Fifteen more minutes, and we’re finally home free, heading for the four empty chairs at the table at the end of the runway. Our fashion industry co-hosts are already there, next to Henry and Vicky Locke. I go over and shake hands with Vicky, and then I clap a hand onto Henry’s shoulder. “So good to see you,” I say. And I mean it. Henry and I became friends while we worked together on rehabbing the studio complex. His foundation is involved in a big way with this night. In fact, the Lockes’ favorite animal shelter is this year’s charity.
Parker leans across the table and says something to Henry.
I feel something brush against my leg—once, then again, with more deliberation.
A wave of surprise comes over me; it can only be Vicky Locke, who’s seated directly on my right. Is she rubbing my leg by accident? It has to be by accident. She’s mad about Henry.
I angle away, but there it is again.
“I’m sorry, that must’ve been my leg,” I say to her.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“I think…our legs.”
“Oh!” She ducks under the table, bringing up a little white dog wearing a bejeweled bow tie. “Smuckers! What are you doing?” She gives me an apologetic look. “I hope it’s okay that he’s here.”
“Of course!” I ruffle his furry little head.
“We’re raffling off his diamond bow tie collar,” she says. “He’ll be modeling it later on. He’s the spokes-dog for this charity.”
“Spokes-dog,” I say. “A vital role.” It’s a little bit silly, because, really? Spokes-dog? But Henry Locke beams at his wife.
She grins back over at him, and I’m blown away by the affection they have for each other. The sense of their mutual acceptance and support. Something dark ripples through my chest.
The music starts up and models come walking out. Everybody’s showing their playful collections—this isn’t a hugely serious show. A few rounds in, Lana has bicycle messengers riding around the catwalk with her purses.
I order another drink. The night is going to be interminable.
27
Go ahead and choose a hot one. If you work my system right, you can have her.
~THE MAX HILTON PLAYBOOK: TEN GOLDEN RULES FOR LANDING THE HOTTEST GIRL IN THE ROOM
* * *
MIA
Kelsey lines up my Meow Squad co-workers and friends by height and hands out the squares. Jada adjusts our sequinned ears. Sienna complains about her letter. “Can’t I be the ‘L’?”
“You’re the ‘Y,’” Kelsey says. “The ‘Y’ is important.”
I give some last-minute instructions. The same ones I’ve given a dozen times already.
I’ve been in a lot of shows, done countless auditions, but I’ve never felt so nervous, never felt like so much was at stake.
“Flip over the squares when I give the signal,” I say.
“Breathe.” Jada loops an arm over my shoulder. “You got this.”
I’m not so sure. “What if he’s just…annoyed? There’s a good chance of it.”
“I promise you, he won’t be annoyed,” Kelsey says.
“Angry, then.”
“You don’t know until you try,” Kelsey says. “You’re scared right now, but you thought up this scheme when you weren’t scared. Your bravest self thought up this scheme. Trust that girl.”
“That girl wasn’t thinking about the downside. Max hating it. What have I done?” I wrap my arms around myself. “This could be the high school lunchroom all over again,” I say.
“We can still pull out,” Jada says.
“What?” Sienna complains. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nobody’s pulling out.” Kelsey claps three times. “Walk-out positions.”
“What if I created this just to punish myself?” I say to her.
“Then I’ll get you a year’s supply of Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes. Okay? And we’ll dance it all off when we land Anything Goes.”
I barely hear her. I’m back in that lunch room, flat on my face with spaghetti all over me. “I seriously think I might throw up,” I say. “I really think I’ve created my worst nightmare.”
28
Love ruins a man. Just walk away.
~THE MAX HILTON PLAYBOOK: TEN GOLDEN RULES FOR LANDING THE HOTTEST GIRL IN THE ROOM
* * *
MAX
The show really is interminable.
And then the strangest thing. A pair of women come down the runway, arms linked. They’re wearing cat suits. Matching sparkly ears. Aprons.
It takes a while for me to process that this is the Meow Squad uniform.
I turn to Parker. “What is Meow Squad doing up there?”
Parker shrugs.
Only businesses that donate get to do a turn, and they’re supposed to be modeling clothes.
“Meow Squad made a huge last-minute donation to the shelter,” Vicky says. “Well, it makes sense. Meow Squad, cats, right?”
Another pair of women walk out. And then another pair. They stop in a clump at the center of the catwalk. I recognize Kelsey and Jada there.
And then Mia strolls out, boldly owning the catwalk in the uniform she despises. Her cheek glow pink with high emotion, a fighter to the end.
“She hates that uniform,” I mumble to nobody in particular. “What is she doing? She hates being seen in it.”
As if that’s the issue.
The women have squares with letters on them. They run around and get into formation, spelling L-O-V-E Y-O-U.
“How sweet is that!” Vicky says. “Look, Smuckers! Meow Squad loves us.”
I stand, heart thundering.
Kelsey and Jada hoist Mia up above them, cheerleader style, holding her feet.
She holds up a lone letter— “I”—and gazes down at me. I can barely process it. Her up there, hanging her heart out. Opening herself up.
I love you.
Waiting.
