He drove home on autopilot. He wished he hadn’t seen Mateo. He wished he didn’t have such good memories for faces and names. A normal person wouldn’t have seen a twentysomething who had been a preteen the last time he’d seen him and remember either the face or the name; why couldn’t he be a normal person? Then he wouldn’t be thinking about Antonio and his family right now. He’d instead just drive back home and remember how he’d brought tears to Ms. Sussman’s eyes with his speech, the laughter of the crowd, and that one baby who had the fattest cheeks he’d ever seen. He’d drive home and look forward to seeing Olivia later … fuck. Fuck, he’d almost forgotten his date with Olivia. He had to pull himself together and out of this funk before he got to her house.

By the time he got back to his house, changed out of his suit and into jeans, collected all of the food into a tote bag, and drove back down to Olivia’s place, he’d gotten more of a hold on himself. For the rest of this night, he just had to forget that he’d seen Mateo, forget about all of this. He could do that—he’d done a fundraiser the day he and his last girlfriend broke up, and had made a floor speech the day after his grandfather died, and each time he’d shut his emotions away, put his big politician smile and his big politician voice on, and aced it each time. He could ace this, too.

He knocked on Olivia’s door, and made sure a big smile was on his face when she opened it.

“Hey! Ready to go?”

She gave him a slightly weird look, but he brushed it off. Olivia always looked at him like she didn’t quite know what to make of him, but she kept going out with him anyway, didn’t she?

“Almost,” she said. “Come in for a second while I grab a sweater? It’s warm now, but I want to be prepared for after the sun goes down.”

Max nodded and followed her into the house. She walked through the kitchen and into her bedroom, and he stood just outside the doorway while she looked through her dresser drawers.

“I’m really excited that you’re going to get to see the Getty!” he said. “You know, not only does it have a wonderful art exhibit, but it has some of the best views in all of Los Angeles. You don’t want to miss the sunset there! Also, fun fact: did you know that a number of the former curators were investigated for trafficking in stolen antiquities?”

She walked out of her bedroom, heavy gray cardigan in hand, and gave him that look again.

“Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”

Apparently he wasn’t acing this yet.