by Max Monroe
“You make it sounds so wonderful.”
“I’m kidding.” She snickers. “But I’m a New Yorker through and through. It’s my home.”
“And how long have you worked at Jovial Grinds?”
“Actually, I own it.”
“Wait…” I tilt my head to the side. “You own the coffee shop?”
She nods. “My dad bought it for me as a high school graduation present.”
I nearly choke on my enthusiasm. “That’s some present.”
She snorts. “Yeah. My dad is all about grand gestures of affection.” She rolls her eyes. “Since my brother is a big hotshot lawyer with a whole lot of his own money, my dad has to expend most of his efforts on me.”
Ha. Sounds like a serious hardship. I bite my lip to keep from saying my opinion aloud. “Does your brother live in the city too?”
“Yep,” she says and softly pops the P. “And he’s a total pain in my ass.”
“He sounds a lot like my brother, Evan. But he lives in Austin, so the distance keeps his nosy ass in check.”
“If only my brother would relocate…”
I grin. “So, let me get this straight…you own Jovial Grinds, yet you also work as a barista there?”
She nods.
I pause to consider if I should really ask my next question, but she smiles as if to encourage it.
“Why?”
“I might be a trust-fund baby who grew up on Park Avenue, but I refuse to turn into some debutante who organizes fancy dinners and hangs out with snooty bitches. I did college, I did the travel, I did a bunch of other odd jobs, and then last year, I decided to work there.”
“But you’re not the manager?”
She shrugs. “I have no fucking clue how to manage a coffee shop.”
Her explanation only makes me like her more.
“Where do you live now?”
“I have a loft in Harlem.”
A loft in Harlem? I mean, I know it’s up-and-coming, but still…I’m not sure I understand that one. She might be one of the most intriguing, mysterious people I’ve ever met.
“So, tell me something about yourself, Maybe,” Lena says, leaning forward with a sparkle in her eye. “One thing about you I need to know.”
“Jesus.” I snort. “No pressure or anything.”
She smiles and leans one shoulder into an exaggerated shrug. “It’s not as hard as it sounds. I feel like we all usually have something specific in our hearts at any given time that we should consider our priority. If we stop ignoring it and acknowledge it—let the universe acknowledge it—we’d get a lot further in the quest to do something about it.”
It’s insane—totally, unequivocally nuts—but when I think about what she’s said and apply it to myself, the one glaring thing that feels unresolved to me comes barreling to mind. “You’re going to think it’s crazy.”
She shakes her head. “My one thing I need to get control over is my flightiness. It makes me unsure of what I want. Where I want to be. I need direction.”
I swallow at her candid answer, and she jerks her chin. “Now, you go.”
My lips stick together and my mouth fills with cotton, but somehow, I force the words through anyway. “I’m a virgin. And I don’t want to be anymore.”
My chest inflates as a weight lifts off it. It feels good to admit it.
She doesn’t react at first, and my stomach starts to tense up. But when she finally speaks, she does it with a smile, and it’s worth the wait. “I dig it.”
“Shut up,” I retort. “You’re just saying that.”
“I can promise you I never just say anything,” she says. “And it makes complete sense to me.”
Before I can offer up some sort of response, my cell phone starts vibrating across the table.
A text message from Milo. Immediately, butterflies flutter around inside my belly, and curiosity has me unlocking my screen and reading it.
Milo: Do you have time to stop by my office today? I have some publishing contacts to give you.
When I read the second half of his message, all my little winged friends fly away.
What did you expect, crazy? For him to ask you if you wanted to fuck on his desk?
I sigh, but before I can type out a response, Lena’s voice grabs my attention.
“Who is that text from?”
I shrug. “No one important.”
“You’re such a liar.” She narrows her eyes. “Seriously. Who is it?”
“Just a guy I know.”
“What’s his name?”
“Milo.”
She stares at me long enough that I start to get self-conscious. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because there is so obviously a story with this Milo. It’s written all over your face.”
“No, it’s not.”
She nods enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. I could tell the instant you read his text. I swear to God, your eyes flashed with a thousand different emotions in a matter of seconds.”
“They did not.”
She looks at me pointedly, and I find myself caving to her demands.
“Fine.” I sigh. For some strange reason, Lena’s confidence and open-mindedness hold the key to unlocking all of my secrets. It’s like I have to trust her. It’s disconcerting but unavoidable. She’s obviously cast some sort of spell on me. “Milo is…my brother’s best friend.”
Her entire face lights up. “And why exactly is he texting you now?”
I sigh again. “Do you really want to know all the gory details?’
“Are you kidding me?” she damn near shouts. “Tell me everything.”
So, I do. I lay it all out.
The age difference, the pining, the text messages, the encounters we’ve had since I’ve been back—everything.
She is smiling and laughing and one-hundred-percent riveted through the whole tale.
But when I tell her about our lunch a few days ago and how he’s supposed to be helping me get a job with a New York publishing house, she stops me.
