“And deny myself the chance to have the best tacos in the Bay Area, maybe all of California? Are you kidding me?” He pressed his lips together and paused for a moment. “But do you want to go? We can if you want to.”

She thought about that for a minute. The smart thing to do would be to leave right now, so the reporter didn’t recognize Max and blow their secret. Especially because the two of them had been standing there hand in hand for the past ten minutes; it would be pretty obvious to anyone who saw them that they were together. They never did that when they were out in public together in L.A., but somehow in the Bay Area, away from their regular lives, it felt like they could do whatever they wanted. And she didn’t want to stop. She shook her head.

“We came all this way. And the tacos smell so good.” She put her hand on his stubbly cheek. She kind of liked him all scruffy like this. “Don’t you have an embarrassing cousin who lives in the Bay Area anyway? Peter, right? He works in advertising or something?”

He kissed her on the cheek and smiled at her.

“Mmm, yes, yes I do, thanks for reminding me.”

Max kept his back to the reporter for the next five minutes until they got to the front of the line, and Olivia kept trying to remember to call him Peter, which just made them both giggle. Max ordered two of everything on the menu, which she’d known he would do before they even discussed it, and they claimed a corner of a picnic table.

“Are we going to take the tacos to go, or eat here and tough it out?” Max asked her.

She grinned at him.

“We’ve come this far, haven’t we?”

He reached for her hand and held on tight.

“I’m so glad we have,” he said.

She looked into his warm, kind, mischievous eyes.

“Me, too,” she said.

Max felt that usual burst of adrenaline as he strode into the hotel and toward the ballroom for the fundraiser. He loved this part of his job. He gave a damn good speech, and he knew it, and he knew he was going to do it tonight, too. He turned to grin at his two staff members who were there with him, and then sighed. Georgia and Zachary were both great at their jobs, but he wished he had Olivia next to him tonight instead.