Had United States senator Max Powell really sent her a cake?

And, in his note along with the cake . . .

He couldn’t be asking her out, right?

Yes, when she’d walked out of that elevator, she sort of thought that the hot white dude in the baseball cap she’d been flirting with for the past hour or so had been about to ask her out, sure. But that’s when she didn’t know the hot white dude in the baseball cap was Max Powell, hotshot junior senator from California.

Was he really asking her out? From anyone else, this note would mean an unequivocal yes, but he was a senator!

Was he some sort of scumbag who went around doing this all the time? It had only been—she looked at her watch—four hours from when she’d seen him at the luncheon and when the cake had arrived at her office. Only someone who was really practiced in this kind of thing would work that fast.

Okay, maybe, but he’d obviously remembered their conversation at the bar three weeks ago—did scumbags do that? And if he was a scumbag, why hadn’t he pounced on her at the bar, anyway? She’d had enough experience with men to usually identify the creepy ones right off the bat—she wouldn’t have spent that long talking to him at the bar, gin or no gin, if he’d given her bad vibes.

And yes, fine, she had spent more than a few moments in the last few weeks fantasizing about what could have happened if he’d invited her up to his room. And she had to admit he’d been pretty hot in his very-well-tailored suit and tie. Apparently she found both senator Max Powell and Max in the baseball cap equally attractive. A fling with him could definitely be fun . . . Wait. Was she actually considering this?

Who was this guy even? All she knew about him was from the times she’d seen him on MSNBC, where he’d been appropriately respectful to Rachel Maddow and dodged questions about his presidential aspirations, but she needed to find out more. About both his politics and his personal life.

But before she did any of that, she needed to eat a piece of this cake.

Olivia found a knife and cut a fat slice of the cake. Three layers. Had she mentioned to Max that she loved a three-layer cake the best? She couldn’t remember.

She took a bite, and closed her eyes in a silent celebration. This was exactly what she’d been craving that night—rich, tender, chocolaty cake, between layers of dark chocolate frosting. It was perfect.

Now, to see if the man measured up to the cake.

Unlikely.

She turned to her computer.

Senator Max Powell girlfriend was her first Google search. There she discovered that he’d had a serious girlfriend when he was DA here in L.A., but they’d broken up before he started his bid for the Senate, so almost three years ago. She couldn’t find any evidence of his dating someone since then. Okay, so—if he was indeed asking her out—he obviously just wanted something casual. Which was fine with her.

Hmmm, what about Senator Max Powell scandal?

There were a bunch of hits for that, and she was seconds from knocking the cake on the floor, until she realized they were all about his comments about a sexual harassment scandal in the Senate last year.

I firmly and vigorously denounce the behavior of my colleague, and I insist that this chamber put into place a better procedure for reporting sexual harassment for employees.

Okay. Well, that was an excellent statement. She’d read a lot of statements like this over the past few years, ones by a guy getting asked questions about another guy they worked with, and she wasn’t sure if she’d seen a better one. The cake was safe, thank God.

Now to see how she felt about his policies.

She knew instead of googling this she could just pick up the phone and call her sister, who had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of every California politician, and Alexa would tell her everything she needed to know. But she wasn’t quite ready to tell Alexa about the cake from Senator Powell, and especially not the note along with the cake. She’d told her about the night at the bar, because it was funny, and she knew Alexa would appreciate it more than anyone else in her life. But that she was considering going out with him? Not yet. At a minimum, not until she’d at least made up her mind about that.

However . . . she needed to find out how this man felt about a few key issues.

“Oh my God, who sent you that cake?”

Olivia looked up from her Senator Max Powell Black Lives Matter search to see Ellie standing at her office door.

“Do you want some? It’s really good. We need to remember the name of this bakery.”

Ellie had already picked up the knife and sliced herself a perfect wedge of cake.

“Did it say ‘Welcome to California’? How sweet—was this your sister?” She tipped the slice onto a napkin and dropped into the seat across from Olivia.

Olivia shook her head.

“No, that’s what I initially thought, too, but . . .” She shook her head and then looked at Ellie with a grin on her face. “Okay, I have a story for you. A few weeks ago, before I’d moved into my place, I went to grab dinner at my hotel bar after work. And, well . . .”

Ellie’s eyes got bigger and bigger as Olivia went on. When she finally got to the cake, Ellie snatched the note right out of her hand.

“Max Powell sent you this cake? People call him the hot senator.”

Olivia grinned.

“Yes, my Google searches have taught me that. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him at the bar.”

Ellie popped the last bite of cake into her mouth.

“I can’t believe the hot senator sent you this cake!” She waved the note in the air. “With this note on it!”

She propped the note up against the cake box.

“What did he say when you called him? When are you going to see him again? Where does a senator take a woman out on a date, anyway?”

Olivia pursed her lips.

“I haven’t . . . exactly . . . called him yet. I’m still deciding if I’m going to do that.”

Ellie frowned at her. Olivia almost laughed—when Ellie, the woman with a perpetual smile on her face, tried to frown, she looked like a little kid playing with facial expressions.

“When you say, ‘I’m still deciding if I’m going to do that,’ do you mean you’re deciding if you’re going to call him versus text him, or do you mean you’re still deciding if you’re going to get in touch with him at all?”

Olivia cut herself another piece of cake.

“The latter. I don’t have time for men right now, Ellie! Especially not . . . complicated men.”

Ellie dropped her napkin onto the desk.

“Oh, come on. Call the man! Or text him, whatever. This is a really good cake!”

Olivia laughed at that. It was just like Ellie to have her priorities straight.

“It is a really good cake, but what if he sends cakes like this to every woman he has the slightest interest in? I don’t want to be just one of Max Powell’s conquests.”

Ellie picked her cake up again.

“That’s an excellent point, and all the more reason to find out. Call him, see if he’s trying to woo just some random woman he met at a bar, or if he’s trying to woo you, specifically.”

Ellie stood up and went to the door.

“But before you do any of that, respond to that email Daphne sent us, would you? She likes you better than me.”