Party of Two: The brilliant opposites-attract rom-com from the author of The Proposal!

by Jasmine Guillory

  Luckily, everyone—including photographers—had seemed to lose interest in her and Max, so she’d begun to let her guard down. Plus, already this morning she’d seen two people far more famous than Max here at the resort. If they trusted this place, she would, too. Oh wow, and there was a third, over there stepping out of a cabana. Now she could definitely relax. And speaking of relaxation . . .

  She turned to Max.

  “Do you see those people over there? They have a drink inside a pineapple—how do we get one of those? No, two of those.”

  Max grinned at her.

  “You’re getting into the Hawaii spirit, I see. Next time one of the waiters walks by, we’ll ask him to bring us one. No, two.”

  Ten minutes later, they grinned at each other over their boozy pineapples.

  “Cheers to one of the best ideas I’ve ever had,” Max said as he touched his pineapple to hers.

  Olivia wanted to roll her eyes at him, but she was too relaxed.

  “Cheers,” she said, and took a sip of . . . oh wow, that was a strong pineapple drink.

  “I’m going to be drunk within the hour,” Max said as he put down his pineapple.

  “I think I’m already drunk,” she said. And then she took another sip.

  Max glanced down at his phone. Even though it was a Friday during recess, he still seemed to get an email about every minute. They’d both spent some of this time by the pool working on their phones, but it still felt like vacation.

  He turned to her with his eyebrows raised. Oh no, she knew this look.

  “You know,” he said, in his most convincing voice. “The last town hall meeting is going to be in L.A., at your community center.”

  Olivia picked up her pineapple again.

  “Excellent,” she said. “I hope Jamila takes credit for that.”

  She took another sip from her pineapple. She probably didn’t want to know how much rum was in this thing, did she? Well, whatever was in it, it was delicious.

  “I know how you feel about that center, after all the time you’ve spent there,” Max said. “What would you say to coming with me to the town hall there? Especially since this whole thing was your idea, after all.”

  Olivia couldn’t help but smile back at Max.

  “With an offer like that, how can I say no?”

  Olivia took another sip of her pineapple and smiled at the world. If only every workday could be spent in the sunshine with pineapples full of rum. She’d get very little work done, but she’d be in an excellent mood.

  After they finished their pineapples, Max reached for her hand.

  “Let’s go take a walk along the beach,” he said. “I’m getting hot.”

  “You’ve always been hot,” Olivia said, and giggled.

  Max grinned at her.

  “I think I like Hawaii Olivia a whole lot. Can we bring her back to California?” He stood up and pulled her up out of the chair.

  Olivia pulled on her cover-up.

  “Look, I’m still trying to get rid of New York Olivia, okay? But if you can manage to bring me one of these drinks every day, I feel like Hawaii Olivia will just naturally take over.” She slung her beach bag on her shoulder. “She won’t have a job anymore, but she’ll be real cheerful about it.”

  They walked down to the beach, hand in hand, and strolled along the water’s edge.

  “This was a very good idea on your part,” Olivia said.

  Max turned to her, that cocky grin she loved on his face.

  “I know,” he said. Then the grin faded and his eyes opened wide. He turned her in the direction he was looking and dropped his voice to a whisper.

  “Look!”

  A man was on one knee, and the woman in front of him had her hands in front of her face. Slowly, she lowered them, and took his hand. Olivia and Max couldn’t hear what the couple was saying, but everyone on the beach knew exactly what was happening. After a few minutes, the man slid a ring on the woman’s finger and stood up. Everyone around them—including Max—applauded. Olivia joined in.

  “Wasn’t that romantic?” Max said, after the couple waved at everyone and walked back up to the hotel.

  “It was,” Olivia said.

  Max turned to her and smiled. Olivia saw something in his eyes change. He opened his mouth, almost in slow motion. A sudden apprehension hit Olivia.

  “You’re not going to propose, are you?” she blurted out.

  His face dropped. That crestfallen look made her want to take back what she’d said, but it was too late. Damn that pineapple drink and all this sunlight; she would have done that much better if she hadn’t been this tipsy.

  “Would it be so bad if I was?” he asked.

  No, it wouldn’t be so bad, but also yes, of course it would be.

  Shit, shit, shit, how could she say this to him?

  “It wouldn’t be, if now was say . . . a year from now. And if in that year, we’d had even one conversation about getting married—though I’d prefer more like four or five conversations.”

  Max threw his hands in the air.

  “Four or five? Who needs to talk four or five times about getting married? I love you, you love me, isn’t that enough?”

  Olivia took a deep breath. Every time he said he loved her like that, it made her heart want to burst.

  “I do love you, so much, but that’s not the only thing. Even normal people in normal relationships need to talk through this, and our relationship has at least two or three major abnormalities.”

  Max dropped down on the sand and pulled Olivia down next to him.

  “Okay, fine, what do normal people in normal relationships have to talk about?”

  Olivia looked sideways at him.

  “You don’t . . . I mean . . .” Why was her mind suddenly blank here? “Um, things like . . . money, children, family, work—you know, the hard stuff. You used to be a normal person; I know you’ve had other serious relationships. Didn’t you guys have conversations about this kind of stuff?”

