so he wouldn’t stare.
Olivia asked questions as he wrote, and they chatted about food and Los Angeles and hotel horror stories. This fun, easy conversation was the most relaxed he’d been in months. How was it that someone like him, who spent all day every day talking to people, felt so lonely for personal connection, and so happy to have found it, if only for a little while? The whole time they talked, he was afraid she’d ask him what he did—he didn’t want to lie to her, but he also didn’t want to tell her the truth and break this spell. But while they talked about a lot of other things, she never asked him that, thank goodness.
“Anything else for either of you?” Krystal picked up their long-ago-drained coffee cups and the empty cookie plate.
Olivia shook her head and glanced at her wrist.
“Oh God, it’s after eleven. I didn’t realize it was so late. I’ll take the check, thanks, Krystal.”
Max sighed and nodded. This night had to end sometime.
“Me, too.”
They each signed their checks and walked together to the elevator. He pressed twelve; she pressed eight. They were silent for the first few floors.
He could see more of her now that they were off those bar stools. She was shorter than he’d assumed, with generous hips, that incredible chest he’d noticed before, and very sexy black high heels. She had a tiny smile that hovered around her soft pink lips. He wondered if it was about him.
He didn’t want her floor to come, he realized. He didn’t want her to get off. Right now he’d welcome a power outage, an earthquake, any emergency that would cause them to get stuck together in this elevator so he could spend a few more minutes talking to this woman who made him laugh, and relax, and who had no idea who he was. Maybe after that they’d go out for a drink on purpose. Maybe after the drink he’d pull her close, and kiss her, and she’d wrap an arm around his waist and kiss him back. And then maybe . . .
But the elevator kept moving.
“It was great to meet you, Olivia,” he said in a rush. “And welcome back to California.”
She smiled at him one last time as the elevator doors opened on her floor.
“Thanks, Max. Have a good night.”
The doors closed behind her, and he dropped his head in his hands. He’d lost all of his game in these past few years, hadn’t he? He’d spent hours chatting up a hot, smart, funny woman at a bar, and hadn’t even asked for her number? He’d written her a list of restaurants in Los Angeles, for God’s sake, and hadn’t even thought to put his number at the top of it? Or—what was wrong with him?—he could have asked for her email address to send her more restaurants, and then found a way to ask her out then.
He shook his head as he let himself into his room. This was the first woman who had sparked his interest in over two years, and he’d just let her get off the elevator? Sure, he was attracted to her for lots of reasons, but he also really missed having someone around who treated him normally—someone who made fun of him a little, laughed at him, was relaxed with him, in that way Olivia had been tonight.
He should have asked for her number.
Olivia shook her head as she walked into her hotel room. For a minute there in the elevator, she’d thought Max in the baseball hat was going to ask her out. And honestly, for a minute there in the elevator, she would have said yes. She hadn’t realized until they’d gotten in the elevator how tall he was. Or how nicely his T-shirt gripped his biceps. Or how warm those dark brown eyes of his were. Thank goodness her floor had arrived when it had. What was it about elevators, anyway?
It really was for the best that Max hadn’t asked her out. Sure, he could give good banter at a bar, but what in the world would she do on a date with a guy like him? She’d eventually have to ask him what he did, he’d say he was an actor, and then she’d have to ask him what he’d been in, and he’d say that one commercial and that other episode of Law & Order and she’d say, “Ohhh, that’s where I know you from!” And then he’d go