In another note, I tell him more about that day in the lunch room. How I’d bought a dress for homecoming dance against the advice of all my friends, but I’d just felt like everything was magical with him, with us.
I still feel like that, I write. I won’t stop this. I won’t stop fighting for us. You said you messed up that day, but I messed up, too. Half the responsibility was mine back then. I’m going to fight for us now in a way I didn’t back then. You said I don’t give up on my dreams. You should know I won’t give up on us.
Another day is an open-faced bao—a steamed bun sandwich—filled with tender and fatty pork belly, topped with spicy relish, crushed peanuts, and Taiwanese red sugar. I tell him about the way his face looked in the dim light of his Studio Complex on New Year’s Eve. How connected I felt with him, like we’re two pieces of a puzzle.
25
Surround yourself with interesting people. Get them talking and laughing.
~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room
* * *
Max
I open the note in the lunch she sent up.
“You want to me to leave you?” Parker asks.
“I know what it says.” I fold it back up.
“That smells amazing. Are you gonna eat it?”
I push it his way. I really should eat. It’ll be a long night with the Catwalk for a Cause happening.
He grabs it and unwraps it. “How long are you going to string this out?”
“I don’t know. How long does a person sleep with somebody, and at home she has his picture full of darts? And a wall-sized chart plotting vengeance?”
“Dude, you’re talking to a guy who had a picture of Britney Spears wearing a snake on his wall well into his twenties. And it stopped being sexy when I was fifteen. People leave shit on their walls.” He takes a bite. “Oh my god,” he mumbles.
I go to the window, look down at the bench where she sat all that day. So many times I stood looking at her.
“It feels too late.”
Parker’s in a stare-off with his sandwich, like he’s stunned at its goodness. “You sure?” He takes another bite.
“It wasn’t just the fact of the picture and the chart, though that was bad enough. It was the shock of it after what I’d told the group of them. I mean, I’d just spilled my guts, right in front of her friends. About fucking pining over her. Loving her from afar. I laid it all out on the table—things I’d never told a living soul.”
“You got blindsided, no question,” he says.
I press my hand to the window. “I couldn’t believe what I was confessing to. It was like shoving a knife in my gut and bleeding out on stage. Right there in front of Mia and four complete strangers. But in a strange way, it felt good to bare my soul to them. I wanted them to see how I felt. And then the next thing I know, my face is covered in darts. Like I’m Satan over there.”
“I would’ve felt blindsided, too. And I don’t have issues.”
“We all have issues,” I say.
“You’re not good with vulnerability. How about that?”
I give him a hard look.
Parker raises his hands. “You’re not. Have you heard a recording of the way you used to play piano? Have you read the Hilton Playbook lately?”
I pick up the note. Read it over again, then I put it in the drawer with the others.
26
Go ahead and make her compete for your approval. Remember, you are in control.
~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room
* * *
Max
Parker and I head to the auditorium at seven. We’ve put a lot into this; I really want it to be a success. It’s not just about polishing my image. The city’s best designers have gone all out donating clothes. The models have donated their time. Maximillion employees have solicited donations from businesses and vendors for the raffle. We’ve got some surprise models lined up for turns on the catwalk—comedians and musicians, mostly.
I go back to check on the Maximillion team of models. We’re trotting out the Vicious line tonight. Of course, the designers have things under control.
I’m not surprised; I’ve built the business by putting good people in place and letting them run with their ideas; checking on them is really just a formality. A way of showing them I’m right there with them. A way of trying to get my mind off of Mia, even though everything makes me think of her, right down to the snarky expression on her face that day she heard we had a fashion line called Vicious.
I head back through the front past the catering staff, thinking about her little notes. The sandwiches that she chose. I gave Parker every last one of the sandwiches. Like enjoying them might be dangerous, somehow.
I check on the team of event planners, whose base of operations is off to the side of the giant space. Everything’s running like clockwork just when I could use a disaster. The place looks great, though; a vast spread of candlelit tables beneath chandeliers and streamers. Guests in tuxedos and gowns are starting to arrive, moving through the sea of elegance like exotic fish.
Parker comes up and hands me a drink. “We gotta get over to the captain’s table—the show’s gonna start.”
It won’t start for twenty minutes, but there are lots of dressed-up people between here and there, which means photos. It’s easier to say no to photos when it’s somebody else’s event.
I make my way over, posing for pictures and saying Max Hilton things, being the carefree playboy who exists in the glittering two dimensions of screens and billboards and camera lenses.
It was almost enough for a while.
Lana comes up and hugs me. She’s with her real boyfriend, a man who’s allergic to public events. I shake his hand, thank him for making it. Everybody looks amazing.
That, too, makes me think about Mia, declaring herself more beautiful and fascinating than the models in my pictures. With enough force that you could almost think she believes it.