He shook his head.

“I don’t think so. How are you? Have you recovered from your engagement party yet?”

He certainly hadn’t recovered from her engagement party; hopefully she wouldn’t figure that out, or else Maddie would kill him.

She grinned and held up her large thermos of coffee.

“Barely. Thank God you guys stayed to help clean up on Saturday night, because yesterday Drew and I basically spent all day on the couch eating leftovers and praying our hangovers would go away. Mine is gone now, but it still feels like it could come back at any second, so I got a large breakfast sandwich on my way in and am trying to drink as much water and coffee as humanly possible.”

He laughed. All he wanted was for her to not ask him too many questions about if he had fun at the party. Unfortunately, Alexa saw through him like almost no one else. When Maddie had said they had to keep this a secret from her, he thought it was no big deal—he’d kept the secret from her the other times, hadn’t he? But now he remembered that both other times he’d slept with Maddie, he and Alexa had had something else major to talk about the following Monday—both of which involved Drew showing up out of the blue, come to think of it. Now there weren’t any distractions on her side, she might see right through him and ask more questions about why he had this look on his face, and he might accidentally spill everything to her.

“I cracked up when I got your text yesterday,” he said.

She’d sent a text to him, Maddie, and Olivia the day before, with a picture of the recycling bin full of empty beer, champagne, and tequila bottles, captioned, “Sign of a good party, or sign of an enormous hangover?” He and Maddie had gotten it and laughed at it while she was still at his house. He had been very grateful to Alexa for that text: now he finally had Maddie’s number. The problem was, now he didn’t know when to use it.

“I still don’t quite know why we decided to open those last few bottles of champagne after midnight,” Alexa said.

“Go eat your breakfast and drink your coffee so you make it through today,” he said. Thank God she walked away without asking any difficult questions.

The mayor walked into their meeting a few hours later with a big grin on his face. Theo looked over at Alexa, who was looking back at him. They both knew this could either be great news, or “great” news that made their jobs nightmares for the next few days or weeks.

“Great news!” the mayor said. Theo looked down at his notepad so he wouldn’t look over at Alexa and laugh. “This isn’t public yet, but the ballot initiative for universal pre-K in California qualified for the November election!”

The whole room cheered. Okay, that was actual great news.

“And, since I’m one of the cosponsors of the initiative, I’ll be working a lot with the governor, a number of other mayors, and other elected officials around the state to get this passed. It’s going to be a tough road to November, but with a team like you working hard with me on this, we can do anything!”

Ah yes, the rare great news and “great” news, all in one.

The mayor beckoned Alexa and Theo to walk with him to his office after the meeting.

“I would have talked to you two about the initiative before the staff meeting, but the governor’s office called right before I walked in. But as you both know, this initiative is my baby.”

Theo and Alexa nodded. The mayor had been advocating for universal pre-K for years, and he’d worked closely with the organization that had drafted the measure for the ballot.

“Therefore, I want to be heavily involved in this campaign.” He turned to Theo. “The campaign itself will do the heavy lifting, but this still means a lot of extra work for you, because the goal is as much press—good press—as we can get. And obviously you’ll have to work a lot with the governor’s press office and all the other elected officials around the state.”

Theo nodded. Universal pre-K was an issue close to his heart, too. And a campaign like this would help both the mayor (who Theo knew had higher political ambitions) and Theo (who did, too) raise their profiles statewide. Especially if they managed to get the campaign to agree to have at least one major event here in Berkeley.

That is, it would help Theo raise his profile statewide if he did a good job. He knew that with one misstep, everything could come tumbling down.

“Can’t wait,” he said to his boss.

The mayor rubbed his hands together.

“Me neither.”

Maddie stared at the piles of clothes around her bedroom. One of her clients today was Maya Leslie, the sports reporter for a local news station, and she always liked to make a special effort to look poised and put together when she saw Maya. She felt like TV people expected it.

Maddie had loved giving fashion advice all her life, and sometimes she still couldn’t believe this was her actual job. Her first job in the stylist world had been a fluke; she’d been a college student in L.A. and a part-time barista, and one of her regular customers was Amelia Powell, an up-and-coming stylist. One Friday morning she came in desperate for caffeine and sympathy; her assistants all had the flu, and she had to get three clients ready and fitted for awards shows that weekend. Maddie had said, “I’m free this weekend, and I know how to sew.” She’d worked with Amelia all that weekend, and then on and off for years. She’d eventually moved back to the Bay Area for a more practical—and more steady—job, but she’d missed the fun and hustle of styling. A few years before, Amelia had begged her to come to L.A. for another awards show weekend to help out, and Maddie had taken the opportunity to ask for her advice about starting her own styling business. Six months later, she had her first three clients, and Maya had been one of them.

One of the many reasons Maddie loved working with Maya was that with Maya, she could be her naturally bossy self. For some of her clients, she had to be supportive and encouraging and persuasive when she worked with them, instead of demanding. She could be supportive and encouraging; she was happy to do it—it was just that hand-holding and cajoling took more out of her. It was much easier to just order people to put jumpsuits on.

Why was it taking her so long to decide what to wear today? She knew her wardrobe well enough that she could make these decisions in a snap.

Oh, right, because she’d seen her green dress on top of the pile of dry cleaning in the far corner of her room. The dress she’d put on that pile yesterday after she’d gotten home, well into the afternoon, from Theo’s house. After a very good night . . . and day. Damn it, what had she gotten herself into?

She reached for her second-favorite jeans; they weren’t quite worn in enough to be comfortable, but they looked fantastic on her. Her button-down white silk blouse, miracle of miracles, was still pressed and hanging in her closet, so she pulled on a nude camisole and carefully buttoned up the blouse. Now, time for a good lots-of-makeup “no makeup” look.

She stared at herself in the mirror as she put concealer on under her eyes. What the hell had she agreed to the day before? Theo had somehow convinced her they had no choice but to keep sleeping together. How had she gone along with that?

She brushed on just enough bronzer and blush to give herself a glow. To be fair to Theo—which she loathed doing—she’d done a hell of a lot more than go along with it. She’d definitely been an active participant in everything they’d done that night . . . and the next morning . . . and afternoon.

But she’d spouted those rules off to him like she’d been thinking about them for months. Like she’d been planning this! When that couldn’t be further from the truth. The last thing she’d wanted was to be forced to spend a lot of time with Theo in the run-up to Alexa’s wedding. And God knew how long that would be. Alexa and Drew didn’t seem to have any urgency about picking a wedding date, so she was likely going to have to keep seeing him for well over a year.

And then, of course, every time she saw him, she was going to have to have sex with him.

Multiple times.

As she patted on nude eye shadow, she saw the smug look on her face in the mirror. She tried to stop smiling, but it was impossible.