Mateo would never call his office, he knew that. He wished there was something he could do for him and his family. Especially since he wasn’t accomplishing what he wanted to in the Senate.

“And I guess it hit me particularly hard today, because my criminal justice reform bill—one of the whole reasons I ran for Senate in the first place—has a really hard road ahead. I have such a big list of things I want to change. Mandatory minimums, policing, bail, funding for public defenders, the way we try children, and so much more. I know, it’s all ambitious, but I thought I could start big, and at least get some of that passed. But none of it? It just feels like . . . nothing I do in this job matters. Like nothing is going to change.”

Now that he’d started, it was like he couldn’t stop talking.

“I was really hopeful about the bill when I first announced it—I got a ton of press attention, I was on all of the TV shows, and people kept saying how important criminal justice reform is, blah blah blah. I know people bring up bills just to use as talking points—hell, I’ve done it, too—but with this one, I really wanted to make some real change. And there have been some strides, in the past few years, but I guess there’s a limit to how much change people can really handle. How much good they really want to do.”

Olivia rubbed his arm gently, up and down. The expression on her face was softer than he’d ever seen it.

“That bill was the whole reason you ran for the Senate?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Well, criminal justice reform in general.” He laughed. “I didn’t even think I’d win. I jumped into the race on a lark when the Senate seat came open. I just hoped it would raise my statewide profile enough so that when it came time to run for governor a few years later, I’d have a real shot. And then, strangely, everything just kept going my way.”

Olivia poured more wine into both of their glasses.

“Do you regret it? Running for the Senate, I mean.”

He thought about that question for a long time before he answered.

“No,” he finally said. “No, I don’t regret it. Not even on my worst days, the days I’m frustrated at the world and every other member of Congress, and it’s midnight and I’m in my boring Washington apartment. Even then, I want to scream and rant at everything wrong with the government, but I want to make it better, and I think right where I am is exactly the place I should be.” He looked at her and smiled. “Thank you for making me realize that.”

Olivia stared down at the bright red blanket she’d pulled out of her linen closet to turn into their picnic blanket. She’d assumed Max had run into an ex, or had gotten a call from someone in his family, or had to fire someone on his staff, or something else stressful but easy. For something like that, she could listen to his story, pat him on the shoulder, sympathize with him, tell him he’d done the right thing (if, indeed, he had), and then they’d eat pie and hopefully make out.

But this was different. This wasn’t what she’d expected.

Should she tell him . . . no, definitely not. There was no point. Plus, tonight had been heavy enough as it was.

Strangely, though, it had been heavy in a good way. She’d enjoyed going out with banter-y, fun, hot-boy Max the past few times she’d seen him; she’d looked forward to doing it again tonight. But tonight she had serious, thoughtful, introspective Max. She might like him even better now.

A lot better, actually.

“Thank you for telling me that,” she said. “And for not blowing me off when I asked you if something was wrong.”

He smiled at her.

“Thank you for asking,” he said.

She looked at him, and the look in his eyes was so warm, so grateful, she had to look away.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what I propose. We sit here and eat our food and drink our wine and watch a really dumb movie on my brand-new TV there, and then we eat that entire pie, and then maybe we’ll drink more wine.” And maybe after that they’d make out, but she hoped that part didn’t need to be said. “Does that sound like a good way to recover from today?”

He smiled at her.

“Just you, here with me, is a way to recover from today. Thank you for being here.” He moved closer to her. “This would have been a depressing, lonely night without you. I’m really glad to be here.”

He stroked his finger across her cheek, and then pulled her chin up toward his. He kissed her on the lips, gently, tenderly, but still with so much power. Olivia lost herself in that kiss. She put her hand on his cheek and felt his stubble there from his long day. Everything in her wanted to speed him up, to unbutton those last buttons of his shirt, to move his hands to where she wanted them, but she let him lead the way, and kept the kiss just as slow and gentle as he wanted it.

Finally, he pulled back and stroked her hair.

“I’m really glad to be here,” he said again.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” she said.

She touched his cheek, then traced her fingers over his dark eyebrows. She marveled at his long, curly eyelashes. Life was so unfair.

“How’d you get this scar?” she asked, her finger on his left eyebrow.

He laughed.

“Back when I was still an assistant DA, I was out at a bar one weekend with some friends, and some people near us got in a fight. I, very stupidly, jumped in to break it up, and got hit with a broken beer bottle. I probably should have gotten stitches, but once everything died down, I just wanted to relax and see the end of the game. I had a black eye for like a week afterward.” He kissed her softly. “Most people don’t even notice it anymore.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder while he picked up the remote and flipped among all of the possible streaming services for a silly movie for them to watch. For the next hour, they sat there together, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, snacking, drinking wine, occasionally giggling softly at the movie, until he pressed pause.

“Are you ready for pie?” he asked her.

“I was arrested when I was a teenager,” she said.

He stopped halfway through leaning over to get the pie, and sat back down.

She hadn’t meant to say it. And she definitely hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She hadn’t meant to tell him this at all. She almost never told people about her arrest; not because she was ashamed of it, but because it always made them look at her differently, and she hated that.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

She nodded slowly.

“It was stupid, just one of those teen things. There was this guy I liked, and he wanted to break into the school one weekend night just to prove he could, and I thought if I went along with the group, maybe he’d like me back, so I did. We got caught, of course, and we all got arrested. It was . . . terrible.” She flashed back to that moment the police had come in, that call she’d had to make to her parents, the look in her baby sister’s eyes the next morning. “It ended up okay—community service, it got wiped from my record, et cetera, and I’m fine about it now, I have been for a long time, but it was really awful at the time, and for a while later.”

She rarely thought about that year anymore. She told her story occasionally, but it was more of a recitation at this point, an uplifting little story about survival and triumph. She never touched on the actual hard parts; how she’d disappointed her family, how she’d disappointed herself, how she’d worried about her future, so much so that it made her sick to her stomach for months on end.