“Wait a minute,” she says with one hand raised in the air. “So, he asked you to come to his office this afternoon?”
I nod.
“That sounds a little overboard, doesn’t it?” she questions and waggles her brows.
I roll my eyes. “Trust me, he’s not into me.”
“Girl, he’s asking you to come to his office to give you information he could have just fucking texted to you. He’s into you, whether he wants to admit it or not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Let me ask you a question,” she continues. “When you asked him about helping you out with the dating scene at lunch the other day, why did you do it?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” Lena searches my eyes. “Was it because you wanted to date men in New York or because you want to date him?”
I don’t respond. I don’t know how to respond.
But the truth is most definitely evident to both of us in my silence.
“It doesn’t matter why I did it,” I eventually respond. “Even if I wanted to date him, I wouldn’t know the first place to start, nor am I stupid enough to think he’d actually go for it. He still sees me as his best friend’s little sister.”
“Pssh,” she says with a wave of her hand. “You’re friends with me now. And I do know dating. I know it like the back of my fucking hand.” She looks at the time on her phone. “Okay, text him back and tell him you’ll be at his office around four.”
“Okay…” I pause. “Why four?”
“Because we’re going shopping first.”
I raise a brow.
“Consider this day one of Maybe’s seduction of Milo.” She winks.
A shocked laugh spills from my throat. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am,” she singsongs. “And we’re going to make damn sure that you’re showing off those killer curves of yours when you step into his office th
is afternoon.”
Seducing Milo Ives? This is crazy. I mean, it would never work…right?
But what if it could work…?
“Don’t overthink this.” Lena’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Just text him back and prepare yourself for magic to happen.”
So, I do the only thing I can do. I text him back.
Me: I’m currently at lunch with a friend, and we’re going to go shopping for a bit afterward. Mind if I stop by around four?
Milo: That works. See you then.
He follows that text up with another one that includes nothing but the address of his office, and at the sight of it, my hands get clammy with the sweat of reality.
See you then, he said.
Holy hell.
What was it that Lena said the day we met? There’s no time to change like the present?
I guess she’s right. If I don’t go after what I want now, I never will.
Ready or not, here the new Maybe comes.
Milo
Like normal, it’s been a day full of meetings and phone calls, one after another, but at some point later in the day, Clara grabs my attention from the glass door at the front of my office with a wave and a whistle.
I’m on the phone with Frank Wright—the CEO of a successful baby products company by the name of Simply Baby—but I wave her in anyway. If she waits until I get off the phone to tell me what she needs, it’ll most definitely be too late. Ole Frank loves to chat.
Clara stops on the other side of my desk and lowers her voice to a whisper. “Mr. Ives, I have a Maybe Willis here to see you.”
Is it four o’clock already?
I glance at my watch, smile—I can’t help it—put my phone on mute, and answer her in terms that can’t be misconstrued. God knows I don’t have the patience to play a mind-blitzing game of charades trying to convey my message silently.
“Thanks, Clara. Send her on back, please.”
Clara nods and scoots out the door, and Frank keeps right on going, blissfully unaware of my multitasking. “I’d really love to have our new software up and running by the end of next month. We’ve had too damn many security issues, and with over fifty new products in development, we need the team collaboration tools as soon as possible.”
We haven’t had a relationship with Simply Baby for long, but it’s more than enough time to figure out one thing—Frank Wright is the kind of man who can never get enough reassurance and updates. If he’s told me this information once, he’s told me one hundred times, but he’s paying Fuse a lot of money for our expertise, so all I can do is channel my inner Gandhi and coddle him via phone conversation five days a week.
Still, I’m definitely regretting giving him my number as his point of contact instead of Evan’s. If Simply Baby’s headquarters were in New York rather than Chicago, I imagine I’d be getting daily pop-ins a la the style of a nosy neighbor.
Knowing exactly the pep talk I need to give to get Frank off the phone expediently, I start into my spiel.
“I understand your concerns, Frank, and I know your company’s especially vulnerable during this growth. I can assure you—”
The glass door to my office swings open again, but this time, the woman walking in steals the air right out of my chest and puts a stop to any and all words before they leave my mouth.
Good God.
Unconsciously, a hand goes to my chest.
She is…stunning.
Long, sleek, shiny brown hair gathers in the center of her shoulders and flows down her back, and her lips are painted a lush, almost merlot red. Her legs must be a mile and half long to show that much skin in her tastefully short white dress, and the nude stilettos on her feet make me imagine what they’d look like wrapped around my back.
Fuck. This isn’t good.
But there’s also something about her that has nothing to do with the clothes or the hair or the makeup—it’s in the way she carries herself across the marble flooring of my office.
It makes my heart beat so hard it’s hard to breathe.
She flashes a grin and mouths a “hi” my way before she sits down and crosses her legs in the seat across from mine.
She’s self-assured to the point of bold, and the change of pace sets my blood on fire.
Confidence looks good on Maybe Willis.
