Kara sat down across from him.

“That’s lovely, sir, it really is, but this weekend? Can you at least hold off another week? Maybe I could just have a call with her, to talk about . . .”

He shook his head.

“Thank you, Kara, I really am grateful you think about all of these things for me, but I don’t want to make a whole thing about this. I don’t think people will care all that much about my personal life. Plus, she’s nervous about this, understandably, so I don’t want to make this more stressful for her.”

He wanted to ease into this—do something fun with Olivia this weekend, and then maybe by the end of the summer she’d be able to come with him to all sorts of events and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

“I understand that, sir, but I’m pretty sure people will definitely care about this. You were on those most-eligible-bachelor lists in both DC and L.A., remember?”

He brushed that off.

“Those were both last August in very slow news weeks, but the news has been more of an onslaught these days; I don’t think we have to worry about all of that.”

Kara folded her hands together.

“Can I convince you to let me make sure there’s a friendly photographer around? There will be a ton of people there—someone is likely to take a picture of you, and it’ll get out, I promise. Think about this from her point of view—you may not care if the pictures are unflattering, but she likely will.”

This was yet another reason why he was glad he had Kara.

“Good idea, please do that.”

Kara stopped, right before she opened his office door.

“And, may I ask—what’s her name?”

He smiled.

“Olivia Monroe.”

Kara smiled back at him.

“Congratulations again, sir. And good luck this weekend.”

Chapter Fourteen

Olivia took longer to get ready for her date with Max that Saturday night than she had for any other date in her life. She’d been a little taken aback when Max told her his chief of staff had arranged for a friendly photographer to take photos of them on their way into the Hollywood Bowl. That seemed so . . . intentional. But she agreed that she’d rather have good photos out there of her than bad ones, so “friendly” photographer it was. Friendly photographer or not, though, she had to look perfect. She’d searched Instagram for pictures of people at the Hollywood Bowl to see what they wore to concerts there; she’d washed, moisturized, and twisted her hair the night before so it would be perfect and bouncy today; and she’d spent an entire hour doing her makeup, when she usually spent no more than five minutes.

She was a little surprised she hadn’t had to talk to Max’s staff before this, but she was relieved, too. That probably would have stressed her out even more. She still didn’t quite know why she was doing this, but that was the story of her entire relationship with Max. Why had she talked to him at the bar? Why had she gone out with him in the first place? Why had she started dating him? Why had she told him she loved him, no matter how true it was? There was just something about Max—the way he smiled at her, the way he looked at her, the way he loved her—that made her feel as if he saw her, all of her, and loved every single thing about her. And against all odds, she felt the same about him.

Finally, she was ready, thirty minutes before Max was due to pick her up. She took a picture of herself and her outfit in her full-length mirror (long, flowy blue sundress, jean jacket, gold wedge sandals) and a close-up selfie to get her jewelry and makeup (dangly gold earrings, tortoiseshell sunglasses, pink lip gloss, and just a hint of highlighter) and texted both pictures to Alexa and Ellie.

Okay, we’re really doing this. How do I look? I’m going for woke up like this

Ellie immediately responded.

You look fantastic!

That was all well and good, but this was a time she actually wanted some constructive criticism on her outfit. She would have trusted Ellie better if she’d told her to change her lipstick or to wear the yellow dress or the gold hoops instead. It was like how she always trusted a proofreader better as soon as they found a typo.

I’m with Maddie and she says you look excellent but that you need a bracelet—don’t you have a gold one? Oh, and roll up the sleeves

Thank God for little sisters and their best friends for giving her the notes she’d been looking for. She grabbed her gold bangles out of her top drawer and slid them on her left wrist, and rolled up the sleeves of the jean jacket. She snapped a new picture and sent it to Alexa.

How’s this?

The text came back in seconds.

PERFECT

“You ready to go?” Max appeared in the doorway of her bedroom. “Oh wow, you look amazing.”

She tucked her phone into her pocket and picked up her bag. Shit, she hadn’t consulted with her fashion advisers about the bag, but she thought it worked—a big caramel leather tote she’d bought a few weeks ago. Well, if it didn’t work, it was too late now.

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. He looked great, too, in jeans, sneakers, and a blue-striped button-down. But tonight, he had no fake glasses, no wig, and no baseball cap. And instead of the tousled hair he usually had when he was off duty, his Ken doll hair was in all of its shellacked glory. That told her more than anything that tonight was going to be different.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked.

She definitely was not.

“Thank you for giving me room to back out, but let’s do this.”

He smiled and kissed her lightly on the lips.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

He touched her knee on the car drive over.

“Nervous?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“It’s just a concert, right? I’m fine.”

That wasn’t exactly true, but maybe if she said it enough, she’d feel fine.

“You talked to your staff about me, right? Did you tell them— ”

Max slid his hand in hers.

“Don’t worry. They’re very happy for us, and my chief of staff completely embarrassed me by saying she already knew I was dating someone because I seemed so happy.”

She shot her head in his direction.

“Really?”

He laughed.

“Really. Also, Kara says there might be a flurry of stories about us for a day or so and then people will get bored and move onto something else in the news cycle.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m really glad we’re doing this.”

She nodded again, and tried to ignore that What have you gotten yourself into? rattling around in her head.

They pulled into the parking lot. Max turned off the car, and they looked at each other.

Olivia smiled at him.

“I’m glad we’re doing this, too,” she said. Despite all her fears, she was.

Max took her hand as they got out of the car. Olivia tried to look straight ahead as they walked into the Hollywood Bowl, when all she wanted to do was to look around for the photographer in the crowd. But no, she was trying to look as natural as possible, so she just kept a smile on her face and her hand in Max’s and kept walking. The whole crowd was amped up tonight—it was mostly lots of women of all ages who seemed just as excited to see Dolly Parton as Olivia would have been if she weren’t vibrating with anxiety about everything else going on tonight.