BY SEVEN A.M. ON THE DAY OF THE RALLY, THEO WAS IN THE OFFICE, dressed in his favorite gray suit and pin-striped shirt, and with an enormous cup of coffee. The governor, five mayors, and seven state representatives would be there today, all with their accompanying staffs and newspapers from their various cities and constituencies. All he wanted for the day was good press for the campaign and good press for his boss. Maybe not in that order.

He was really glad Maddie was coming today, even though she’d be there to see what a stress case he was on days like this. He’d worked so hard on this, and she’d listened to him talk about it for months; it would be great to have her there to see it all happen.

He’d just gotten off the phone with Sybil for the second time that morning when Alexa stopped by his office.

“How’s it going? Are you sure you don’t need me to come to the rally? I’m on my way to the bakery around the corner. Do you need anything? Other than more coffee, obviously.”

He picked up his cup to see how much was there. Yes, he absolutely needed more coffee.

“You’re an angel, thank you. One of their chocolate chip cookies—you know I love those. And no, you don’t have to come. I think it’s all under control, but thank you for the offer. I’m sure I’ll send you many frantic texts later this afternoon.”

She grinned.

“I’ll be happy to answer them, just like you always answer mine. I can’t wait to hear how it all goes.”

Alexa would hold down the fort in the office, while Theo, the mayor, and a handful of other staffers would be at the rally. Theo wondered if Maddie knew Alexa wouldn’t be at the rally when she’d said she’d come. He had no idea. He wished he did.

Maddie kept saying Alexa would flip out and get too excited and want them to live happily ever after, and be super upset when they ended things, but Alexa had dealt with it fine when he and Maddie had quietly hated each other for years; she’d deal with it fine when they stopped sleeping together after the wedding and—most likely—went back to avoiding each other.

He stared at his email box without seeing it. Maddie had somehow become one of the people he went to first about things he was struggling with, or happy about, or just needed to vent about. He didn’t want that to end.

And she’d certainly reached out to him for advice a lot recently, and had seemed to value what he said. She’d seemed to value him. Were they really going to go back to being two people who occasionally saw each other at Alexa’s parties and nothing else?

Apparently, that’s what she wanted.

His phone rang again and he snapped back to reality. Why was he thinking about Maddie right now? His kickoff was in four hours and counting.

Two hours later, he was at the school, helping the campaign staff set up. It was too early for any of the elected officials or other speakers to arrive, and none of the press would likely be here for at least another hour at the earliest, so he was trying to use up his nervous energy. Thank God for the interns—they’d managed to deal with the overly complicated mechanisms to hang up the banners with ease, so he and the other more senior staff were left to do the important tasks of setting folding chairs in a row and testing the microphones.

Finally, people started arriving: his assistant delivered the mayor, reporters trickled in and set up all their equipment, and all the parents who were speaking arrived within minutes of one another, thankfully. As he was checking in with one of the fathers who had seemed the most nervous about today, he saw a familiar movement out of the corner of his eye and turned.

Maddie was here early. Yep, there was that hair toss of hers again. For so long he’d thought that hair toss was so affected, until he realized how much she hated her hair in her face. She pushed her hair back even when it was just the two of them on his couch watching TV, whenever a breeze from the window drifted through the room. Why she almost never just put it up in a ponytail he had no idea.

He wanted to go over to Maddie right away, but he saw the reporter from the L.A. Times arrive. She was one of the best political reporters out there, so it was both great and terrifying that she was at the rally today. Great because it seemed like the L.A. Times was really paying attention to this, and terrifying because he knew that meant everything had to run like clockwork.

“Hi, Theo,” she said. “Looking like you’ll get a good turnout today. I heard that there might be some protests during the event; how worried are you about that?”

Good thing he’d already been on guard before he even said hi.

“Hi, Mallory, glad to see you here. We welcome lively political debate, and we’re glad that there’s going to be a great turnout of Californians to find out more about the issue of universal pre-K. As with any major political issue, we imagine there will be protestors, but this is Berkeley: we have a long, proud history of protest here. We just hope that the press will be sure to cover the issues as well as the protest.”

She smirked at him.

“We’ll be sure to do that—thanks for the advice.”

He smirked back.

“Always a pleasure. Hope to talk to you again soon.”

Finally, he went over to Maddie.

“Hey,” he said. He didn’t know if he was allowed to give her a hug with all these people around, so he just smiled at her. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hey, yourself,” she said. “Who were you just talking to? She looks scary.”

He laughed.

“Oh, she’s scary, all right. She’s a reporter for the L.A. Times, and she’s very good at what she does, which means now I have to warn everyone that she’s here.”

Maddie looked around at the people starting to fill up the seats, the reporters and photographers all setting up, and the colorfully decorated stage, with the campaign signs at just the perfect level for the cameras to get them.

“It looks like you’re on track to be great already. But you’re busy. I don’t want to keep you. Is Alexa here yet?”

So she didn’t know Alexa wasn’t coming.

“No, she’s staying back at City Hall to keep track of everything else.”

He couldn’t tell whether the look on her face was surprise, or relief, or something else.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll be right here. Let me know if you need an extra hand for anything.”

He touched her arm.

“Thanks. I will. Have you—”

“Theo?” He turned, to find one of the campaign interns at his elbow. “The mayor sent me to find you. He says he can’t find his talking points?”

Theo shook his head.

“I was waiting for this. I brought extra copies. I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Maddie. “I have to run, and I’ll probably be running around all through this, but thanks again for coming.”

Maddie clasped his hand for a second.

“Of course. See you later.”

The next thirty minutes were frantic, as that time before an event like this always was. He ran back and forth from the mayor to the press to the families to the mayor to the governor to the campaign staff, and finally back to the mayor right before it was go time.

“I’ll be in the back, watching and taking some pictures for social media. Mimi from the campaign is in charge of getting everyone on and off the stage at the right times, but if anything goes wrong, I’ll be right there.”

His boss waved him off.

“You have that anxious look on your face, Theo!” He turned to the governor, being briefed by Sybil. “Does your staff always have that anxious look on their faces when they’re talking to you before you go on stage?” He and the governor both laughed like he’d said something hilarious. Theo and Sybil just sighed.

Theo walked back out to the schoolyard and took a deep breath. Everything was tentatively looking good. There were so many people, they’d had to run more folding chairs over from City Hall, which was great, and there was lots of press to witness that, which was even better. He looked for Maddie in the crowd and found her: a few rows from the back, on a seat along the center aisle. She waved and smiled at him, and he smiled back.

The local high school jazz band kicked into gear, and the crowd cheered for them, and then again for the politicians who all came out to the music. Some of them—oh God, including his boss—were dancing. He made a note to tell his boss, yet again, to never dance in public.

The speeches started: his boss went first, which was one of the benefits of this being on his home turf, and he introduced one of the parent speakers. It was the one Theo had been the most nervous about, but she drew a huge round of applause. Theo let out a deep breath for what felt like the first time in weeks.

Just as one of the state representatives started to speak, he heard the protests start. Everything had been going too well.