“Milo? You still there?” the voice in my ear questions, and I have to blink a few times to understand where in the hell it’s coming from.
“Milo?” he asks again, and I finally snap back to reality.
The call with Frank Wright.
I find my voice as quickly as possible and work tirelessly to steady it. “I’m still here, Frank,” I say, holding up one finger in Maybe’s direction.
She nods her understanding and glances around my office curiously. It takes all of my willpower not to watch her with avid interest.
“I can assure you, Frank, you have nothing to be worried about. We’ll have you up and running three weeks before your deadline.”
“That’s great news.”
I smile with satisfaction and toss Maybe an unplanned wink. Her endless, warm eyes hold mine so intently, I find it hard to swallow.
“I’m going to get you in contact with my CFO, whose Austin team is actually the one working on your software. That way, he can keep you abreast of all progress to make sure you’re at ease until everything is done,” I tell Frank, making a command decision to fork the problem off on to my best friend—something I should have done two months ago.
I patch Frank through to Clara to give him Evan’s number and email, and then thankfully, end the call.
“Passing off your difficult clients to my brother?” Maybe teases, her lips curling up into a sexy grin.
I shrug and hold her eyes. “Sometimes, it pays to be the boss.”
She laughs at that.
“So, I take it lunch and shopping went well?” I ask, and she glances down at her dress and heels.
Twisting a foot inward so that her knees touch in the center and her hip sticks out, then lifting her arms meaningfully at her sides, she tilts her head to her shoulder and challenges, “You tell me.”
“You look…” I start to pay her a compliment, but when words like sexy and gorgeous and fucking beautiful pop into my mind, I pause to search for something a little less…intense.
This is Evan’s baby sister, and I haven’t been able to stop ogling her since she walked through the door. The last thing I need to do is give my mind permission by saying something I shouldn’t out loud.
“I look?” she asks when I don’t finish, searching my eyes. “I look what?”
“Uh…” I clear my throat and scrub a hand through my hair. “You look very nice.”
My dick calls me a chickenshit liar in four different languages. Which is really impressive since I only speak the one.
Her face falls ever so slightly, but she recovers quickly. “Thanks.” Unfortunately, it’s still too slow to hide her disappointment completely, and I feel like a prick.
Nice? I may as well have been giving a compliment to my mother.
I clear my throat and try again. “What I meant to say is that the clothes look very nice. You look beautiful.”
Her cheeks flush my new favorite color—a perfect mix of peachy pink and red—and she stares up at me from beneath her lashes. “You really think so?”
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. I can’t pussyfoot around the truth too much, and quite frankly, I won’t. Maybe should know—she should always know—she’s more than a stylish dress and good makeup. “You always look beautiful, kid.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth parts, and I suddenly have a vivid picture of what she’d look like staring up at me from her knees.
Jesus, Milo. Stop. Stop right now.
Before Maybe can respond—and before I can mentally undress my best friend’s little and off-limits sister, I direct the conversation to the whole reason I had her stop by my office today.
“Tel
l me…if you could work for any publishing house in New York, which one would you choose?”
She doesn’t even have to think about it. “Beacon House.”
“That was a quick answer.”
She shrugs. “I put a little bit of thought into this over the past six years while I slaved away at Stanford.”
“Well, good. I have an excellent connection at Beacon, but that’s not who you’ll be interviewing with first,” I say immediately, scribbling down notes on the edge of my desk calendar. Now that I know what her ultimate end game is, I know exactly the direction to go.
She quirks a brow, and I continue.
“I’m going to line up an interview for you at Rainbow Press next week.”
I don’t miss the slightest hint of a frown that mars the smooth surface of her forehead. “Rainbow Press?”
“Yep.”
Rainbow Press is a moderately successful publishing house whose editor in chief, Cassandra Cale, went to Yale with Evan and me. And the truth is, I already lined up an interview for Maybe there this morning. When I spoke with Cassandra and told her about Maybe, she told me they were already on the hunt to add three more junior editors to their staff. I knew they’d be the kind of stepping stone we’d need to get us any other place Maybe could dream up.
“Oh. Okay. Well…that’s great.”
I grin at her stapled-together, blandly polite response, and she rallies a little harder, thinking I want more from her. “I would be happy to have a job at a publishing house like Rainbow Press.”
“Yeah, but it’s not good enough to achieve your dream,” I tease slightly, and she shakes her head.
“No, it’s fine.”
I laugh. “I appreciate your attempt at being diplomatic, kid, but Rainbow Press is not where you’re going to end up.”
She tilts her head to the side, and I watch the way a few long locks of her hair slide across her shoulders. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth, and then finally, shrugs her defeat. “I’m confused.”
“Think of this interview as a practice interview,” I explain. “I’m certain you’ll get the job, but I don’t want you to actually accept the job.”
“Wait…” She pauses and searches my eyes. “You want me to go to this interview already knowing I’m not going to accept the job?”