And no way will I leave her standing there. I’m moving before I can even think about it. I jump up onto the stage.
I nearly have a heart attack as she begins to free-fall backwards, but her friends catch her neatly and bounce her to the floor in front of them.
Dancers.
I go to her. “Mia, what are you doing?”
“I wasn’t sure if you were getting the letters. Or my texts,” she says.
“So this is what you came up with?”
“I was an idiot. I love you—that will never stop. I need you to know.”
A hush falls over the room—people are straining to listen, but the only sound I can hear is my pulse, banging in my ears. “You decided to make it into a spectacle. At my fashion show.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think this through,” she says, eyes shining with unshed tears.
I go to her. I cup her cheeks, only vaguely aware of the applause this seems to spark. “No, you didn’t think it through. You just went for broke. You shot for the stars. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
And then I kiss her. The applause turns deafening.
I pick her up and whirl her around. I don't care that everybody’s watching.
The music changes and she laughs into the kiss. “Let me down, the next group needs to come out,” she says.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, kissing her again. “I love you.”
“You still do?”
“Like I ever stopped,” I say.
Somehow we’re off the stage. Parker’s scrounged up an extra chair. I’m a little disappointed; I would’ve preferred her on my lap.
She sits and says hi to Vicky. It turns out that they’ve met—her old roommate Lizzie is a mutual friend.
The show continues on. I remember nothing.
Just the warmth of Mia’s hand in mine. The wonder that I feel when I look at her.
The way I never want to let her go.
Epilogue
Six months later
* * *
MIA
I’m touching up my makeup one
last time while a guy from wardrobe reinforces a hem on my Reno Sweeney pants.
“Bad luck to wear something that’s being sewn on me,” I say. “And I don’t even care. I feel impervious.”
“You are impervious,” Kelsey says. “We are impervious.”
She and I slap pinkies.
It’s like a dream, being in the show together. We’re pretty sure it’s going to get extended, too. Ticket sales have been through the roof.
The stage manager calls out the ten-minute warning.
Kelsey sees something over my shoulder and her eyes crinkle with glee. “Don’t look now.”
Of course I look. It’s Max, coming through the crowded dressing room with an armful of roses.
I stand. “How’d you get in here?”
“I'm Max freaking Hilton, baby.”
“He’s Max freaking Hilton,” Kelsey says.
I snicker. It’s an inside joke with our group to say that and tease him about it.
But when we’re all hanging out together, we get the real Max Hilton, not the one who drives a Ferrari and spends his days looking pensively over Mediterranean cliffs.
We get the Max who teaches piano and does laundry and remembers people’s birthdays. And is a great friend.
And an even better boyfriend.
“No kissing Reno,” the stage manager says, pointing at Max. “No, no, no.”
“You’ll muss my makeup.” I breathe in the scent of the flowers, so rich and sweet. “Thank you.”
“Nervous?” he asks.
“It’s opening night,” I say.
He leans in. “But are you, really?”
I bring my lips close to his, wishing so bad I could kiss him. “I’ve been training for this all my life.”
He kisses the top of my head, and I’m sure he gets a face full of hairspray smell. “I’ll be out there,” he says.
* * *
THE SHOW IS AN ABSOLUTE HIGH. There’s no other way to describe it.
I can feel the audience soaring during the peaks; I can feel them swooning when the romance story takes off. Their cheers after our first big tap number fill my chest to the brim.
Most of all, I can feel Max out there, true North in the darkness.
I wait in the wings after the big final dance number as the members of the cast go out to receive applause, starting with the small roles—the sailors and passengers—and working up to the leads.
I catch sight of my parents in the front, right next to Max. It’s beyond thrilling to have them in on opening night.
Finally it’s my turn. I go out with my co-stars. We grab hands and bow as a foursome. The applause feels like starlight.
Max and I take my parents out to dinner at The Four Seasons. The two of us tend to prefer low-key restaurants these days, and he’ll even indulge my passion for diners, but it’s special for my folks. After we drop them at their hotel, we head to The Wilder Club.
Kelsey and Antonio have gotten there early; they’ve staked out our gang’s favorite booth, snuggled up together in the corner of it.
“You sure you want company?” Max asks as we walk up.
“Sit,” Kelsey says.
Max and I slide in. The guys start talking about how great we are, retelling the high points of the show from the perspective of the seats. Just shamelessly stroking our egos.
Drinks come and they keep on.
I catch Kelsey’s gaze and grin. She puts up her pinky, and I put up mine. Long-distance pinky slap.
The four of us double-date a lot. It’s been a total blast. We’re planning a picnic in the park on Monday, and it’s supposed to be perfect weather. I’m bringing the sandwiches.
I’ll be throwing in some cheesy puffs.
Max knits his fingers into mine. “Seriously killed it,” he says.
“And anybody who says otherwise will find the end of my blade,” Antonio jokes.
Jada arrives in full sparkle mode with a couple of other friends. They all shove in. “Are you talking dirty, Antonio?” Jada asks.
Antonio snorts.
Parker comes with another guy; the booth gets so crowded, I have to sit on Max’s lap. Which I don’t mind at all.
