Max walked toward the hotel ballroom, his staffer Andy by his side. They were there for the anniversary fundraiser for a newish community center in an underserved part of L.A. He was happy to help salute this place, and plus, his speech would be a good opportunity to push his big criminal justice reform bill. He hoped that when the Senate came back after this recess, he’d be able to get some traction on it.

He took a deep breath and straightened his tie. He loved doing events like the one today—he always had. He loved the part of his job that was speeches and shaking hands and talking to people; he found people and their stories endlessly interesting. But he had to be at least twenty-five percent more for these things: louder, friendlier, more intense, with a firmer handshake. People were coming to see Senator Powell, after all—he needed to give them what they were looking for. But sometimes when he walked into these rooms, he felt he had to push his ON button.

He and the community center’s board president walked into the ballroom to a round of applause. Max sat patiently through his introduction, dropped his speech on the podium, and smiled at the crowd before he started talking.

He glanced around the room a lot as he spoke. It helped him to connect with the people there, and to see if his speech was landing well or not. If he saw people on their phones for most of the speech, he knew he had to go back and make some changes before the next time. This one was going well; there were lots of smiles and laughs all around the room. Midway through, he looked at a table to the right of the stage, and that’s when he saw her, staring straight at him, with that knowing look on her face he remembered so well.

Olivia. The woman from the hotel, three weeks ago. He’d spent the whole next day full of regret that he hadn’t at least gotten her number. He’d even gone back to the hotel bar the next night to see if she was there, but Krystal had told him Olivia had come to say good-bye and had checked out of the hotel. He’d thought he would never see her again, and here she was.

They made eye contact, and he grinned at her. She grinned back at him with that same cocky smile on her face she’d had at the bar. He really liked that smile. And once again, he felt like he’d won the lottery when it was directed at him.