Page 93 of Sparks Fly
“You know I could still cancel the dinner reservations,” Max whispered in her ear. “That way, you won’t have to wear anything.”
It took everything in Stella to grip his wrist and gently guide him out of her panties.
“Not a chance,” Stella said, turning in his arms so she could face him. “I want the full Valentine’s Day experience. Besides, imagine how good it’ll feel when we come together after waiting all night.”
Max groaned but kissed her quickly and pulled away.
“Fine, but you only have five more minutes,” he said. “After that, I’m canceling our reservation and you’ll be my meal this evening.”
He playfully bit her cheek before leaving her with her clothes.
With a timer now running, Stella quickly picked up the red fit-and-flare dress she’d been eyeing all day and put it on with her favorite pair of black platform shoes. Her legs would be cold, but they were just going from their apartment to the car to the restaurant so she should be okay.
“Ready,” Stella said, running into the living room.
Max had been frowning down at his phone, but he smiledwhen she walked in. She hadn’t really taken the time to look him over before, but he looked devastatingly handsome in a red button-down shirt and black slacks. He’d also gotten a shape-up over the weekend, so his hair and the small line of hair around his chin were perfectly aligned.
Max stood and walked over, pulling her into his arms and kissing her again.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Your brows were all creased just now.”
Max sighed. “It’s Miles.”
Stella didn’t need to hear more. With the AIX/Yellow Sparks contract terminated, Yellow Sparks had to take down all the posts that used Sparky, which turned out to be a good thing because technically those should’ve been labeled as AI writing, even though Miles still claimed they weren’t written by AI completely so there was no reason to mark them as AI content. Regardless, the loss of hundreds of articles, along with Stella’s viral post about what was going down at Yellow Sparks, had led to a staggering drop in traffic.
Yellow Sparks lost tons of ad revenue, and as a result, those layoffs Miles had told Max he’d been planning ended up happening anyway. It was maybe petty of her, but Stella was slightly thrilled when Effie told her Melanie was laid off. Unfortunately, Effie was also among those who lost their job, but she’d already been looking for something new and had gotten a technical writing job at a tech company of all things. Stella was still struggling to comprehend how much money she was making now.
With the layoffs, Yellow Sparks was still hanging on, but the compounded negative press led to Miles stepping down asCEO. He sold his controlling share of the business to an investment firm that was now running the company, and from what Stella heard, they were running it into the ground. Since then, no one really knew what Miles was doing with his time, and Max’s parents were worried, which meant Max was worried.
“Mom wants us all to come over for dinner on Sunday,” Max said. “I think it’s going to be some kind of intervention. Are you okay with that?”
Stella nodded. “Sure, of course.”
Stella had only seen Miles a handful of times since she’d quit. She held no animosity toward him anymore, but it still felt weird whenever they were forced to be in the same room together. She meant what she said when she told Max she didn’t want to come between him and his brother, and even though they weren’t exactly close these days, she was glad the door to their relationship wasn’t fully closed. Plus, she knew that deep down Max wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his brother wasn’t okay, so if being there to support Max at this family dinner/intervention helped, then she would go.
Besides, because they lived so close to Max’s parents, she’d come to learn that his mother’s version of Sunday dinner was a catered meal by a Michelin-starred chef, and as such, they were always good.
“Thank you,” Max said, kissing her again quickly. Then he stepped back so he could look her up and down.
“Are you sure you want to go out in the cold with every other couple instead of staying in and letting me have you all to myself?”
Stella laughed. “Yes, I’m sure. Now let’s go before we’re late.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Oh, so now you’re in a hurry.”
They headed downstairs, waving a quick bye to Ernesto as they headed out to the car. Max held the door open for her as she slid in before running around to the other side.
Max laced his fingers through hers as they sat in the car, and Stella found herself marveling at how so much had changed in a year.
She and Max were now living together. After her and Chelsea’s lease was up, Chelsea surprised her by suggesting they move, saying that she was ready to have her own place but didn’t want to leave Stella in the lurch. Max was of course on board, and it’d now been about three months. Thanks to him already having a bigger place than she did, it was pretty easy to move in all her stuff.
The hard part had been aligning their schedules. Even though they lived together, Max was working hard on his new medical division. She was still so proud of him for turning what happened to his mom into this new project that could potentially save lives, but while the medical division was getting its footing it needed new investors, so Max was constantly out taking meetings and traveling to different hospitals.
Meanwhile, after freelancing for a few months, Stella had been offered a job with Slate writing a column about sex and dating from the perspective of a late bloomer. It was a thrilling new role that didn’t pay much, but she loved it all the same and found herself constantly thinking about new ideasand people to interview. She was still trying to figure out how to turn off her work brain these days, but after going a full week without seeing each other except when they were climbing in and out of bed, she and Max both knew something had to give.
So they’d committed to doing at least one date night a week, when they would be fully present with each other and not let work things get in the way. It was kind of similar to how they were when they first started, except this time around Stella didn’t have to hold herself back when she wanted to talk about an issue she was having at work and Max was so excited about what he was doing that Stella was more than happy to let him ramble.
Things were going so well between them that Stella sometimes thought that maybe they were ready to take the next step. Even though it’d only been a year, Stella couldn’t ever imagine being with anyone else, and she knew Max felt the same. Still, neither of them had broached the topic, but there was a part of Stella that wondered if tonight might be the night.
