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.