“Well, saying ‘no comment’ that many times isn’t how I thought I’d spend my Monday, but I’ll survive,” she said. He could tell she was trying to joke about this, but she sounded off. She had a tense, wary tone to her voice. Like she was steeling herself up for what was to come.

“I really thought no one would actually care about this, but I was wrong,” he said. “But Kara thinks it should all blow over soon—Wes thinks so, too. So it’s not just me this time.”

She sort of laughed at that.

“Thanks, Kara told me that, too. And I hope she’s right. By the end of the day, Ellie and I both became experts at figuring out who was press within a second or so on the phone, so at least that’s something. Oh!” Her voice changed. The life came back to it. “Here’s some actual good news—we’re going to get to pitch Clementine in a few weeks! I’ve been dying to get an in there. I ran into Bruce Erickson last week at the community center, and when he asked me how the firm was going, I mentioned that our expertise would be a perfect fit for Clementine, and he connected me with a friend of his there. Keep your fingers crossed for us—this could be the big break Monroe and Spencer has been looking for.”

He hoped that excited tone in her voice was there to stay.

“Fingers and toes crossed,” he said. “It’s fantastic that Bruce hooked you up like that.”

She laughed.

“Well, let’s hope it bears fruit. Speaking of, I have to run—I told Jamila I’d help her out with a bulk produce pickup tonight.”

He was glad she was going to be with Jamila tonight, but God did he wish he could be with her.

“Okay, talk to you later. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said.

As soon as he hung up, he picked up the phone again. Carrot cake this time, maybe? Or coconut?

Chapter Sixteen

On Thursday of the following week, Max called Olivia a few seconds after Kara left his office.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Olivia said when she answered the phone.

He smiled just at the sound of her voice. Thank God it didn’t have that tight, anxious pitch it had last week. He’d hated that sound in her voice, and he’d hated even more that he’d done that to her. And it had killed him to be so far away from her in those first few days when it was all so stressful. Just remembering that made him hesitate. Maybe his great idea wasn’t so great after all.

“Max, what is it?” she said.

“I had an idea,” he said. “But . . . if it doesn’t work, just tell me, okay?” He probably should have waited to run it by Olivia first, before he’d told Kara.

“Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

He grabbed a pen so he could doodle on his notepad.

“Well, next week is the Fourth of July.”

He’d have a whole week of recess, though a lot of that was going to be full of travel to fundraisers and party events. He’d still get to see Olivia a lot more than he would in a normal week, though.

“I know it’s the Fourth of July,” she said, amusement in her voice. “Was that it?”

He laughed.

“No, that wasn’t it! It’s this: for the past few years, I’ve done a volunteer thing on the Fourth, where I would bring some people from my staff, do some good, get some easy publicity for whatever nonprofit I was helping, and yes, some easy publicity for me, too. This year, it was going to be to help build furniture and toys for a foster-care center.”

“ ‘Was’?” Olivia asked.

Max took a gulp of water.

“Yeah, ‘was’—they just called Kara and said they had a fire; everyone is okay, but the building flooded. We’re going to reschedule for when they’re all moved back in, because they’ll need our help more than ever, but of course, next week is too soon. So here’s my idea. What if I came to your food pantry to help cook? With you, I mean. This seems like the perfect way for the two of us to be in public together again without it being a zoo. But if you don’t want that, I understand. I’ll be at the community center later this summer for one of the town halls, so we could always wait until then.”

Kara had told him the week before that he and Olivia should go out somewhere in public again in L.A. when he was home, just to get the inevitable second set of photos over with. But last weekend Olivia had seemed so exhausted he hadn’t even wanted to bring it up. Instead, they’d spent almost the entire weekend in his house; relaxing, working, watching movies, and just being together. It had been wonderful.

But he didn’t want them to feel stuck inside his house every weekend—the whole reason he’d wanted to go public was so they could go more places together.

“That is a good idea,” she said slowly.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a while. Max just waited.

“This will be really good publicity for them,” she said. “Especially since people tend to volunteer and give money to food banks more during the holidays than the summer. And summer is such a difficult time for food insecurity, with kids home from school and not getting free lunch. No matter what, you should definitely do this. I’ll text Jamila and find out the right contact info for your office to use. But can I . . . think about whether to come with you?”