Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(52)

“What do the little people do?” I tease.

“I’m serious. I want to know.”

I shrug. “Order pizza and watch a movie. Or, for going out, there’s this old-school bar down on 47th that a lot of my gang goes to. They have this amazing juke box and you just sink into these booths. A lot of theater people go to it, and there are certain nights where, if you’re there after midnight, you can find out that, yes, these tables are sturdy enough to dance on.”

“I love it.”

“It is. Or we go to shows. A lot of comp tickets floating around. There’s also, you know, the park. Park dates.”

“Yes,” he says.

“Is this what your dates look like?” I look around. “The Plaza and Four Seasons?”

“I usually go low key,” he says. “But I feel celebrational.”

I’m stupidly excited and trying not to grin too big. I feel celebrational, too.

He adjusts his fork. “Parker apologizes, by the way.”

“So he thought it would be…funny?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It was messed up, and he should’ve told me.”

“I can’t believe you guys stayed friends all these years. I bet he’s a good business partner—he always was kind of an operator.”

Max beams at me. “He still is. You have no idea.”

“Remember when he was always starting those wacky businesses he’d try to get everyone involved in? The dance mob birthday business. Or that guerilla serenading YouTube channel? Getting kids to serenade jaywalkers and things?”

“He almost got hit a few times off that. He’s lucky he didn’t.” We laugh about Parker businesses.

The scones come. They’re warm, served with clotted cream. I nearly die of bliss.

“Right?” he says.

“They’re almost as good as a pork roll sandwich from Mort’s Diner back home.”

“Mia.” His tone is warning.

“What? Have you ever tasted one?”

“Are you talking about that fried ham stuff that you get in a can? Tell me you’re not.”

“Taylor ham, and it’s amazing. Though these little cucumber things? Giving the pork roll a definite run.”

We try the different sandwiches. It’s like we’re right back how we were that summer. The way we go together, it feels like we were forged in the same oven, pieces from the same set that got separated, and now we’re back, but better, because Max is all grown up, and there are exciting new sides of him.

The song changes. It’s background classical music, but it’s not background-ish for Max. It’s a song he once played really well. I secretly watch his expression. He probably has opinions on this version. I can see the knowledge in his eyes, following the notes. He could play it backward and forward. Back then, anyway.

“Why’d you quit, Max? With the music? Not that you haven’t done obnoxiously well for yourself and all. But you were so good and you left it behind.”

“You said I attacked the keyboard like Terminator.”

“That’s not answering the question.”

He turns his champagne glass in the light, studies the bubbles. “It wasn’t for me.”

“You had to get to the most elite level of musicianship to realize music wasn’t for you?”

There’s a beat where I think he might not answer. Then he says, “I always knew I hated it.”

The admission hits me in the gut. I think back to him bent over that keyboard, working so hard. Did he hate it all that time? “I’m sorry,” I say, bewildered. “You hated it?”

“Ferociously.”

“Something that you did like eight hours a day.”

“You’re supposed to be miserable in high school, right?” he asks. “Isn’t that a rule?”

“I kind of can’t get over it. You were in a performing arts school and you hated performing.”

“Not all performing.”

Oklahoma! I think it like it’s a lost thing. Maybe it is. “You liked Oklahoma!.”

“I loved it. That summer…I’d always loved that music. I mean, I never had the chops for doing it professionally, but I loved it. Maybe that’s part of why I loved it. And then for them to put us together.”

“Why didn’t you just go over to the theater side? Max, you were having fun up there. They probably would’ve let you.”

“My folks would’ve pulled me out of that school so fast. You don’t know. I could’ve been snorting coke and making bombs, and they wouldn’t have pulled me out as long as I was performing at an elite lever, but show tunes? The seventh ring of hell.”

“It’s pretty far from Mozart, I guess.”

“Classical music is the Miller family business.” He tips his silver butter knife this way and that, playing with the reflection. “If I’m honest, I liked what came with the child prodigy status. It was an instant place on top of the food chain.”

“Like being star quarterback,” I say. “You get all the popularity for being good at some game.”

A group seems about to approach us. Max uses his knife to cut a scone, and the group fades off. “See that? They usually won’t talk to you if you have food in front of you. Unless they’re complete assholes. FYI.”