Page 53 of Sparks Fly
Max took Stella’s hand and led her to the couch.
“I get it. My parents are the same way even though I see them pretty frequently since they don’t live that far,” Max said as they sat down.
Stella pulled her legs up underneath her and turned so she was facing Max. He shifted, pulling up a leg so he was facing her, too.
“Where do they live?”
Max tilted his head in the general direction of the town house he grew up in.
“About ten blocks up, two avenues over,” he said. “If Miles and I are taking too long to pay them a visit, which could be anywhere between two days and two weeks, my mother will issue an invitation for a family dinner that is, of course, mandatory.”
Stella chuckled. “She sounds like my mom. Except if she texts me and I don’t respond quick enough, she’s calling me nonstop until I answer to make sure I’m alive.”
“Damn,” Max said with a low whistle. “Your mom wins.”
“I’m sure she’d love to hear that,” Stella said, smiling.
It was a small smile, and her eyes were cast downward as she drew circles on the sliver of couch space between them. Max ducked his head so he could meet her eyes.
“Hey, you okay?”
Stella blinked at him, startled.
“Oh yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Did something happen with your parents?”
“No, no, they’re good,” she said. “Everything’s fine.” She held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Max inspected her face, trying to find the truth of it there, but then Stella was leaning forward, taking his face in her hands, and kissing him. He stopped questioning things after that.
Twenty-Six
After Stella left Max’s place, the feeling that she was a lying liar who lies resurfaced with a vengeance.
In the beginning, not telling Max she was a virgin made sense because it wasn’t his business and she thought she was going to have sex with him and be done with it. Now, though, he wasn’t just some stranger she met in the club. Shelikedhim. And it felt like there was this whole part of herself she was hiding from him.
It didn’t help when he made that joke about meeting her parents because that was a reminder that she’d lied to them, too. At dinner, all her parents could talk about was how Stella seemed different and was she (finally) seeing someone?
And she had said no! Because what could she say? She couldn’t tell her parents she was kind of hooking up with the brother of the CEO of her company and had no idea if this was even going anywhere. Not her parents, who fell in love as teenagers, lost touch when they went to college, and thenreconnected and fell in love again in their twenties. They had an epic love story that they shared with everyone they met, and they pretended to be modest about it when really it was their favorite story to tell.
On some level, she knew her parents would be fine if she didn’t get married and have a family someday, but she also knew that more than anything, they wanted her to find what they had. Stella wanted that for herself, too, which was why she was always looking for it with anyone she’d ever had even the slightest bit of romantic interest in.
It was why she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about a future with Max, but once she left him on Sunday and got back on the train to her little apartment in Flatbush, reality came crashing back in. Max was amazing and made herfeelamazing, but she had told him she only wanted something casual. If she switched up on him now and asked for more, it could ruin everything. Meanwhile, the optimistic (or delulu) part of her wondered, what if he wanted more, too?
This weekend it’d felt like he did, but it was only one weekend. Plus, what wouldmoreeven look like? Stella didn’t have a clue. She didn’t know what it was to be in a full-on relationship. She didn’t know what it was to let someone get to know her past the customary first-date questions like “What do you do for a living?” and “Do you have any siblings?” Or meeting someone’s family and introducing someone to hers. Stella knew that the moment she even mentioned to her parents the possibility of there being a “special person” in her life, they would have no chill.
And then there were, of course, her friends, who’d already made it known that they thought she was dickmatized. If shegot into a relationship with Max, they would probably think she was settling for the first person who gave her an orgasm, not that she was actually falling for him.
With all these thoughts swirling around in her head, Stella probably shouldn’t have gone to her apartment. She was not in the right state of mind to face Chelsea, who, other than sending her a quick text to let her know she’d be spending another night with Max, she hadn’t spoken to since yesterday. Unfortunately, this thought didn’t occur to her until she stepped into her apartment and found Chelsea in the kitchen making a smoothie.
“Hey,” Chelsea said.
She was pouring a green concoction into her black Stanley mug. Stella turned away as she took off her coat and slipped out of her shoes. She needed time to gather her thoughts.
Stella hated confrontation, and her instinct was to bury whatever feelings she was having about Chelsea’s throwaway comment in the group chat and act like everything was fine until it was. It wouldn’t be the first time Chelsea had said or done something that hurt Stella’s feelings and then moved on as if nothing happened. She still hadn’t ever apologized for ditching Stella at Red as Sin.
But that was Chelsea. She was flaky and rarely thought before she spoke or apologized when she inevitably stuck her foot in her mouth. She was also the person who’d given up her studio apartment on the Lower East Side to move into a cheaper place when Stella made her way back to New York after college. She was the one who knew Stella watchedPride & Prejudice(2005) every year for her birthday. She simply knew Stella better than anyone else, and at the end of the day, Stellaknew that Chelsea loved her even if she had a shitty way of showing it sometimes.
