by Ellie Hall
“You’re incredible,” I say, my voice a soft whisper as I peer up at this man who feels so much more important than he was a day ago.
“That’s not all,” Max says. A little dimple forms in his cheek when he smirks. He holds up a remote control. “LED lights. They change colors.”
I watch as the lights overhead change from clear to blue, green, purple, pink.
“Leave it pink!” I say, basking in the soft glow of my favorite color. “It’s like a nightclub but without all the stupid people and lame music.”
“Should I leave?” Max jokes. “That way there’s no stupid people here?”
I roll my eyes, taking a step closer and pressing my hands to his chest. “You’re not stupid so you can stay.”
“Really?” he murmurs. I’m keenly aware of his hands lightly wrapping around me. “I thought you couldn’t stand me.”
I shrug. “I feel differently now.” My hands slide up his chest and settle on his shoulders. They have a mind of their own, these hands. Funny little things.
Seriously, what was in my Diet Coke?
I don’t know exactly how it happens. I swear I don’t. And if you ask me later, I will deny, deny, deny.
But it happens. I am kissing Max.
He leans down and I lift up and we hold each other, softly but surely, as our lips touch. I breathe in the smell of that cologne, taste the Dr. Pepper on his lips. His soft, perfect lips. Every single thought in my head disappears and the only thing that matters is this moment, kissing this gorgeous man under the pink glow of my porch lights, secretly hoping this moment will never end.
My best friend Annie changed my ringtone the day after Jason and I broke up. I had been a crying, blubbering mess. I was so upset I’d done the hardest thing a writer can do— deleted the romantic manuscript I was working on. It just didn’t feel right to keep writing about two fictional lovebirds in a fictionally happy relationship when I knew I was writing lies. In that moment, I’d felt like my career was over. That I’d never be able to write romance again, and I’d never sell another book, and my fans would dump me and I’d be the biggest loser ever.
Luckily, I found a new way to revive my career by writing anti-romance books. But before that fantastic idea, I was a mess. Annie did everything she could to cheer me up. She brought ice cream, pizza, candy, and even cleaned my condo for me from top to bottom. The ringtone thing was a joke. I usually keep my phone on silent, but tonight I’d turned the ringer on since my phone stayed in my room while I painted all day and I wanted to hear it.
So it’s right about now, when my toes are tingly and my body is melting to goo and my lips still feel warm from the kiss—the kiss!!—when Fate decides to smack me back to reality before this moment goes too far.
He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing his song
“What’s that?” Max asks.
“It’s my phone.” I roll my eyes as the cheerful music of Bobby Day’s famous song plays loudly through the house. Max’s arms slide away from my waist.
Rockin' robin tweet tweet tweet
Rockin' robin tweet, tweedle-lee-dee
“Do you need to answer that?”
I shake my head, biting my lip as waves of regret wash over me. “They’ll leave a message.”
“Cool.” He grins, leaning forward. “Where were we?”
My arms are around his neck before I know it, and my toes are lifting me up off the porch before I know it, and my lips—those freaking traitors—are on his lips before I know it.
It only takes half a second to fall back into this blissful moment, lit up by the glow of porch lights and framed by the beautiful midnight blue of the late-evening sky.
He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing his song
Like a bucket of cold water hitting me in the face, my phone rings again, ruining the moment, yet again.
“Ugh.”
I step backward, mentally shaking myself off.
“You should go answer that,” Max says. “Could be important.”
“Right,” I say, sucking in air through my teeth as I turn and rush into the house. My agent’s name lights up my phone screen. Oh wow. It really is important.
“Hello?” I answer, barely able to hear my own voice over the rush of my beating heart.
“Julie, I have fantastic news,” she says. “Sorry to call late, but it’s a big deal. Clark TV wants to interview you about your new book series!”
“Oh, wow!” I lean against the wall in my bedroom for support. “Seriously?”
Clark TV is the biggest entertainment channel. They have the number one entertainment podcast and cable show. This is big. This is huge.
“Yep. They’re sending a camera crew out and you’ll be interviewed by Zoey herself!”
“Sending a camera crew where?” I ask.
“To your address! How cool is that? You don’t even have to go anywhere.”
“Oh…”
“Make sure you play up the single thing,” my agent cheerfully drones on. “They love how you went from romantic to fierce single woman.”
Yep. Fierce single woman.
That’s me.
8
“I’m gonna throw up.” I grab my stomach and lean against the kitchen counter. It’s been five minutes since the call with my agent and I’m in full panic attack mode. The delicious Monte Cristo sandwich I had at the diner threatens to come right back up, and I have a suspicion it won’t be so delicious this time around. I grit my teeth and try to breathe, but it feels like hyperventilating instead of breathing.
Max’s hand touches my back. “Julie?”
“I’m fine,” I squeak out, pushing away from him and scurrying to my room. I fall on my bed and drag in air through my teeth. The nausea isn’t real—I’m not truly sick, but anxious and panicky and—
Holy crap did I kiss Max?
