“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?”
He’d probably get used to Olivia’s reluctance to make decisions without some sort of waiting period and matrix at some point. He tamped his irritation down; it made sense that she’d need more time.
“Of course,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said.
A week later, they were in the back seat of his car together, on their way to the community center. His aide Andy was driving, and another member of his L.A. staff, Brittany, was in the passenger seat.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
Olivia looked around the car and held tight to his hand.
“I think so,” she said in a low voice. “I’m glad you’re going to get to see the food pantry. I did always want to bring you there.” She glanced into the front seat. “But maybe not like this.”
She straightened her dress; it was a blue-striped sundress—very patriotic. Her hair was in a big knot on the top of her head. She looked professional, well put together, and also beautiful. He squeezed her hand.
“It’ll be great. And the fundraiser tonight will be . . . well, we won’t have to stay long, at least.”
She laughed. They were going to a Fourth of July fundraiser that night at the home of one of the big party donors. He’d been to dozens, maybe hundreds of events like this by now, but he was really looking forward to going to this one with Olivia by his side.
“Good thing I have a different dress for that one,” she said. “Just in case I spill barbecue sauce on this one.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Oh God, that’ll be the picture every tabloid runs with. ‘Max Powell’s new girlfriend, the slob!’ ”
They both laughed. He was glad she could make jokes about all this. From what Kara said, after these pictures came out, there would be another small flurry of local news stories, and then everything would calm down. He hoped so, for Olivia’s sake. And he was pretty sure she was right; July would be such a busy news month that no one would have much time for gossip about the relationship of a senator who wasn’t even up for reelection this year.
Andy pulled into a parking spot outside the community center, and Andy and Brittany both jumped out of the car. Max and Olivia stayed put.
“Remember, I’ll come around the car to you, and . . .”
Olivia took off her seat belt and nodded to him.
“I know, then we’ll walk in together, I remember!”
Their doors opened simultaneously, and he smiled over his shoulder to her.
“Just wanted to make sure you knew I’d be right there by your side.”
He squeezed her hand one more time before they got out of the car.
Olivia smoothed her dress down again, then swung both of her legs together out of the car. She’d been practicing how to do that all week. She was barely on her feet when Max came around the car and took her hand. Oh, okay—she hadn’t realized they were going to do the hand-holding thing again. At least this would give her something to do with her hands as they walked into the building, with what felt like a hundred cameras around them. Fine, there were only four cameras. It was just that they all kept making that clicking sound, making it feel like more.
She’d never exactly been a person who sought a spotlight, nor had she been afraid of one. But she’d never experienced anything like this before. This kind of spotlight felt more like when little kids would hold magnifying glasses to catch the sunlight, and it would get so concentrated on one tiny pinpoint that it started a fire.
She forced herself to look up and smile at Jamila, who was standing with the head of the community center at the entrance to the building. Jamila looked more excited than Olivia had ever seen her. She’d been over the moon when Olivia had called her about Max’s idea.
“Oh my God, I cannot wait to call my boss!” she’d said. “No, wait, sorry—I’m going to email my boss.”
Olivia grinned. It was great to be able to help Jamila this way.
“Email him and cc the board president!” Olivia had said.
“I will,” Jamila had said. “You’re coming, too, right?”
“Oh, well . . . I’m still deciding that,” she’d said. But that tone in Jamila’s voice had decided for her. Plus, she couldn’t let Max go to her place without her.
There was a flurry of handshakes when they got to the front door. When Olivia shook hands with Jamila, both of them could barely keep a straight face. Finally, they all walked together into the building and to the kitchen, where a group of volunteers—some regulars, some Max’s staff—were waiting for them.
“Thank you all for having me and my staff here today!” Max said in his booming senator voice. “We’re all so impressed with the important and necessary work you do here, and we’ve been really looking forward to helping out.”
Jamila handed Max an apron.
“We’re thrilled you’re here,” she said. “And we’re ready to put you to work!”
The whole room laughed, and Max rolled up his sleeves. Olivia saw two of the college-age women in the room look at each other and whisper. She didn’t blame them—if Jamila had been standing next to her, Olivia would have turned to her to whisper, “Holy shit, my boy
friend is hot, isn’t he?” Okay, she wouldn’t have actually done it, but she would have really wanted to.
