“Fingers and toes crossed,” he said. “It’s fantastic that Bruce hooked you up like that.”

She laughed.

“Well, let’s hope it bears fruit. Speaking of, I have to run—I told Jamila I’d help her out with a bulk produce pickup tonight.”

He was glad she was going to be with Jamila tonight, but God did he wish he could be with her.

“Okay, talk to you later. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said.

As soon as he hung up, he picked up the phone again. Carrot cake this time, maybe? Or coconut?

Chapter Sixteen

On Thursday of the following week, Max called Olivia a few seconds after Kara left his office.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Olivia said when she answered the phone.

He smiled just at the sound of her voice. Thank God it didn’t have that tight, anxious pitch it had last week. He’d hated that sound in her voice, and he’d hated even more that he’d done that to her. And it had killed him to be so far away from her in those first few days when it was all so stressful. Just remembering that made him hesitate. Maybe his great idea wasn’t so great after all.

“Max, what is it?” she said.

“I had an idea,” he said. “But … if it doesn’t work, just tell me, okay?” He probably should have waited to run it by Olivia first, before he’d told Kara.

“Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

He grabbed a pen so he could doodle on his notepad.

“Well, next week is the Fourth of July.”

He’d have a whole week of recess, though a lot of that was going to be full of travel to fundraisers and party events. He’d still get to see Olivia a lot more than he would in a normal week, though.

“I know it’s the Fourth of July,” she said, amusement in her voice. “Was that it?”

He laughed.

“No, that wasn’t it! It’s this: for the past few years, I’ve done a volunteer thing on the Fourth, where I would bring some people from my staff, do some good, get some easy publicity for whatever nonprofit I was helping, and yes, some easy publicity for me, too. This year, it was going to be to help build furniture and toys for a foster-care center.”

“ ‘Was’?” Olivia asked.

Max took a gulp of water.