Page 30 of Sparks Fly
Stella scoffed at that. “You think I wouldn’t be able to resist you?”
“You were staring at me pretty hard when I was there the other day, Stella,” he said. “I’m honestly surprised no one noticed.”
“You are so full of yourself,” she said, and he could almost see her shaking her head.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I think the way you end up screaming my name when we’ve been together proves I’ve earned it.”
“I don’t think I was screaming per se,” Stella said.
“Mm, you were definitely saying my name at a relatively high volume. Perhaps you were so delirious from the orgasms you can’t remember correctly.”
“Oh my God,” Stella said, laughing. “Your hubris is astounding.”
“Thank you.”
Stella laughed again, and then as they both quieted, she said, “Are you serious? About taking yourself off the project?”
“Yes,” Max said without hesitation. “Honestly, I should’veremoved myself the moment I saw you in that office, but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly then.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That there was no way in hell I was lucky enough to find you twice.”
There was a beat of silence before Stella said, “That was too smooth. Do you prep lines like that in advance?”
This shocked a laugh out of Max.
“Wow, I wear my heart on my sleeve, and this is how you treat me?” he asked.
“I promise I’ll treat you better on Friday,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” Max asked, sitting up. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she said. Her tone was blasé, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, which made him grin. He was beginning to realize she liked to tease him, and he liked it, too.
“But Max?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“This time I’ll make sure you come, too.”
Fifteen
It surprised Stella how easy things felt between her and Max.
She thought her lack of experience would make her bad at flirting, or awkward. And yes, there were times when she was a little unsure of herself, but for the most part, they had a rapport that felt natural. Sometimes words came out of her mouth before she even had time to think about them, and they felt right.
Things between them seemed so effortless, in fact, that Stella wondered why, prior to this, dating had been so hard for her. And worse, she worried how much harder it would be for her after whatever she was doing with Max inevitably ended. Because she was sure it would have to end, one way or another.
“What is happening in your brain right now?”
Stella blinked up to find her friend Jackie eyeing her across their table.
Jackie was Stella’s emotional support white girl (affectionate). Before starting at Yellow Sparks, Stella had interned atPeoplemagazine and was the only Black woman—nay, the only person of color—in their intern group. The rest were white girls, and they all looked alike and seemed to know each other somehow, except Jackie.
Jackie wasn’t a POC, but she was almost six feet tall, wore a size sixteen instead of four, had big dark curls that she didn’t even attempt to tame in the summer, and had a string of piercings in each of her ears.
In sum, she hadn’t exactly fit in either, and from that very first day of orientation, she and Stella bonded over their otherness. The best part was that Jackie never attempted to equate her otherness to the barriers Stella faced as a Black woman, but instead listened and learned when Stella faced issues Jackie couldn’t always understand. It was why their friendship had lasted all these years despite the fact that Jackie had moved to LA pretty soon after their internship ended to actively pursue a career as a screenwriter.
