Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(18)

His eyes glitter. “It is what I need, Mia. Thank you.”

It is what I need, Mia. Thank you.

Millennial Dean Martin, thinking he’s ending our rivalry once and for all in a blaze of glory that leaves me eating his dust.

Eating the dust of his dust. Uh!!

With perfectly steady hands, I take the sandwich from the bag and set it aside. I form the bag into a placemat in front of him. Meow Squad is an eco-friendly place where we repurpose the packaging when possible—there’s a whole training video on it, but I’m taking it further. I’m smoothing it down with an extra fussy flourish, like he’s such a ridiculous person to have requested a layout. I’m also taking an obnoxiously long time.

I set his roast beef and swiss croissant sandwich upon the bag and pull up the four corners of the wax paper by the edges. The video doesn’t have you unwrap the sandwich, but how can I resist? I happen to know that Max is the kind of guy who gets annoyed by fussy inefficiency.

I get each of the wax paper corners to curl slightly outward, as if to say, look at how fussy your demands are.

“This is how you lay it out?”

“Shh.” I take the three mustard packets from the bag and arrange them to splay out from the upper left, like a small hat—a fascinator, if you will—for the sandwich.

Sir Ian McKellen himself couldn’t squeeze more mockery out of a performance if his life depended on it.

Max, of course, shows me nothing, unless you count the slight enlargement of one of his neck muscles, which I definitely do.

I set the chips down, pull my hands away and make a square with my thumbs and pointer fingers, as if to examine the presentation.

“Are you quite done?”

“No.” I reach back down and set the chips at a jaunty diagonal. “There we go.”

I look up and find him watching me sternly.

His pillowy lips twist.

My heart does a lightning-bolt zig zag.

“Or perhaps you’d prefer something more symmetrical,” I find myself saying. I line the mustards up, three soldiers in a row. It’s hilarious, what with his gaze so stern.

His expression is unreadable.

I proudly cross my arms, looking over this new arrangement. “Now we’re done.”

I sneak another look at him. There was a time when I imagined I could read him. I thought I knew his heart as well as my own. I thought he had a heart. But it was all a cynical joke. It was Max pretending to have a heart.

He frowns. “Did you forget something?”

“What?”

“Where’s my array?”

“You picked cheesy puffs. There they are.”

“That was yesterday,” he says.

My pulse pounds. Is he going to make me do it?

He wouldn’t.

But there he is, waiting. Cruel, perfect Max. He does the finger-twirl.

I grab the chips from their jaunty angle next to his sandwich and take them back to my cart and grab the other chips. I hold them up and list them off, knowing he’ll choose the cheesy puffs. The understanding rushes between us, strong as an ocean current.

I know, and he knows I know. I guess that’s what makes this fun for him.

“Very good. Now let’s see.” He folds his hands and rocks back. His gaze is palpable on my skin, a cool, smooth weight.

I grit my teeth, heart drumming inside me. But all he sees is my cool smile—I make sure of it.

Finally he speaks. “I’ll take the cheesy puffs.”

“Excellent choice.”

I see right now he’s going to make me show him the array every time. And he’ll choose the cheesy puffs every time. Even if he doesn’t want cheesy puffs, he’ll choose cheesy puffs, because that will upset me most.

It’s as if we’re connected by some horrible thread. Just like always.

I tuck the other chips back in the cart, wondering what he’d do if I smashed them. But I’m here to check off boxes, not to crush his chips. If I’m going to reverse-chase him, now is the time.

Even though it feels pathetic. Like spitting at a hurricane.

He smiles as I bring him his cheesy puffs. He’s so much more substantial now than he was in high school. Solid in places where he once was slight. Hard where he was soft. A bright and beautiful glacier, shining above the globe. A vicious, aggressive winner with a charmed life.

I focus on my girlfriends. I’m doing this for them.

“You know,” I say, placing the chips at a jaunty angle, “if you wanted to ask me on a date, there were easier ways than having me deliver your sandwiches.”

He stiffens slightly, looks at me quizzically. Did I manage to surprise the great Max Hilton?

I lower my voice. “I get that you wanted to bring me here in hopes that I’d see all of this…success of yours.” I say the word success with everything but the quote fingers. “Hoping that it would help your chances with me, but I’m sorry…you should’ve messaged me—”

“I brought you here,” he says.

“Yes, to ask me out, and I’m flattered, I want you to know that.” I act like I’m arranging things in my cart. “And maybe if things were different, my answer would be different…”

He looks baffled. Like the whole idea is ridiculous, and it is—he’s always been too good for me. He always made sure I knew that.