Thank God there was so much traffic that he didn’t really have to pay attention to the road, because when he thought about Jamila’s face at that moment, it set him off again.

Olivia reached for her phone, connected it to his car Bluetooth, and cranked up a Dolly Parton playlist.

“Thank God for Dolly,” she said. “See, she was the best part of the night.”

They spent the rest of the drive back to her house singing along with Dolly, and they could tell a bunch of the cars around them were doing the same thing.

They didn’t talk about any of the other events of the night until they got back to her house. He parked around the corner, and as they walked down the sidewalk, he reached for her hand. She hesitated, and looked around her quiet street before sliding her fingers through his.

“Sorry,” she said as they walked up to her door. “I guess I’m just not used to this yet. And still a little—or maybe a lot—paranoid.”

He shrugged.

“You have reason to be paranoid, don’t apologize. You notice that I’m still not parking in your driveway.”

She unlocked her front door and he followed her inside.

“I noticed.” She kicked her shoes off and walked into the kitchen. Max grinned and followed her. “I was terrified when Jamila saw us together. I felt like a teenager again, like I’d been caught. Then I remembered I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and also that Jamila is my friend, not my mom.”

Olivia turned to look at him and finally saw the box in his hands.

“What’s that?”

He looked down and pretended to be surprised.

“This? Oh God, I don’t know. What is this? I just saw it on the counter, what could it be?”

He flipped open the top and turned the box toward her.

“CAKE!” She stared at the cake then back up at him. “Is that for me?”

He grinned at her and opened the sides of the box so he could slide the cake out onto the counter.

“Who do you think it’s for? I got it this afternoon. I had a feeling tonight might be stressful—Dolly notwithstanding. I thought we both might need a pick-me-up afterward.” He picked up the cake cutter from where he’d left it on the counter, cut a fat slice, and slid it onto a plate.

“Yellow cake with chocolate frosting!” Olivia took a fork out of the drawer and took a big bite of the cake.

“Oh God. Oh God, this is just what I needed.”

She dropped the fork on the counter and wrapped her arms around him.

“I love you,” she said.

He tasted the sugar and butter and chocolate as he kissed her.

“I love you, too,” he said.

She stepped back and picked up the fork.

“And I really, really love yellow cake with chocolate frosting.”

He cut another slice and grabbed his own fork.

“So do I.”

Olivia woke up absurdly early the next morning to find Max standing over her.

“What’s wrong?” she said as she squinted up at him.

He bent down to kiss her.

“Nothing, I just have an early flight this morning back to DC, remember? I’m sorry I woke you up, but I have to go and I didn’t want to leave before saying good-bye.”

She sat up and kissed him again.

“I’m glad you woke me up.” She touched a finger to his cheek and brushed down his hair. “Have a good week. I’ll miss you.”

He kissed her hard on the lips, then stood up all the way.

“I’ll miss you so much. I’ll be in touch. About everything.”

He kissed her again and left. When she heard her front door open and close a few seconds later, she flopped back down on her bed with a long sigh.

She tried to drift back into sleep again, but even though it was just after six a.m. and she almost never woke up before seven thirty, she was wide awake. She missed Max’s warm, comfortable, soothing body next to her, and now all she could think about was the “everything” he’d meant. Maybe all hell had already broken loose and he hadn’t told her? No, Max would have told her, that wasn’t his style.

The problem was, this was a hell of a bigger deal to her than it was to Max. Max was already famous—this wasn’t going to change his life that much, maybe even at all. But it was going to change hers, at least somewhat. She just had no idea how much. Or what was going to happen next.

She threw back the covers with a sigh—there was no point in staying in bed and pretending she’d go back to sleep. She might as well drink some coffee and eat some leftover cake for breakfast.

Ten minutes later, she was back in her bedroom with a cup of very strong coffee and a big slice of cake. She took a sip of coffee and a bite of cake and smiled—the super chocolatey frosting cut through the bitterness of her coffee perfectly. She should definitely have cake for breakfast more often.

She reached for her phone and laughed out loud when she saw Jamila’s text, sent approximately one minute after they’d said good-bye last night:

THE MYSTERY MAN YOU ARE DATING IS MAX POWELL THE MAX POWELL WAS I JUST IMAGINING THINGS HOLY SHIT OLIVIA I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING

Olivia laughed out loud again and took another big bite of cake. THE Max Powell indeed.

She shrugged. She had no choice here but to go all in, did she?

You free tonight? Come over for dinner. This is a story that has to be told over a bottle of wine—for me, not you—and also not in public

Jamila texted back a lot faster than Olivia thought she would this early in the morning.

Just tell me what time and I’m there

At 6:03 that night, Olivia finished making a cheese and charcuterie plate that even her sister would be proud of her for, and opened one of the bottles of wine she’d picked up along with the cheese. Thank God Jamila was one of those people who was always five to ten minutes late, which Olivia considered to be perfect timing. The worst people were the five-to-ten-minutes-early people—half the time she wasn’t even dressed ten minutes before someone was supposed to arrive at her house.

At exactly 6:10, the doorbell rang. Olivia swung open the door and handed Jamila a wineglass full of sparkling water.

“Come on in. I hope you’re hungry, I got us a ton of food.”

Jamila was smiling from ear to ear when she followed Olivia inside.

“Starving—I haven’t eaten since brunch, and that was at eleven. Brunch always throws me off for the rest of the day—it makes me want to eat again at like three, and then again at nine. But I refrained from doing so because I knew I was coming over here and why the hell am I still talking about brunch when all I care about is what the HELL IS GOING ON BETWEEN YOU AND SENATOR MAX POWELL?”

Olivia laughed as she poured herself a glass of wine.

“I was waiting for you to get there. Come into the living room so we can get comfortable; this story will take a while.”

They sat down on the couch, and Jamila looked at Olivia expectantly. Olivia took a sip of wine and started with that first night at the bar, giving her an edited version of the past few months.

“And that’s why I went up to the Bay Area a few weeks ago—yes, to see my sister, but also because Max was there instead of in L.A. that weekend, and we . . .”

Jamila put her hand to her heart.