They didn’t say anything to each other until they were in the car and a block away from the stadium.

“So,” Max started.

Olivia burst out laughing, and then he did, and they laughed so hard he almost pulled over.

“No offense,” she said through gasps, “but that was one of the weirdest dates I’ve ever been on. The middle part was good, the part with Dolly Parton and holding hands and all of that. But the beginning and the end were very stressful! I thought dating a famous person was supposed to be glamorous!”

He poked her in the arm.

“Oh, you think you were stressed? You didn’t have to stand there and take it while your friend Jamila looked me over like I was a piece of meat and she was measuring me up to see if I was good enough for you. Or try not to react when she was looking straight at me and made that face when she suddenly realized who I was!”

Thank God there was so much traffic that he didn’t really have to pay attention to the road, because when he thought about Jamila’s face at that moment, it set him off again.

Olivia reached for her phone, connected it to his car Bluetooth, and cranked up a Dolly Parton playlist.

“Thank God for Dolly,” she said. “See, she was the best part of the night.”

They spent the rest of the drive back to her house singing along with Dolly, and they could tell a bunch of the cars around them were doing the same thing.

They didn’t talk about any of the other events of the night until they got back to her house. He parked around the corner, and as they walked down the sidewalk, he reached for her hand. She hesitated, and looked around her quiet street before sliding her fingers through his.

“Sorry,” she said as they walked up to her door. “I guess I’m just not used to this yet. And still a little—or maybe a lot—paranoid.”

He shrugged.

“You have reason to be paranoid, don’t apologize. You notice that I’m still not parking in your driveway.”

She unlocked her front door and he followed her inside.

“I noticed.” She kicked her shoes off and walked into the kitchen. Max grinned and followed her. “I was terrified when Jamila saw us together. I felt like a teenager again, like I’d been caught. Then I remembered I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and also that Jamila is my friend, not my mom.”

Olivia turned to look at him and finally saw the box in his hands.

“What’s that?”

He looked down and pretended to be surprised.

“This? Oh God, I don’t know. What is this? I just saw it on the counter, what could it be?”

He flipped open the top and turned the box toward her.