I roll onto my back and cover my hands with my face. My cheeks are hot. My heart is pounding. I lay like this for a long time, or maybe no time at all. How am I supposed to know? I’m too busy freaking out!
The next thing I know I’m waking up to the morning sunlight filtering in through my window. I’m still wearing the clothes I wore to dinner last night, which means my face is also sporting day-old makeup. Ew. My bladder screams at me to go pee, but peeing means leaving my room and leaving my room means facing Max and facing Max means remembering how I kissed him.
And I shouldn’t be kissing anybody. Not anymore, and never again.
I am an independent woman who does not make her money on romance novels anymore.
Oh gosh, my bladder does not care about my personal problems. Unless I want to completely humiliate myself by having some kind of accident like a toddler, I have to get up and face the music.
On my tiptoes, I prance my way to the door. This house is so new to me that I haven’t memorized which floorboards are squeaky and which will let me sneak around unnoticed. I make it to the hallway, and around my boxes of junk, without making a sound. I can’t hear Max’s tools or music, so hopefully he’s still asleep.
Once I’m in the bathroom, I pee like I’ve never peed in my entire life, and then I try to figure out where I go from here. I could cancel the TV interview, but that would be the dumbest career choice I’ve ever made. You can’t just turn down Clark TV.
I wash my hands and then brush my teeth. I really need a shower, but I’m too frazzled for that much hygiene so early in the morning. The only thing that would be more draining than a shower right now would be talking to Max.
I dry my hands on the bathroom towel and then open the door.
“Morning!”
Max sits on a lawn chair in the living room, a mug of coffee in one hand and an iPad in the other. He wears black sweatpants that look sexier than any pair of sweatpants should be allowed to look, and a gray T-shirt that hugs tightly to his well-defined chest. The man is a dreamboat even when h
e’s slummin’ it.
“You want some coffee?”
“Yes.”
I don’t even look at him as I walk past him to the kitchen where I pour myself a cup of blonde roast. Not looking only does so much. He’s still here. Still just a few feet away, looking like what the teenagers call a snack.
I tell myself not to get all loopy and drooly and heart-eye-emoji around him. But it doesn’t matter what my brain tells my heart—they are two fundamentally different organs and my heart seems to win out every single time. Throw me into a burning building and my brain will take over, knowing I should crawl down low, cover my mouth with a wet cloth to avoid breathing in toxic fumes, and get out as fast as possible.
But put me in a room with Max Spenser? I’m a goner, apparently. Too swoony-eyed and butterfly-stomached to function as a rational human being. My brain knows how to save me. My heart, well, I think that thing is working against me. It’s out to get me. It wants me to suffer.
Ugh, I’m so disgusted in myself I could scream. Maybe I should scream. Maybe screaming would help.
“You okay?” Max asks. “Looks like your mind is running on overdrive.”
I shrug and try to put on a passive, apathetic expression while I stir powdered creamer into my coffee. “I’m fine.”
“I think you’re lying.”
I look up at him. He offers me that soft, comforting smile of his. His smile always has a way of breaking through my hardened exterior. I feel myself melt a bit. Them I shrug it off and remember the problem at hand.
“So, here’s the thing,” I say. If I treat him like the guy who is remodeling my house instead of the guy I kissed last night, maybe I can solve two problems. “I’m going to be interviewed for Clark TV. They want to come to my house to set up their cameras and cushy chairs and stuff so Zoey can interview me.”
“Wow, that’s awesome,” Max says, his face lighting up. “I had no idea you were so famous.”
I shrug. “I’m not. Well… not before now. This is a big deal, and it’s a life changer for my career and,” I toss my hands up gesturing to the mess around us. “My house isn’t ready.”
“When is the interview?”
“Four days.”
Determination sharpens his features. He nods. “We can do it all in four days.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If we get to work now, we’ll be good. Appliances are almost here. I can take all the construction trash to the dumpster. There’s not much left.”
“That would be awesome,” I say, looking around and trying to visualize my house being done and shiny and perfect.
He stands, chugging the rest of his coffee in one gulp. I try to look away from his bicep, from the angle of his jaw, the coffee mug pressed to his lips.
“Let’s get to work.”
9
The appliances arrive the next day and Max helps the delivery guy hook them up in the kitchen. They look amazing, and even better—now I can put my cold food somewhere besides my neighbor’s house. Every time I swing by to get something from her fridge, she makes a comment about Max, as if she can’t understand why I’m not falling madly in love with him. I guess I have a good poker face.
The last of the paint touchups are done, thanks to my newfound skills as a painter. I may have suddenly forgotten how to write, but I can paint. We get all the light figures replaced with modern, sleek new designs, and the light switch and electrical outlet covers get replaced with crisp new ones. Max and I hang curtain rods and tail the address number onto the front of the house, just under the porch. We get everything cleaned up and Max even takes me to the furniture store and lets me use his truck to haul a new couch and some bedroom furniture. We get a cute kitchen table and chairs from a local thrift shop.