When we get back to Max’s place, there are vases of roses everywhere, and champagne on ice on the table.
What is this? I say.
“I wanted to celebrate.”
“I didn’t know! We could’ve left Wilder hours ago.”
He comes to me, begins unbuttoning my shirt. “I wanted to stay. We have a lifetime to celebrate.”
My belly flip-flops. A lifetime. “If you think you’re going to get some action, you’re right.”
He already has my shirt off. “You really were so amazing.”
I’m pushing off his suit jacket. “Action getting more likely.”
Eventually, we’re ripping off each others clothes and throwing them everywhere. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but I’ve never wanted him so badly.
I scream and laugh when he hauls me over his shoulder and carries me to his bed.
He throws me down and crawls over me, and we make love by the moonlight.
Later we’re just lying there, looking out over the city. He wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about amending the grade for your tower to five stars.”
“I want ten stars. What do I have to do for ten?”
“Hmmm,” I say with a mysterious smile. “Good question.”
He growls and flips me over on my back and looms over me with that half grin.
Then he kisses me.
And I think that there are not enough stars.
* * *
THANK YOU FOR READING MAX & Mia’s story! I hope you enjoyed reading about them as much as I loved writing about them.
* * *
OMG - the little dog I adopted turns out to be a billionaire! That's right, my tiny dog inherited a jerky bad-boy billionaire’s entire company…and he is not amused!
Are you ready for more romantic comedy? Don’t miss Most Eligible Billionaire!
“I can't remember the last time a book sucked me in like this…the experience of reading this book - transcendent! There aren't words.”
~Book Girl
* * *
TURN the page for a peek at Most Eligible Billionaire!
MOST ELIGIBLE BILLIONAIRE SNEAK PEEK!
VICKY
* * *
I’M SMUGGLING a tiny white dog named Smuckers into a Manhattan hospital to see his owner, Bernadette Locke. Thanks to a standing appointment at a chandelier-draped dog salon on Fifth Avenue run by a woman who ostensibly loves dogs but might secretly hate them, Smuckers’s facial fur is blow-dried into such an intense puff of white that his eager black eyes and wee raisin of a nose seem to float in a cloud.
There are three things to know about Bernadette: She’s the meanest woman I ever met. She believes I’m some kind of dog whisperer who can read Smuckers’s mind. (I can’t.) And she’s dying. Alone.
The people in her condo building will probably be glad to hear of her passing. I don’t know what she did to earn their hatred. That’s probably for the best.
Bernadette has a son out there somewhere, but even he seems to have washed his hands of her. There is a photo of the son on Bernadette’s cracked fireplace mantel, a toddler with a scowly little dent between fierce blue eyes. Surrounded by people, the little boy manages somehow to look utterly alone.
Back when Bernadette got her terminal diagnosis, I asked her if she’d told her son and whether he might finally come to visit. She brushed off the question with a contemptuous wave of her hand—Bernadette’s favorite way of responding to pretty much anything you say is a contemptuous hand wave. He won’t be coming, I assure you.
I can’t believe he wouldn’t visit her, even now. It’s the ultimate dick move. Your mother is dying alone, jackass!
Anyway, put all of that in a pot and stir it and you have the strange s
oup of me clicking past a guard, smiling brightly—and hopefully dazzlingly—enough that he doesn’t notice the squirmy bulge in my oversized purse.
Smuckers is a Maltese, which is a toy dog that’s outrageously cute. And Smuckers is the cutest of the cute.
Smuckers and Bernadette Locke made a notorious pair out on the sidewalk in the Upper West Side neighborhood where my little sister and I have our very sweet apartment-sitting gig.
I remember them well. Smuckers would attract people with his insane fluff-ball cuteness, but as the hapless victim drew near Bernadette would say something insulting. Kind of like the human equivalent of a Venus flytrap, where the fly is attracted to the beauty of the flower only to be mercilessly crushed.
Locals learned to stay away from the two of them. I tried—I really did.
Yet here I am, slipping down another chillingly bright hospital hallway, smuggling the little dog in for the third time in two weeks. It’s not on my top ten list of things I want to do with my day. Not even on my top hundred, but Smuckers is Bernadette’s only true friend. And I know what it’s like to be hated and alone.
I know that when you’re hated, you sometimes act like you don’t care as a survival method.
I push into the room. “We’re here,” I say brightly, relieved no medical personnel are around. While Smuckers enjoys being in a purse, he prefers to ride with his head out, like the fierce captain of a pleather airship. Needless to say, he’s achieved maximum squirminess. I take him out. “Look, Smuckers—your mom!”
Bernadette is half propped up on pillows. Her skin is sallow and her hair sparse, but what hair she has is energetically white. Her eyes flutter open. “Finally.”
She has a tube in her arm, but that’s all. They’ve taken Bernadette off everything except morphine. They’ve given up on her.
“Smuckers is so excited to see you.” I go over to her bed and set Smuckers next to her. Smuckers licks Bernadette’s fingers, and the love that comes over Bernadette’s face makes her look soft for a moment. Like a nice woman.
Breaking the Billionaire’s Rules Page 20