  He shrugged.

  “I mean, I guess so, just as they came up, but not specifically. Let’s talk about it all now. Money: what’s mine is yours. Children: love them, but having them might be hard with two busy jobs, so we can explore. Family: your sister seemed to like me, except for the shoes; I’ll work on everyone else. My mom and sister will adore you; my dad will, too, he just won’t seem like it at first. Work: I feel like we’ve talked about this a lot, haven’t we? We’ve handled it okay for now, right? What else?”

  Olivia stared at him. He just smiled back at her.

  “Max, I . . . I wasn’t prepared for this right now! I need to think of questions to ask, and things that are important to me, and I want to find out what’s important to you, and you didn’t even touch on race or your specific job and all of the stuff I’d have to do because of that and the press and everything and I can’t do all of this when I just drank that whole pineapple!”

  Max laughed, and put his arm around her.

  “I know you think I rush into things, and maybe I do. And I know my job makes things complicated. But you know, I only rush into the big things when I know to my core that they’re right. I know to my core you’re right for me, Olivia Monroe.” He kissed her cheek. “But no, I won’t propose right now.”

  Olivia leaned her head against his chest. His words made her want to wrap her arms around him and not let go, and they filled her with panic at the same time. How did they get from pineapples full of rum to talking about marriage this quickly?

  Granted, she had thought about what it would be like to be married to Max. But she’d worried about how to be in the public eye, and how to keep that damn smile on her face, and if she’d have to lose some of herself in order to do everything involved with being a politician’s wife, and if it was all worth it. Was it all worth it?

  He tightened his grip around her waist, and she sighed. It all felt worth it when she was with him like this. She’d never had anyone love her this completely, this
unconditionally, with this much certainty. And she’d never loved anyone like she loved Max. He threw himself into everything he did, and he did it all with such enthusiasm and joy. But he rushed into things, he so often didn’t think things through, and he was terrifyingly impulsive, which had already made life so much more stressful for her. Could she deal with that forever?

  Max got up and pulled her to her feet.

  “Come on—I think we’ve both recovered somewhat from those pineapples, and we’re supposed to go on that snorkeling trip in an hour, remember? Let’s go see some turtles.”

  Olivia forced herself to shake off the fears that had all descended on her. What was wrong with her? Hawaii was no place for that.

  “Oooh yes, I forgot about that.” She looked up at the cloudless sky and smiled. “Also, I have a bone to pick with you—I heard that there are some sort of special doughnuts in Hawaii, but we’ve been here hours now and I haven’t had one yet—what’s going on?”

  Max slapped his forehead.

  “Malasadas! Oh God, I’ve failed you. We’re going to stop to get some right after snorkeling, I promise.”

  Olivia smiled at the world. Sun, sea turtles, and sugar—could she ask for more? What had she even been so worked up about?

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Thank you all for coming today, and for sharing so much with me. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I appreciate it more than I can say.” Max put his microphone down and waved to the Bakersfield crowd. He turned from side to side with his hand in the air and a smile on his face for the benefit of the sea of camera phones that looked back at him, and then stepped off the stage to take selfies with anyone who wanted one.

  It was the fourth, and second to last, of his statewide town hall meetings. Some of them had been difficult—he’d heard a lot of painful stories from teens and educators about the impact the school-to-prison pipeline had in their communities, and he’d been yelled at by more than one parent—but he’d also connected personally with advocates around the state, and had gotten excellent ideas for the future. Not only did he think he might be able to get some of those ideas through Congress, he’d also heard from some excellent sources that the governor of California was now planning to throw his support behind one of the state juvenile justice reform laws. He couldn’t believe he’d been so single-minded about his bill that he hadn’t broadened his scope to see how else he could accomplish his goals. He was so grateful to Olivia for this idea, and he couldn’t wait to get back to L.A. to tell her that in person.

  Plus, he couldn’t wait to see her. After their fantastic trip to Hawaii, they’d been able to spend only a few more days together in L.A. before he flew up to Sacramento to start this tour around the state, and that had been ten days ago. They hadn’t gone that long without seeing each other since their first date.

  He wished they were at the point where she could come with him on trips like this, even for part of the time. He couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it was to have her with him for those two events on the Fourth of July. When he’d looked out into the crowd and seen her smile, he felt like he could do anything and everything. He wanted that again. But even more than that, he wanted to be able to relax with her after events like this, when he got back to a lonely hotel room, both wired and exhausted. That vision of his future—of their future—felt so good to him, so real to him.

  Ever since that conversation on the beach, he’d become more and more certain he wanted to marry her. At least three or four times a day, he winced when he thought back to that moment he’d almost proposed to her, and how she’d reacted. His feelings were still hurt—of course he wanted her to celebrate and jump in feetfirst and not worry about anything but how much they loved each other. But he should have known she would hate a beach proposal like that, with people taking pictures of them like they had that other couple. And he also knew Olivia well enough by now to know she liked all of her i’s dotted and t’s crossed before she made any sort of decision, especially such a big one. Well, after the town hall in L.A., there would be a few days before he had to go back to DC—maybe they could have some of those Conversations about Big Issues she wanted to have.