Max and I are up at six in the morning every day, working constantly, only taking a break for lunch and dinner, which we get at the diner. Everything comes together so quickly. My hallway boxes are easy to unpack once all the renovation clutter is gone. In just three short days, the house is ready. My house is ready. It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.
My new gray couch is as comfortable as it is beautiful. My artwork on the walls is a mixture of new stuff I found in town and the old stuff I brought with me. Max has been a huge help by driving me everywhere and letting me use the bed of his truck to haul all my new stuff. I’ve blown through pretty much all of the huge book advance I got for my new series, but it’ll be worth it if I look amazing in my TV interview.
To celebrate the house being done and the kitchen being functional, I cook us dinner on the third night after we’ve finished everything. It’s just a simple lasagna made from the recipe they print on the box of noodles, but Max can’t stop complimenting it.
“This is really good,” he says, his mouth full. He’s on his third piece of lasagna and he’s devoured half of the garlic bread. I wish I could eat like a man and stay as sexy as he is. If I were to say that out loud, he’d probably mention all those salads he also eats to balance out his diet. So I don’t say it out loud. I’m a junk food fiend for life, baby.
I shake the thought from my mind. Max is not allowed to be sexy. I can’t think that. I certainly can’t let my mind drift back toward that night when we kissed under the incredibly romantic lights he installed on my porch. The best part of staying so busy the last few days was that it gave me very little time to think about things I shouldn’t think about.
The worst part is that it’s been another three days and I haven’t written a single word for my new manuscript. I set my fork down, suddenly no longer hungry now that my stomach is in knots of anxiety. There is still so much work to do. How am I supposed to sit through my interview with Zoey and pretend I’m a professional author when I haven’t even started my new book yet?
“Thanks again for dinner,” Max says, reaching for another piece of garlic bread. “It’s been a long time since someone has made me a meal.”
“You deserve, like, five hundred homecooked meals for all the help you’ve been,” I say, forcing a smile while my mind is still worrying about my interview tomorrow.
“Nah,” he says, standing up and taking our plates to the sink. To my surprise, he starts washing them. I want to tell him not to worry about it, that it’s my house and my dishes and I’ll wash them but the sight of him standing there, all muscular and tanned skin from doing construction work, putting his talents to use in the kitchen is just so incredibly sexy.
My brain kicks on, my imaginary personification of it stands tall and pushes my heart out of the way. My brain works on overtime, trying so hard to tell my heart what it needs to hear: that crushing on Max will only lead to trouble.
“I can get out of here tonight,” Max says, after drying and putting away the dishes.
“Huh?” I’m so stuck in my own thoughts, I was only half paying attention and I’m not sure what he just said.
“I’ll leave tonight,” he clarifies, drying his hands on a dish towel. “With the renovations done, it’s all your house now.”
“Don’t be silly.” I wave my hand toward him. “It’s almost dark outside. You can stay tonight.”
“You sure?”
As sure as I want to kiss you again.
I keep my thoughts to myself and just nod.
“Max?”
It’s not until two seconds after I knock on his door that I realize what this looks like. It’s one in the morning, and I’m waking him up. Typically, that means one thing.
Typically, it doesn’t mean a panic attack.
“Julie?” His voice is groggy from sleep. “Come in.”
I probably shouldn’t go into his room, but I can’t stop pacing. My heart races. I need to talk to someone. Annie didn’t answer her phone this late at night, and I need to talk.
“I’m freaking out,” I say after lightly pushing open the door.
He sits up on his air mattress. He’s shirtless, and that’s not even phasing me right now, which is a testament to how much I’m
freaking out.
“I’m freaking out,” I say again while his eyes blink awake.
He stands, turning on the light. Concern darkens his features. “What’s wrong?”
My breathing is shallow. It feels like I’ve been running a marathon when all I’ve done for the last few hours is lay awake in bed. I open my mouth to talk but the words stick in my throat.
Finally, I think of something to say.
“Could you maybe put a shirt on?”
He smirks. “Sure.”
“Sorry,” I say, feeling the tension in my shoulders ease up just a bit. “It’s just…” I wave my hand in front of his chest. “Distracting.”
He smirks again. My knees get weak.
Then another wave of anxiety hits me and I remember why I’m in the middle of a panic attack.
“So what’s up?” he says, guiding me to the living room and sitting next to me on the couch.
“I’m freaking out.”
“I can tell,” he says, his gentle smile making my heart flutter.
I run my hands through my hair. “The interview tomorrow… I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can. You’ll be great.”
I shake my head. “No, I won’t. I’ll look like an idiot!”
“They chose you for a reason. They want you. That means you’re already qualified for it.”
I look down at my lap. “Maybe the old me would have been good, but not right now. I don’t even feel like a real author right now.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I haven’t written in weeks. I’m supposed to be halfway finished with my new manuscript by now and I don’t have any of it done. I’m a failure. I had success with a new book and now everyone expects more from me and I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can write the books they want me to write.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. He reaches up and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know anything about being a writer, but it sounds hard. What kind of book do they want you to write?”