They divided into groups to work on the day’s menu: barbecue chicken, potato salad, and baked beans. Olivia slid her own apron on and looked around the room. She was more grateful than she would have thought possible that she’d come to the food pantry that first night. What a difference it had made to her life to be in a job where she could come here every week—she never would have been able to do something like this at her old firm. And now that she had room in her life, she’d found a community here. And—she smiled when Jamila winked at her—a friend.
She’d wanted to bring Max here for a while, but as soon as she told Max she’d come along with him, she’d become increasingly anxious about this event. She’d worried it would feel weird to have Max in her space, with her people, and that it would feel like he was invading the one place—other than work or home—she’d made her own since she moved to L.A.
But she’d been wrong. It felt natural to have him here. And it made her heart so full to introduce him to this place, and these people, that had come to mean so much to her over the past few months. She wasn’t just happy he was here, she was happy he was here with her.
Jamila came by to check on them, and Olivia moved over so Jamila could tell Max more about the pantry and kitchen and the work they did. Soon she was making fun of him for not knowing how to use a vegetable peeler for the potatoes, and Max in turn made fun of her for a typo in the recipe. Damn, it was good to see her friend and her boyfriend getting along so well.
“It’s so easy to see the difference between your real smile and your camera smile,” Jamila said in her ear.
Olivia laughed.
“I have resting bitch face, okay? I have to fake the camera smile; it does not come naturally to me. But the press dug up all of these old pictures of me, and people said I looked angry—I’m not angry! My face just looks like that!”
Jamila laughed.
“I think that’s why we got such a good deal on your car—the guy kept thinking you were mad.”
Olivia laughed as Jamila moved on to another table. Soon, a few more volunteers came over to their group to meet Max.
It was interesting to see him being Senator Powell, something she’d really only seen glimpses of since she’d known him. Sure, she’d seen him on TV lots of times, but that was different. It had always felt like he was two people: her boyfriend, Max, who brought her cake and made her laugh and gave her great orgasms, and Senator Powell, who argued with other people on TV about politics, pontificated a little too much, and occasionally cracked very dorky jokes. But now she was here with her boyfriend Max, but she was also with Senator Powell, who chatted warmly with everyone there. He smiled and shook hands and took selfies and asked intelligent questions and had a pleasant smile on his face, and did it over and over and over again.
Would she have to learn how to do that if she and Max kept going like this? Is that what he had meant when he suggested they do an event together, that she see how events like this worked for politicians . . . and politicians’ wives? If she married Max, would this be what her life was like? Would she have to learn how to put a fake smile on her face all day whenever she was in public so she could look pleasant and harmless? Would she have to remember talking points and details about charities in different cities in California and the name of someone who had volunteered for a campaign two years before, like Max just had? Would she be some sort of Max appendage, where people wouldn’t see her as an individual but only as “the senator’s wife”? Would the world expect her to nod and smile next to him no matter what he said or did? Would she have to go everywhere in some sort of politician’s-wife suit?
“How’s the potato salad coming?” Max came around the counter to her. “Can you put me to work?”
Yes, right, she was supposed to be concentrating on potato salad, not a whole pile of what-ifs. Why was she even thinking about marriage? Ridiculous. She handed Max the washed herbs.
“Here, dry off the parsley. And I thought you were working, what happened to the potato peeling?”
He took the parsley out of the bowl and carefully rolled it in the towel.
“Well, I had a few pictures to take and hands to shake, so Jamila took over.” He lowered his voice. “That always happens when I do this stuff, and for a while I felt guilty about it, like I wasn’t pulling my weight with volunteering, but then— ”
“But then you realized your presence here is pulling the bulk of the weight, so you should give yourself a break? I’m sure those photos you just took—which will be posted everywhere—will bring in tons of volunteers and money, and will do an incredible job to spread the news of the good work we do here.”
He shrugged.
“Well, I hope so. That’s the goal, anyway.”
She smiled at him.
“It’s a great goal.”
After they were done at the food pantry, Max and his staffers dropped her back off at his house, before they took off for a parade on the other side of L.A. He would meet her back at his house before they headed out to the fundraiser. She had no idea how Max managed to go to three events in a day and stay sane.
