Maybe she was at his house right now. Maybe she’d needed to drive her friend home and had forgotten to text to tell him so. She had a key; maybe she was already there waiting for him. Maybe she was in his bed right now, waiting for him. Oh God, he hoped so—it felt like forever since he’d had her in his bed. He couldn’t wait to slide into bed with her tonight, and kiss her, and make love to her, and then wrap his arms around her and never let go.
Andy pulled up in front of his house, and Max thanked him for the great event before he raced into the house.
“Olivia? Olivia, are you here?” he shouted as soon as he walked in the door.
No answer.
Maybe she couldn’t hear from his bedroom. Or maybe she’d fallen asleep there, waiting for him.
He ran up the stairs and burst into his bedroom.
“Olivia.”
But his bedroom was silent, his bed empty. And he realized what should have hit him as soon as they’d pulled up to his house: her car wasn’t there.
Okay, seriously, where the fuck was she?
He called her, once, twice, but she didn’t answer.
He thought back to that frozen look on her face. Now that he thought about it, had she avoided his eyes for the rest of the town hall? He’d looked at her a few other times, but she’d always been looking at a random corner of the stage, definitely not at him.
He grabbed his car keys off the hook by the garage. Thirty minutes later, he banged on her front door.
“Olivia? Are you there?”
Her car was there, at least, so that was a good sign.
He rang her doorbell, then reached for his keys to let himself in. But before he could, her door swung open.
“So is your goal to let the whole world know exactly where I live, on top of everything else?”
She was still in the black pants and silk blouse she’d worn to the community center, but everything else about her looked different. Her hair was gathered in a tight knot at the top of her head, instead of the soft curls that had skimmed her shoulders. She had smudges around her face that he knew hadn’t been there earlier. And now, instead of either the laughter in her eyes he’d seen in the greenroom or that stony look on her face he’d seen in the auditorium, the look on her face was pure fury.
“Olivia, what happened? Where did you go?” He stepped inside. “What do you mean, ‘on top of everything else’?”
She slammed the door behind him.
“What do I mean? Have you forgotten what happened back there at the community center? What you did to me up there on that stage, in front of your staff and the press and hundreds of other people?”
He stared at her as realization dawned.
“This is all about that kid? Is that what all of this is about? I don’t understand why you wouldn’t give him advice in the first place—you told me you wanted to be able to be an example for kids like him!”
She took a step away from him, and that stony look was on her face again.
“I’m making a big deal out of nothing, is that what you think?” she said. “You ambushed me! In front of hundreds of people and dozens of reporters! I’d be happy to give that kid advice; I was planning on it—privately, afterward. I’ve helped out many kids like him, as a matter of fact—I’ve volunteered and mentored and given them advice and made connections. But I do that as my decision, not yours! When I said I wanted to be an example to kids like him, I didn’t mean like this!” She shook her head. “How could you even think I would want to stand up in front of the whole world and talk about all of that? After these past few months, when my past was thrown in my face—all for you, I might add—and you wanted it to start all over again?”
Fuck. He’d gotten this all wrong.
“No, Olivia, that’s not what I wanted. I just thought you might— ”
But she wasn’t listening to him.
“Does it give you some sort of street cred, or something? Having a girlfriend who got arrested? Is that why you paraded me around today, in front of that group? So they might trust you more? So they might vote for you next time?”
Now she was making him mad.
“That’s really fucking unfair and you know it. I didn’t want you there today for any of those reasons—I wanted you there today because I like having you there with me, because I love you, because this was an event that was important to me and I wanted to share it with you. I thought you wanted to be there! I’m sorry I put you on the spot, but the timing and setting seemed perfect.” He remembered something, one of the reasons he’d thought it was okay to bring it up today in the first place. “Plus, you talked about it at that city council meeting a few years ago, I don’t know why it’s so different.”
Olivia clenched her jaw so hard he could see it from across the hallway.
“It was my choice to talk at that city council meeting, and I had the freedom to talk about it in my own way. And that was before my name was already in the fucking tabloids! No one cared one iota about me two years ago at the Berkeley City Council meeting! But now, today, if I said one single thing in public about my arrest, too many fucking people would care! They would ask me questions, they would write articles about it for weeks, they would call my office over and over again, and I don’t want any of that. I’ve never wanted any of that.”
He couldn’t ignore the implications of that. He really hoped she wasn’t saying what it felt like she was saying.
“I thought . . . from what we talked about in Hawaii, anyway . . . that you saw a future for us. Did you think that you and I would stay together and you would stay in the public eye—as much as you don’t want that, that’s what would happen—and you would never talk about it?”
“Yes!” she yelled. She stopped and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t get that far in thinking about it. But what I do know is that if I ever did address it, I wouldn’t do it your way, where you just leap into something without thinking about the implications, say the first thing that comes to your mind, and smile and charm your way out of every hole you dig yourself in.”
That wasn’t fair. He started to break in, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I can’t do things like that; I’m a Black woman, I don’t ever get the benefit of the doubt in the way someone like you does. I can’t afford to make split-second decisions and assume they’ll work out. I have to plan, and think, and plan again, and strategize. I prepare like hell for everything I do, so if I did ever decide to say anything publicly about the time I was arrested as a teenager, and the aftermath, and the way I recovered and flourished after that, I would prepare like hell for that, too. What I wouldn’t do is stand up at a few seconds’ notice at a community center and say whatever came into my head, because that’s not how I live my life.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “That’s how you live your life, though, isn’t it? You just make impulsive, snap decisions all the time, and maybe they work for you, but you can’t make them for other people like you keep doing for me.”
He’d made her cry. He’d really fucked this one up, hadn’t he?
“Olivia, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I just thought it was the perfect opening, and you were right there, and I know how much you care about teens like that, and I wanted everyone to see how warm and caring and smart and accomplished you are, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show the world who you really are.”