  He wished he could drive straight back to L.A. tonight, but that would have been too much to ask of his local staff, who had been working all day to pull off this event. But tomorrow he’d be back in L.A., and tomorrow night he’d get to see Olivia again—before, during, and after the town hall. He couldn’t wait.

  When Olivia drove to the community center that Friday night, she felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. It had almost been two weeks since she’d seen Max, and that was far too long. In the time they’d been apart, all of her old doubts and worries had sprung up again. Was this all happening too fast? Was this too good to be true? It would be so good to see Max again; she always felt better when she was with him.

  She was nervous about this event, though. She’d said yes immediately when he brought it up in Hawaii, but that had been because of way too much of whatever was in that pineapple. When he’d brought it up in passing again, she felt like she couldn’t say no after having said yes. But the press had just relaxed on them, she hadn’t gotten a weird phone call all week, and part of her hoped she could stay out of sight and they’d forget about her. The problem was, if she and Max were in this for the long haul—and after that conversation on the beach in Hawaii, it seemed like they were—she couldn’t stay out of sight forever. So here she was.

  Had he been about to propose? She thought so at the time, but had she been imagining things? Had she forced an awkward conversation with him for no real reason? He hadn’t brought it up again, and neither had she, but she’d thought about it every day since it happened. Maybe now that he was home for a few days, they could talk about all of that. But first, she’d need to make it through tonight.

  At least Jamila was going to be there, and probably a few other people she knew from the food pantry. It would help to have friendly faces around, and hopefully even someone to sit with during the town hall, since she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be surrounded by Max’s staff.

  When she pulled up to the community center, her status as The Girlfriend was clear. One person waved her into the reserved parking area, and then another person escorted her to the “greenroom” to wait for Max.

  He and his whole entourage—it was a big one this time—walked in ten minutes before the event was scheduled to start. And for the life of her, Olivia couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. Max immediately crossed the room to her.

  “Hi,” he said under his breath. “I missed you.”

  There were people all around them, and she knew they were all looking at them, even if they pretended not to. She and Max couldn’t touch or even stand that close to each other. But the way he looked at her felt like a caress.

  “I missed you so much,” she said. His Hawaii sunburn on his nose had faded, and he was wearing that pale blue shirt and striped tie combination she particularly liked. And . . .

  “I like the shoes,” she said.

  He glanced down at his new shoes and blushed.

  “I hoped you might.” They grinned at each other. It was so good to be with him again.

  “Okay, everyone!” Someone with a very cheerful voice and perfectly straight hair stood by the door. “The community members are mostly here; we’ll just wait a few more minutes for stragglers and then get going.”

  Max’s staff always seemed deeply competent. Olivia liked that so much.

  “This’ll be fun,” Olivia said to Max as they walked down the hall toward the auditorium. “I haven’t really seen you do your thing since that first luncheon—Fourth of July was all softballs. I’m sure I’ll have some notes for you.”

  He looked at her sideways, and she giggled. The doors to the auditorium swung open, and Olivia started to step to the side so she could drop behind Max and out of the spotlight. But before she could do so, he took her hand.

  The hundreds of peo
ple inside scrambled to their feet, flashbulbs went off, and Max and Olivia walked inside, hand in hand. Knowing Max, he hadn’t planned for this in advance, he’d just grabbed her hand at the last second. She tried not to let her irritation show on her face. Instead, she forced a smile as Max gave high fives to the people in the crowd closest to him.

  As soon as they were toward the front of the room, Olivia let go of Max’s hand and looked around for somewhere to go. Jamila gestured to her from her seat at the side of the stage, where she sat with some of the staff from the center. Olivia made a beeline for her and then tried her best to fade into the background. But she knew that no matter how much she tried to disappear, it was impossible; everyone in this room knew who she was, and many of them were probably taking pictures of her right now. She had to look alert and interested and friendly and intelligent, and she had to keep a smile on her face the whole time. She felt the tension settle into her shoulders as she tried to do all of that. Shit, her shoulders—she had to think about her posture, too, didn’t she?

  The executive director of the center made a too-long speech that tested Olivia’s ability to keep that damn smile on her face. At one point she made eye contact with Max, who of course had a perpetually interested, intelligent smile on his face—how the hell did he do this? He had to deal with this every day, all day, didn’t he? He winked at her, almost imperceptibly, and she winked back.

  Finally, the executive director introduced Max, and Olivia smiled for real. She’d teased him about giving him notes about his speech, but he was good at this—really good at it. She’d heard parts of the speech before, of course, had seen bits of it on TV, but it was smart and substantial and also made it clear that he really wanted to hear from the audience, and cared what they had to say. And he was funny, too—he got everyone clapping and laughing again after the director had almost put them to sleep.

  Then the town hall part of the program started, and a bunch of Max’s staff dispersed through the crowd with microphones. Both adults and teens asked questions and raised ideas: about schools and how overcrowded they were, about health care, about after-school care, about jobs and job-training programs, about access to mental health services, about the police. He got some tough questions, but she was proud of him for how he handled them—he listened, he didn’t get defensive, and he gave honest answers whenever he could.