A few hours later, after more cupcakes than anyone wanted to admit and some suspiciously flirty side-eyes from Max, they closed the bakery early. Caroline declared it a "special occasion," and Max didn't argue because she was too busy trying to convince everyone that margaritas should be a food group.
Now, they were at a small, dimly lit Mexican place a few blocks away... one of those hole-in-the-wall joints that had won three awards and probably failed five health inspections.
Lilly sat at the table with a menu in front of her, but she hadn't read a single word. Her brain was doing gymnastics.
Lilly's thoughts:
Okay. So, let me get this straight. I'm at dinner with a man I am dating, who already has two girlfriends. One of whom has boobs that defy laws of nature, and the other is aggressively nice with the face of one of those sexy mags models and the caffeine level of a labrador on Red Bull. Cool. Cool cool cool.
She took a sip of her water, which tasted like regret and lemon.
Across the table, Max was mid-rant about how guacamole shouldn't cost extra because "avocados are just fat grapes and this is a scam," while Caroline enthusiastically nodded like Max was delivering a TED Talk.
Alex? Sitting beside her, looking like he was trying very hard not to enjoy how uncomfortable Lilly looked. His signature smirk had upgraded to smug levels.
"You okay there, champ?" he asked, voice low, leaning a little closer.
She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Oh, I'm great. Just trying to figure out how I ended up on a date with the Powerpuff Girls and the smug bastard who collects them."
Caroline perked up. "Ooh! Which one am I? I hope I'm Bubbles!"
Max snorted. "You're a blonde with high energy and no sense of self-preservation. You are Bubbles."
Lilly raised an eyebrow. "That would make you Buttercup?"
Max shrugged. "Only if Buttercup was bisexual and carried pepper spray."
Alex, for his part, just picked up a tortilla chip and said, "And I guess I'm Professor Utonium."
Max deadpanned. "More like Professor Ugh-don't-touch-me-I-have-issues."
Caroline choked on her margarita.
Lilly stifled a laugh. Against her better judgment, she was enjoying herself.
That was the confusing part. She wasn't being treated like Evangeline Freaking Lilly. No one was kissing her ass. In fact, Max had insulted her three times before appetizers. Caroline had already tried to set her up with a hot waiter "just in case this Alex thing doesn't pan out." And Alex? He was being... honest. Annoyingly honest.
Lilly's thoughts (again):
Is this what normal feels like? Like, weirdly functional dysfunction? What even is this dynamic? I don't know if I want to scream or stay forever.
Alex caught her staring at him and smirked. "Second thoughts?"
"About this dinner?" she asked. "Absolutely."
"About us?"
She paused. Us?
That one word sent her brain on a full spiral.
Max leaned back, sipping her drink. "You know, it's kinda cute watching you glitch."
"I'm not glitching," Lilly muttered.
"You're doing that thing," Caroline chimed in. "The 'I'm totally fine but I'm actually planning twelve exit strategies' thing."
Lilly slouched in her seat. "Why are you two like this?"
Max grinned. "Trauma, mostly."
Caroline added cheerfully, "And caffeine!"
Alex chuckled, finally reaching for Lilly's hand under the table. His fingers brushed hers, and for some reason, that small gesture made everything feel ten times more real. No flashing cameras. No red carpet. Just... messy humanity and cheap tacos.
Lilly's thoughts:
God help me, I think I like this. I think I like them. I think I might be willingly walking into a reality show plotline… and enjoying it.
She exhaled and looked around the table again. The chaos. The laughter. The fact that Max was trying to convince Caroline to enter a tequila-chugging contest with a table of construction workers.
And Alex, watching her with that look. That "I know you're still figuring this out, and I'm not going to push" look.
She reached for a chip.
"Okay," she said finally, voice steady. "Let's see where this goes."
Max raised her glass. "To chaos!"
Caroline raised hers too. "To unconventional love stories!"
Alex raised his soda. "To me being hot enough to justify all this nonsense."
Lilly clinked her glass last. "To me not running away screaming."
They all cheered, and for the first time all night, Lilly didn't feel like she was in someone else's story.
She felt like she was in her own.
And it was getting weirdly good.
...
Dinner spiraled.
It was supposed to be casual. Just food, a couple drinks, some light bonding.
