Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I lean forward and whisper lowly, “Says someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to be valedictorian.”
“Just admit it,” he says, “you don’t have a favorite color. It’s sad.”
“It’s silver,” I retort.
He nods a couple times, his own smile appearing, and just as he goes to speak, the waitress brings out two Fizz Lifes, a plate of loaded potato skins, and basket of French fries.
He stares off for a long second, lost in his head.
I wad a straw’s paper and toss the tiny ball at his face. It hits him square in the forehead, and he wakes up to glare at me.
He asks, “Do you know mine?” His favorite color.
“Orange.”
“You actually Google-searched me,” he says it like he caught me jacking off.
I almost laugh. “Man, you have a mom who buys orange plastic silverware and plates for any Maximoff-Hale-related event.” I count off my fingers, starting with my thumb. “Which includes your sixteenth birthday party, your prep school graduation—”
“Alright.” He cringes. “You knew me when I was sixteen. I get it. The world gets it—”
“The world doesn’t care that I was at your sixteenth birthday.”
He flips me off with one hand and grabs a potato skin with his other. He gestures at me with the potato skin. “Eat. Stop staring at me.”
“Not until you admit that I know you better than a Google search.”
Maximoff pauses eating, just to quiz me, “Why don’t I date anyone, Farrow?” That’s not a fact available on the web, and it’s also something he’s kept private from me.
“You’re not into relationships,” I guess.
“Not because I wouldn’t want to be. I just can’t.”
I shake my head. “I don’t follow.”
“I’ll never be in a relationship,” he tells me flat-out. “I’ll never experience any kind of romance beyond a one-time hookup. Because once I date someone in public, media will hound them to the point of intrusion, vulnerability—I won’t ever subject someone to an extreme loss of privacy that they’ll never get back. I’ve accepted that this is my life, and I’m satisfied with that.”
My brows ratchet up. “You’re not satisfied. You’re just resigned.” Before he protests, I ask, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to hold someone’s hand romantically? To see them in your bed two nights in a row? Cook breakfast the next day, share clothes, wake them up before work? You’ve never imagined that?”
Maximoff shakes his head once. “I can’t.”
“That’s sad.” Because he wants to desire those things, but he’s not even allowing himself that.
And no one else among the Hales, Cobalts, or Meadows would sacrifice the possibility of a relationship just to protect their significant other from the media.
Only him.
“What about dating privately?” I ask.
“No. If I can find someone to trust for longer than one night, they’d be all over the news every time I was spotted with them. Especially if I let them meet my siblings.”
I’m the exception to that. Our eyes meet, and that fact passes between us. He clears his throat and reaches for his Fizz Life, the world’s most popular diet soda.
“Give it here.” I gesture for the glass. He has a rule about ordering drinks. #45: sip all my drinks first. I don’t trust bartenders.
He slides over his Fizz Life and takes a moment to eat another potato skin.
I swig his drink. No alcohol. “It’s good.” I slide the Fizz Life back.
Maximoff Hale doesn’t drink alcohol. He never has. It’s public knowledge that alcoholism runs in his family, and he chose to be sober. Bartenders sometimes purposefully spike his drink. Hell, some people pay the bartender to do it.
Just to see a celebrity break sobriety.
Maximoff washes down his food with Fizz Life. Then he motions to me. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
I smile and eat a fry. “What’s with the twenty questions?”
“You can Google me. I can’t Google you.” He wants to be on equal footing.
Okay. I swig my own drink. “My favorite childhood memory is the only memory I have of my mother.” He’s aware that she died from breast cancer when I was four.
Maximoff holds my gaze strongly.
“I can’t distinguish her features, but I can hear her silky voice as she says my name. That’s all, just my name.”
Farrow.
She named me. And she could’ve picked Edward Nathaniel Keene after my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, all the men in a long legacy before me, but she chose differently. Apparently she loved the old film version of The Great Gatsby, and she named me after the two lead actors.
Mia Farrow.
Robert Redford.
And I’m a Keene.
I recognize how special and unique Maximoff’s name is too. His parents also named him after something they love, and it’s why neither of us ever use our names in banter—and why I’m trying to honor whatever the hell he wants me to call him.
He nods a couple times, appreciative that I told him that story.