He shook his head.

“No, no, everything’s great! Just excited for tonight.” He shot another big smile at her.

She shrugged, then walked into the kitchen.

“We can bring wine, right? I know you said you were taking care of the picnic supplies, but I bought this bottle of wine today; I thought it would be fun to bring it.”

He took the bottle of wine from her and set it back down on the counter.

“Unfortunately we can’t, but we can buy wine there. Whether you can bring wine to a location often has to do with the way their liquor license is set up, but sometimes it’s just about wanting to drive more wine and beer sales of their own.”

Olivia steered him into the living room and sat down on the couch.

“Okay. What’s going on? I know I don’t know you all that well, but you don’t seem like yourself.”

How could she see right through him like this?

He started to shake his head again, and she stopped him.

“Please don’t say ‘Everything’s great!’ again in that weird voice, or spout another fun fact at me. You’re not on TV right now, you know. You don’t have to tell me what’s up, but … is something wrong?”

He sat down on the couch next to her and took a deep breath.

“Do you know, I can’t remember the last time someone asked me that,” he said.

She put her hand on his shoulder. It felt really nice. Comforting. No one had comforted him in a really long time.

“I’m guessing that means the answer is yes. Do … do you want to talk about it? We don’t have to rush off to the Getty just yet, you know.”

He looked at his watch.

“We do if we want to get to see any of the art before sunset. Sunset is at sevenish, and by the time we get there, and park and everything, it’ll be— ”

She moved her hand down his arm and covered up his watch.

“We don’t have to go to the Getty tonight. It’s not going anywhere, we can go another time.”

Something in him thrilled at her implication that there would be another time, that they had a future together. But he still wanted to push on, to not admit defeat.

“Oh, but I know you wanted to go up there, and I have all this stuff for the picnic in the car. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine!” He flashed a bright smile at her and stood up.

She stayed on the couch.

“You’re doing it again. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me what’s up, but don’t pretend to me, okay?”

He dropped back down next to her.