Instead?
It turned into a full-blown comedy sketch with tequila-fueled background noise.
At one point, Max stood up, half-balanced on her chair, pointing at the mariachi band with a jalapeño in one hand and a chip in the other. "I swear, if they smug-tip those hats at me one more time, I'm throwing Caroline's margarita at them."
"They're just doing their job," Alex said, sounding like a teacher trying to reason with a raccoon.
"They're showing off, Moneybags!" Max snapped, eyes narrowing. "Synchronized hat-tipping is a power move and you know it."
Caroline was doubled over in laughter. "Max, please. Sit down before you try to wrestle the violinist."
Alex had slunk low in his seat, hoodie up like a man desperately pretending he wasn't part of this group.
Lilly leaned back in her chair, sipping lemonade and trying not to let her face crack into a full grin. There was something magnetic about Max's chaos and Caroline's bubbly commentary. It made her forget for a second that she was sitting in some bizarre romantic triangle. Or square. Or possibly a pentagon. At this point, geometry was a threat.
After they calmed down a bit...
"Okay," Lilly asked, narrowing her eyes. "Why do you keep calling him Moneybags?"
Max didn't miss a beat. "Because he's rich as fuck."
Caroline, mid-sip, nodded solemnly. "Filthy. Loaded. Like, cartoon-villain money."
Lilly blinked. "Okay, sure. But why that name? I mean, you could just call him, I don't know, babe? Honey? Boyfriend?"
Max scoffed like she'd just suggested using margarine instead of butter. "Pfft. Babe? That's too basic. Honey? Sounds like I'm baking. Boyfriend? Please." She leaned forward, lowering her voice dramatically. "Moneybags is who he is."
Lilly raised a brow. "Elaborate."
Max grinned, pointing a chip at her like a teacher about to drop a truth bomb. "He funded our dream. Like, fully. Took our sad little bakery concept and bankrolled the hell out of it. Bought the shop for us, and transferred it to our name. Paid the whole setup like it was pocket change. He even flew us to Tokyo for an awesome vacation and even bought too expensive gifts that cost more than my existence."
Caroline chimed in dreamily, "He even gave me an awesome foot massage that made me see the stairs of heaven for a moment."
"Oh, yeah. Then there are those magic fingers of his... I tell you, that man is a magician. Just you wait till you get your foot massage. You'll know what heaven looks like," Max chimed in.
Lilly froze, mid-sip.
Foot massage?
Heaven?
Max and Caroline both talking about "magic fingers" like they were reviewing a Michelin-starred spa treatment?
She looked at Alex, whose face had gone very still, like a man realizing too late that his girlfriends had just said something deeply inappropriate in front of the woman he was trying to date.
He cleared his throat. "Okay, let's maybe not make the foot massage sound like some kind of religious experience."
Caroline blinked innocently. "But it was."
Max nodded solemnly. "Yeah, don't cheapen it, Moneybags. That massage got a tight '9.9 on the spiritual awakening scale' from me."
Lilly blinked slowly. "Wait. Both of you got foot massages?"
Alex shifted in his seat. "It wasn't like that."
"Oh? So what was it like?" Lilly asked, coolly, arms crossing.
Max leaned forward, a mischievous glint in her eye. "You jealous?"
Lilly scoffed. "No."
Caroline gasped. "She's totally jealous."
"I'm not jealous," Lilly said again, louder this time.
"You're doing the thing again," Max said, pointing. "The glitchy eye twitch."
"I don't twitch!"
Alex finally sighed, rubbing his temples. "Okay, this is not how I pictured dinner going."
Max grinned. "How did you picture it going?"
"Less... foot talk," he muttered.
[15 minutes later...]
As the chaos mellowed into a hum of background salsa music and full bellies, the table finally started to settle. Caroline was slowly sliding down in her seat like a melted snowman, cheeks pink from one margarita too many. Max had confiscated a sombrero from the wall and was now wearing it with the proud air of someone about to get kicked out but hadn't quite pushed her luck far enough.
Alex, still nursing his soda like a designated adult, glanced at Lilly, who had gone quiet. Not uncomfortable-quiet. Just... processing.
Max, always the emotional sledgehammer, noticed.
"Uh oh," she said, eyes narrowing. "She's in Think Mode."
