Page 17 of Sparks Fly
“Fair point,” she said finally. “You’d never fit in their homes.”
Max chuckled, and they continued eating, the rest of their dinner flying by with steady conversation. It almost felt too easy, and Max couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed himself this much on a date.
And it was a date, wasn’t it?
Sure, it had started a little rocky, but they’d eaten, gotten another round of drinks, and even shared dessert. By all accounts it had to be a date, Max thought as he grabbed the check before Stella could even reach for it. And he wasn’t ready for it to end.
“Thank you,” Stella said.
“Of course,” Max said, slipping his card back into his wallet. “So, about what I said earlier?” Max leaned forward, his arms pressing down on the table, and Stella eyed him almost cautiously.
“I’m not sure I recall,” Stella said.
“About last night and how we didn’t…finish?”
Max could see a smile edging its way onto her face at that, but she kept it tamped down.
“Finish?” she asked innocently.
“Yes, or come to completion, if you will,” he said. Then leaning even closer, he whispered, “I believe the technical term isorgasm.”
Stella leaned in, too, so they were practically nose to nose, and whispered, “I’m pretty sure I did do that. Right on your face.”
Max’s eyes widened, and Stella bit her lip, clearly trying to hold in a laugh at his expression.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he finally said.
“Thank you.” Stella’s smiled softened. “As much as I would love tofinish, I don’t think I can tonight. It’s a Wednesday.”
“Are you not allowed to have sex on Wednesdays?”
“No,” she said with a soft laugh. “I mean, that’s not it. I just have work tomorrow, and after going out last night, I cannot do another night out. I need my beauty sleep.”
“You look plenty beautiful to me already,” Max said.
Max inwardly cringed at the corny line, but he meant it. She was as stunning to him now as she was last night.
Stella looked away with a sheepish grin.
“Smooth,” she said, shaking her head.
“I try.”
Stella turned her eyes back on him. “I can’t tonight, but what about Friday? Maybe I could come over then?”
Max was sure he wasn’t hiding his elation well when he said, “That’d be perfect.”
Eleven
When Friday rolled around, Stella could barely focus.
It didn’t help that the day prior Max had been in the office for the first AIX/Sparky office hours, which went as well as could’ve been expected.
Stella hadn’t wanted to go for fear of instant combustion from being in the same room as Max, but Effie insisted they needed to go and get some answers.
Max, along with his colleague Rashid, an Indian American software engineer who was co-lead on the Sparky project, as they called it, were bombarded with questions.
“How will this be any different from those AI-generated articles on other news sites?”
