staring holes into my back, obviously wanting me to explain myself.

Now that I wasn’t in his arms, it was easy to question everything. It was hard to believe that we’d even kissed, like it had been some kind of waking dream or fevered hallucination. How could he kiss me like that and just put me in a taxi?

Maybe he’d enjoyed himself but hadn’t wanted me to get the wrong idea.

And if I was just one of many, as I suspected, it wouldn’t have meant anything to him. It would have been no big deal. Just another make-out at another New York City tourist attraction. He probably did it all the time and it hadn’t fazed him.

While I felt like my entire world had just completely shifted and been irrevocably altered.

I’d been in the midst of a hormonal Chernobyl, and he’d sent me away without a second thought.

What if he regretted it? Thought it had been a mistake to kiss me?

So many unanswered questions.

“You did kiss him, right?” she asked.

I collapsed onto the couch. My poor spinal column had had too much excitement for one night and could no longer keep me upright. “Yes. We definitely kissed. Like, a lot.”

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