Caroline peeked from under her napkin-turned-blanket. "That's right before she spirals into Panic Mode."
"I'm fine," Lilly said, sipping her water (which still tasted like lemon and regret).
Max pointed her sombrero brim toward her like a detective closing in on a confession. "Liar."
Lilly opened her mouth to retort, but Alex stood up and tossed a few bills on the table. "Okay, chaos gremlins. It's late. I'm taking Lilly home before this turns into a musical number."
Max stood up immediately. "Cool, I'll grab my jacket. You can drop off her at her home and then we can go to your penthouse."
Caroline blinked. "Wait, no, Max. No."
Max paused mid-step. "What? Why not?"
Caroline grabbed her arm. "Let them have a moment. You've already emotionally third-wheeled their date into a therapy session with guacamole."
Max frowned. "But she's gonna go home and I can't leave him alone for the night just like that." She was drunk.
"Nope," Caroline said, dragging her back down. "You're not crashing this date. They need space. You know, for bonding. And flirting. And maybe a little unresolved sexual tension."
Max looked offended. "I am unresolved sexual tension."
"Be that somewhere else," Caroline said sweetly.
Max sighed, flopped back into her seat, and dramatically pulled the sombrero down over her eyes. "Fine. Go have your hetero moment. But if you kiss him, I better get a full report and at least one emotional breakdown text."
Lilly couldn't help but chuckle. She accepted Max's quirky character. "You are... something else."
Max gave her a thumbs-up from under the hat. "I'm the gift that keeps on giving, babe."
Caroline waved them off. "Have fun! But not too much fun. Unless it's like, wholesome-but-steamy fun."
"Caroline!" Alex looked into her eyes. "You were always the sane and reasonable one. Please, stay that way."
Lilly just shook her head, half-laughing as she let him guide her out.
Outside, the air was crisp, and the noise of the restaurant faded behind them.
They walked for a few quiet blocks, side by side.
Alex shoved his hands into his pockets. "Sorry about them."
"Are you kidding?" Lilly said. "That was the most fun I've had in... maybe years."
Alex smiled sideways at her. "Even the foot massage talk?"
She sighed dramatically. "Okay, that part nearly broke my brain. But the rest? Weirdly... grounding."
"Yeah," he said, glancing up at the night sky. "They're chaotic, but they're honest. That's kind of their thing."
Lilly nodded slowly. "And you. What's your thing?"
Alex looked over at her. "Right now? Trying to figure out if you're actually into this... situation."
She stopped walking.
He stopped too, a few steps ahead.
Lilly stood there, hands stuffed in her coat pockets, eyes flicking to the ground and then back up to meet his.
"That's fair," she said after a beat. "Honestly? I don't even know what I'm doing. I didn't plan for any of this."
Alex stepped closer, the buzz of the city fading until it felt like just the two of them under a quiet streetlamp.
"You don't have to know," he said, voice soft. "I'm not asking for a five-year plan. I'm just trying to figure out if you want to see what this could be."
She gave a small laugh, part nerves, part disbelief. "This? You mean the billionaire and his emotionally chaotic girlfriends inviting the weirdly famous bakery girl into their dysfunctional little throuple?"
He smiled. "I mean... yeah. That."
There was something in his tone, low, steady, no pressure, that made it easier to breathe. Like he wasn't expecting her to leap, just take a step.
"Do you want to come back with me tonight?" he asked. "Just hang out. Talk. No expectations, no foot massages."
That last part earned a quiet snort from her.
Lilly bit the inside of her cheek. Her instincts, the ones honed by years of fame, PR disasters, and tabloids, screamed to run. But something quieter in her, a voice she hadn't listened to in a long time, told her to stay.
Not for the drama. Not for the story. But for the way he was looking at her now.
Like he didn't want her version of perfect.
He just wanted her and so did she.
"I should probably say no," she said.
"But?" he asked, a hopeful edge in his voice.
"But I kind of want to experience that foot massage and..." She leaned forward and whispered into his ears. "I hope you haven't forgotten about our points. We still have 5:5. And tonight I want to get all my 5 wishes."
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[7 advance chs] + [10 chs of Two and a Half Men: Waking up as Charlie Harper] [All chs available for all tiers]