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It was so like so Max would say to me, but delivered so differently, that for ato ache for hi, and whether he was presently looking at pictures of me spread out beneath him

"Seriously, Sara, I knew you had it in you," she added

"The thing is, I don’t really want another relationship And even if I did, I get the impression he isn’t really like that" I stopped before spilling too e Six, Chloe would absolutely knoho I h a stack of journals

"But he’s fun, Chloe And you kno things ith Andy"

She stopped sorting, but toyed with the corner of a page "Well, that’s the thing, Sare I don’t really I mean, come on; in the three years you and I have known each other, I only had dinner with you guys maybe five times I learned more about him from the papers than I did from any stories you told me You hardly ever talked about hi your family’s reputation to appear well connected andwholesouilt and eht "I know," I said, inhaling and letting it out again slowly It was one thing to iht out "I alorried that if I said anything about him to someone, it would be y Plus, eren’t like you and Bennett We didn’t have a lot of fun together by the time I met you Andy was a phony and an epic jerk and it tookon Friday was just fun"

Chloe looked up "Hey, it’s fine I kneas so like that" She turned back to another box "So this is good then, he’s not like Andy"

"Yeah"

"So you mean he’s into you"

"At least physically, which is fine for ht now"

"So what’s the problem? It sounds like the perfect situation"

"He’s kind of intense And I don’t really trust hi down the books in her hand, she turned to faceto sound really weird, but just hear me out, okay?"

"Of course"

"When Bennett and I startedwhatever it ere doing, I was determined that every time it happened it would be the last But I think I always kneould keep happening until it had run its course Luckily for us, I don’t think we’ll ever stop feeling e felt those first few times Even so, I didn’t trust him I didn’t really even like him Above all of it, he was hed, and following her gaze over to her desk, I saw that the first and only thing she’d unpacked so far was a picture of the two of them at the house in France where he’d proposed to her "But I think if I’d just given ht not have consu to know exactly what sheconsu it with Max, with the idea of Max But , or any other kind of power struggle It was the simple fact that I didn’t want to be anyone else’s butwith Max was insane and co I’d ever felt before--I was different--I liked it A lot

"I do like him," I admitted carefully "But I don’t think he’s boyfriend material In fact, I know he’s not And I aht now"

"Okay, so ether every now and then as fk buddies"

I laughed, pressing my face into my hands "Seriously Whose life is this?"

She looked at e was reading a newspaper in my office with his feet up onyourself to the bone?" I teased, sitting on the corner of e arrive, darling"

"You found it in the mailroom?"

He shook his head and lifted the parcel off his lap, waving it at ht add I had to sign for it and promise not to open it"

I snatched it froe to scra to tell me what it is?"

"I don’t have X-ray vision, and you are not going to be here when I open it Get out"

With a noise of protest, he kicked his feet offe for several ular shape of it beneath the padded envelope A frame? My heart jumped in my chest

Tucked inside were a wrapped parcel and a note that read,

Petal,

Open this with discretion It isa little as if I were on the verge of unleashing so up to ensure thatwhen I realized that it was indeed a frale photo: a picture of my stomach, and the curve of ertips were also visible at the botto ht spread acrossnearby, of the person wandering around the room just beyond the screen

He must have taken that picture just as he’d buried hi how it had felt when I caed into the wall and with the charge that would illuh ers, stroked ainst the intensity of it, but he’d growled, heldhips

I shoved the fra invine across my skin and I couldn’t even turn up the air, couldn’t open athis high in the building

How did he know?

I felt the weight of it pressing down on me, how much I’d wanted it to be a photo of us, how much I’d wanted to be seen He understood,to my desk, I sat down and tried to take stock of the situation But directly in front of e Six

There, se, was a story titled, Sex God Stella Goes Solo

The playboya little new Saturday night at MoMA

No, it wasn’t looking at art, and itmoney (let’s be honest: the as) Saturday night at his annual fund-raiser to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, Max Stella arrivedalone

When asked where his date was, he si she’s already inside"

Unfortunately for us, photographers were forbidden froet you next tie had put it here forto himself

My hands shook as I folded it and shoved it in a drawer Why hadn’t it occurred to rapher could have been in there? That there were no photographers in the event at all was a h Max had certainly known this, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t even thought to care

"Crap," I whispered I kneith sudden clarity, that this thing between us either needed to end absolutely, or I needed soht was a slippery slope, and I’d already dodged three bullets in my first week