He dropped his water bottle onto the blanket. Thank goodness he’d put the top on first.

“I love this idea! Town halls across California, in marginalized communities. It’s perfect. I’m going to text my chief of staff about this right now.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Olivia laughed.

“That poor woman, getting texts from you with random ideas on a Saturday.”

Max looked up from his phone and shrugged.

“Luckily she’s used to me by now. But also luckily, I don’t have any reception up here, so I can’t send it yet. Hold on: let me just note this down so I can send it later.”

He typed busily with his thumbs for a few minutes, then put his phone away.

“Sorry about that.” He touched her cheek, just for a second. “Thank you—for the idea, and for making me feel less discouraged about everything. And I’m sorry, we’ve been talking about me a lot, haven’t we? How are you? How is the firm going, still super busy?”

Olivia made herself smile big, like she always did when she got this question, and nodded.

“Oh yeah, really busy. I’m lucky I got away all afternoon today.” Suddenly, her lies felt like ashes on her tongue. She just couldn’t do it anymore. Not with Max. “No. Wait. I’m sorry, none of that is true. It’s not that busy at all, and I’m really worried about it.”

Max looked confused.

“Wait, what do you mean? I thought you’ve been wildly busy since you started?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said again. “I know I told you that. I lied to you. I’m sorry. They say you’re supposed to fake it till you make it, and I’ve been faking it too much. We keep networking and reaching out to potential clients but we aren’t getting as much interest as I’d hoped. We have some clients, and we’ve done some pitches, but not enough, and I’m so stressed about it. I knew this would be hard, but I guess I didn’t realize how hard it would be on me.” She finally turned to look at him. “I didn’t mean to lie to you about this, but I’m just so anxious about it and scared that I made the biggest mistake of my life and that we’re not going to make this a success, and I’ll have to … anyway, I’m sorry.”

All her lies and anxieties came spilling out, until she forced herself to stop talking. What did Max think of her now?