He practically jumped over his far-too-large desk and pulled her into his arms.

“I kept trying to think of living days and weeks and months without you, and it all seemed so empty and meaningless. I love you so much.”

She looked up at him with so much joy and laughter and love in her face that he almost couldn’t believe it.

“I love you so much, too.”

He kissed her like he’d never kissed her before, like he would be able to kiss her every day for the rest of his life.

Finally, he led her over to the couch, and they sat there, her head against his chest.

“I tried to get over you, but it was so hard.” She let out a half sob, half laugh. “So much of this was my fault, too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how hard all of that was for me so we could come up with a solution earlier.”

He stroked her hair and kissed her again.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure out what to say. It took me two weeks and four conversations with Wes before I realized what I wanted to tell you, and then four days to write barely a hundred words that I hoped expressed some of what I thought and felt and wanted.”

She lifted her head.

“I saw you on Maddow that night. When that guy tried to trap you into becoming vegan. I was sure you were going to do it, too.”

He laughed. He couldn’t believe she’d been watching that night.

“I was so mad, and I was so ready to take that asshole up on his dare, and then what you said about taking other people and their autonomy into account flashed into my mind, and I stopped myself.” He grinned at her. “And the wild thing was, it made for a much better answer, and he had no idea how to respond to me. Thanks for that.”

She gripped his fingers.

“I almost didn’t even read what you wrote—I was so scared to hope that I wouldn’t let myself read the attachment at first. When I finally did read it, I sat up all night thinking about it. I was going to email you back, but I wanted to see you, to really talk to you, first. I was going to wait until this weekend, but I texted Kara, to see what your schedule was like, and she said you were here all weekend. So I got on a red-eye last night and made it to DC first thing this morning.”

Speaking of Kara …

Max jumped up off the couch and looked at his calendar. It was somehow, magically, empty.

“Kara cleared my schedule for the rest of the day.” He pulled Olivia off the couch and handed her briefcase to her.