“If you’re trying to ask if I’m okay financially, I am, really. Ellie thinks I’m irrational for stressing this much—she says we both knew it would be slow going in the beginning, but we started with a few anchor clients and we have money coming in and we both saved up a lot before we started this.” But she’d feel like such a failure if she had to dig even deeper into her savings. “And she’s right, but I guess I didn’t quite realize how uncertain it would all feel. Like all of it could disappear in an instant. I thought I’d feel more comfortable once we got our first new client, but it was for such a small case it didn’t make me feel much better. If only we could get a case from a bigger company—all we need is to get our foot in the door. I know we’d do a great job; we’re both excellent lawyers. We’ll see what happens with the pitch from today, but …” She shrugged. “I’m not feeling that optimistic.”

Max dished noodles on her plate and handed it to her.

“Here. Your favorite spicy noodles will help—the spice high will make you feel like a superhero.”

One of the things she liked so much about Max was that he didn’t try to give her a pep talk unless she asked for one, and he didn’t try to reassure her that everything would be fine. He just handed her spicy noodles. Which was exactly what she needed.

“Thanks,” she said. Which felt inadequate, for the noodles and the pie and the sympathy, but she knew he understood.

He picked up a spring roll and turned to her.

“So. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

That never meant good news.

“Okay. What is it?” She braced herself.

“I know we talked about this some a while ago—not specifics, but just in general—but that was when things were different and I feel like things have changed, so I wanted to ask about it again— ”

Okay, now she needed him to cut to the chase. He was usually way more articulate than this. Was he breaking up with her?

“Max. What are you getting at?”

He rubbed his face and put his plate down onto the coffee table.

“I guess I’d better just say it: have you given any more thought—or any at all, actually—to us going public about this?”

Oh. Not a breakup.

The opposite of a breakup, really.

“Oh. I didn’t expect … that’s not what I thought you were …” She laughed out loud. “Max Powell, please do me a favor and never say ‘I have to talk to you about something’ again to me like that. Because I thought you were about to break up with me.”