Page 10 of My Surprising Valentine

As the evening wore on, the wine flowed—I opened another bottle—and the wall remained only half-painted, forgotten in favor of our spot on the floor. I found myself relaxing more than I had in weeks despite the flutter in my stomach every time Max laughed or looked at me a certain way.

“You know what’s funny?” I said after a while, my head feeling pleasantly fuzzy from the copious amounts of wine we’d consumed. “We’ve been friends for what feels like forever, but I feel like tonight I’m seeing you in an entirely different light.”

Max turned his head to look at me, and I realized just how close we were sitting. “Maybe you just never looked hard enough before,” he said softly.

My breath caught in my throat. “Or maybe you never let me,” I whispered back.

Something flickered in his eyes, and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought he might kiss me. But then his phone buzzedin his pocket, breaking the spell. He checked it and sighed. “I should probably go. Early meeting tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to ignore the disappointment that settled in my stomach. “Of course.”

We both stood up, a bit unsteady from the wine and sitting so long. As I walked him to the door, I was hyperaware of his presence behind me. “Wait, you’re drunk,” I said, turning to face him, the room continuing to spin even after I’d stopped moving.

Max chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not drunk.”

I scrunched up my nose, squinting at him to try and gauge the veracity of his statement. My drunk brain was having trouble processing this information—surely we’d both been drinking equally? That’s how sharing wine worked, right?

“But we drank almost two bottles,” I insisted, holding up my fingers and squinting at them. “And there are two of us. So that means …” I paused, my wine-addled brain attempting to solve what would typically be a straightforward equation. “That means you must have had …” I moved my fingers as I tried to count the typical number of glasses per bottle divided by two, eventually settling on, “At least several glasses. Many glasses. Math doesn’t lie, Max.” Giving up my count, I poked his chest for emphasis, but my depth perception was clearly off, and I stumbled forward. He caught me against his chest, his hands steady on my waist.

For a moment, we just stood there, my hands pressed against the spot where I could feel his heart beating just a little too fast for someone so composed. His fingers flexed against my waist, and I wasn’t sure if he was pulling me closer or preparing to set me back on my feet. The warmth of his body seemed to radiate through the thin material of my t-shirt where he touched me, and the woodsy scent of his cologne—something I’d come to associate exclusively with him—made my head spin even more than the wine did. I forced myself to breathe, but that was a mistake because now his scent was everywhere. It wasn’t until heshifted slightly that I noticed the slight tremor in his hands that betrayed his own unsteadiness. Whether it was from the wine or something else, I couldn’t be sure.

“Nope,” he muttered, more to himself than to me, shaking his head slightly. “Not going there.”

My heart stuttered at his words. Not going where exactly? And why did his voice sound so rough, so uncertain? Max Bennett was never uncertain about anything.

But before I could analyze his words further, he set me carefully back on my feet and took a deliberate step back, saying, “And for the record,youdrank most of that wine. I’ve only had two glasses.”

“I don’t know if I believe you,” I said, but my protest was half-hearted at best since I was way more intoxicated than I should have been if we’d actually split the wine evenly. “But thank you for coming by,” I added, my voice softer than I intended. “And for the attempt at painting.”

Max smiled, and my heart did that annoying flip thing again. “Anytime, Hannah.” He hesitated briefly, then reached out and brushed something off my cheek. “I’m looking forward to being your plus-one.”

Before I could second-guess myself, I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. His skin was warm beneath my lips, and I caught another whiff of his intoxicating cologne. “Me too,” I whispered.

Max’s eyes lingered on mine for a moment longer than necessary, that same unreadablesomethingflickering in them again. Then he cleared his throat and took a step back. “Get some sleep. And drink some water.”

“Yes, Dr. Bennett,” I teased, though the words came out a bit breathier than I’d intended. Max was the Chief of Pediatric Oncology at the largest hospital in Boston. Given our complementary professions, we often teased each other by usingour work titles, but something about the way the worddoctorslipped from my lips just now felt less like play and more like foreplay.

His eyes glimmered, and he shook his head with a soft laugh before heading down my condo’s interior public hallway. I watched him until he disappeared around the corner, then closed the door and leaned heavily against it, my heart racing. The room was still spinning slightly, but now I couldn’t tell if it was from the wine or the lingering warmth of his skin against my lips.

“You are in so much trouble,” I said to myself, sliding down to sit on the floor. The ghost of his smile played in my mind, along with the way his hands had felt on my waist, steady and sure even as my world tilted on its axis.

Rule number four, I thought to myself as I pressed my cool hands to my flushed cheeks:Don’t you dare let him find out you’ve been in love with him for years.

But sitting there in my entryway, the scent of his cologne hanging in the air, I wondered how much longer I could keep pretending my heart didn’t race every time he smiled at me or that I hadn’t memorized the sound of his laugh years ago, or that this whole fake dating scheme wasn’t just another way to torture myself with something I couldn’t have.

Chapter Five

A couple of nights later,Max’s feet were propped up on my coffee table as he lounged on my sofa, his thumbs flying over his phone screen. “Favorite ice cream flavor?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was holding back a grin as he stared down at his phone.

“Really? That’s what you think my family is going to ask you?” I shifted, tucking my feet beneath me. We’d been at this for over an hour, quizzing each other on random details in an effort to solidify our story.

“These are the kinds of things couples know about each other.” He finally lifted his head to look at me, a single eyebrow arched as if daring me to argue. “So?”

“Indian Summer,” I said with an eye-roll. “The one from Hodgies. It’s basically cinnamon, ginger, and molasses. Every year, I beg them to make it a regular flavor, but the teenage boys behind the counter just shrug and say they’ll pass along the request.”

Max’s lips twitched again as he glanced down and typed something else into his phone. “See? I didn’t know that. Iwould’ve guessed pumpkin pie, the one with the graham cracker pieces in it.”

“Oh, I love that one too. And peppermint stick.”

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