She sat down on Max’s couch with her laptop in her lap to work on their pitch to Clementine. It wasn’t for two weeks, but their PowerPoint and script were mostly already done—at this point both she and Ellie were just tinkering with it, but neither of them could help it; they both wanted to get it perfect.
The next thing she knew, she woke up to the sound of the front door closing. She opened her eyes to see Max walk into the living room and smile at her.
“Hey.” He moved her laptop off the couch and onto the coffee table. “Get some good work done on the pitch?”
She nodded as he pulled her into his arms.
“I did. And I got in a very good nap. How was the parade?”
He kissed her on the shoulder.
“Very exuberant. Did I tell you this morning that you look incredible in that dress? Because I kept thinking it, but we were with my staff the whole time, so I can’t remember if I said it out loud.”
She pulled off his tie.
“You did say it, as a matter of fact, right after I got dressed. But I’m happy for you to say it again.”
He smiled as she unbuttoned his white shirt, which he’d somehow managed to keep crisp through all of that cooking and a parade outside in the July heat of Los Angeles.
“Do you know the only thing you look better in than that dress?” He pushed her back on the couch. “Nothing at all.”
She smiled as she ran her hands up and down his warm, firm chest, and then down to his waistband.
“I think that could be arranged.”
She couldn’t stop touching him. She’d seen him last night and this morning, but that didn’t make a difference. It was like he was a magnet, drawing her to him, and she was powerless to resist.
“How much time do we have until we have to be at this fundraiser?” she asked as he tossed her dress onto the floor.
“Plenty of time.”
She closed her eyes as his hands roamed over her body.
“Oh thank God.”
Forty minutes later, they got out of Max’s big shower, and she pulled her shower cap off.
“Okay, but really—what’s tonight going to be like?” she asked.
He rubbed a towel over his hair.
“Did your old law firm used to have holiday parties?”
She opened the drawer where she kept all of her toiletries.
“Yeah—lots of standing around, holding a drink in one hand and a plate in the other, and trying somehow to shake hands with people. Occasionally someone would get too drunk and make a fool out of themselves, a few boring speeches, frequent low-level sexual harassment, the usual.”
Max nodded.
“It’ll be a lot like that, hopefully without that last thing. Though—incredibly—the egos will all be bigger.” He combed a
dollop of gel through his hair with his fingers. “The good thing, though, is that I always get to arrive late and leave after exactly an hour. It’s amazing what you can get away with as a senator, I’m telling you.”
He gave her that cocky grin, and she couldn’t help but grin back at him. Damn, she loved this man.
As soon as they walked into the party, though, all of her fears and what-ifs from earlier in the day came back to her with the first words out of their host’s mouth.
“Senator Powell! This must be Olivia! Shouldn’t your woman be in blue, not red?”
No So nice to meet you, no Hi, Olivia, my name is Asshole, not even a Would you like something to drink? before he was calling her Max’s woman and assuming Max had decision-making power over her wardrobe.
Max ignored the last sentence, and put his hand on her back.
“Olivia, this is a very old friend of mine, Cary Thompson. Cary, this is my girlfriend, Olivia Monroe.”
Olivia forced her face into a smile and reached out to shake Cary’s hand.
“Hi, Cary, thanks for having me.” Was it petty that she refused to say Nice to meet you? Maybe, but did she care? No.
She kept the fake smile on her face as she and Max and Cary walked outside to Cary’s enormous multilevel deck.
“Jerry! Hey, great to see you, happy Fourth!” Max said to someone who came up to them. “I’d like to introduce you to my girlfriend, Olivia Monroe.”
Then it hit her. Max was introducing her to everyone tonight as his girlfriend. He’d never done that before.
She liked it.
Jerry nodded to her and shook her hand.
“Olivia, it’s lovely to meet you. You’re a lawyer, I hear? Tell me about the kind of work you do.”
What a relief that not everyone here would just see her as a Max appendage.
Cary brought her a glass of wine—at least he was good for something—and Max a beer, and they each stood there nursing their drinks for thirty minutes while they chatted with an endless number of people. Most of them were perfectly nice and friendly to her, though obviously very curious. Max stayed glued to her side the whole time, which she found both unnecessary and completely charming—she’d been to lots of cocktail parties, she knew how to play this game, but it was lovely of him to want to protect her.
Party of Two: The brilliant opposites-attract rom-com from the author of The Proposal! Page 21