“Hi.” He gives me a little pecking kiss.

“Hi,” I say. Then I blurt out, “We had a fight.”

“Yeah.” Zeke shrugs out of his coat. “Our first fight. It’s kind of a landmark.”

Our first fight. The way he says it makes it sound romantic. Some of the awkwardness is stripped away. Not all of it.

“Wine?” I offer. “Or tea?”

“Tea is good,” he says. “Wine later?” His voice sounds hopeful, like he wants us to be talking for a while.

“That sounds good. We have all night.” I set the kettle on and he hovers near the counter.

“I’m sorry, Kimberly,” Zeke says, as I pull out the mugs. “I am the sort of person who gets pretty upset when I feel like I have failed at something. Sometimes I take my feelings out on other people.”

The way he says it is funny. Stilted, or something. It sounds like he’s repeating something someone told him about himself.

“You haven’t failed,” I assure him. “Why do you think you failed?”

“The protest,” he says. “And then I was mean and you ran away. So, double fail.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I didn’t handle it well.”

“I didn’t, either,” I admit. “We were too stressed. That part was my fault. I brought up … things I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m taking the job in DC,” Zeke says.

“I know,” I answer. “I’m happy for you. And I don’t want you to go.”

“I know,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

The teakettle whistles. Zeke loves me! I feel like we should kiss or something, but instead I fuss with the water and the tea bags. We sit on the couch.

Zeke pauses. “Kimberly, could you tell me more about your relationship with Senator Sloan?”

That stilted voice again. Is he working from a script?

“It’s a little hard to talk about that.” There’s so much I want to tell him, and so much I’m scared to say out loud.

Zeke puts down his tea and takes mine, too. He holds my hands tightly. “You can talk to me about anything.”

I stare at our hands. “I know.”

“It seems like … maybe there’s some history there?” he says. “Did he hurt you somehow?”

I can’t look at Zeke. “He was nice to me in a time when a lot of people weren’t. He made me believe…” I let my voice trail off. “I owe him a lot, I guess.”

“I don’t want to work for someone bad.”

Oh. He was listening. He believed me.

“It’s complicated,” I admit. “The things he’s famous for, I mean, he did those things. He makes a difference.”

Zeke takes my hands. “Then what is it?” He’s gentle. “I know you. You don’t lash out at people for no reason.”