“Yes, I do.” She took another sip of water, willfully ignoring that Danial was directly quoting their conversation from the car ride down. “But we collaborate with his team a good amount.”

“She does cool stuff,” Dev added, vaguely in Enzo’s direction.

“Dev, are you a closet Stevie supporter?” Guy asked, holding the base of his glass and giving it a gentle swirl.

Stevie was how the right wing media referred to Congressman Stephens, an infantilizing nickname Alex had created a flood of social media content to counteract. It was meant to render him unserious, to highlight his relative youth and inexperience, and to generally erode trust in his campaign. And among certain swaths of the electorate—particularly older, more conservative voters—it was quite effective.

“Dev doesn’t live in Pennsylvania,” Alex said, setting her fork down. In her mind, she added the hissed clarification that “his name isn’t Stevie,” but she didn’t have the courage to say it out loud.

“Yeah, but he can still support free retirement for all at forty-five, or whatever it was,” Guy continued, Paul shooting him an uncomfortable look across the table.

Alex clenched her teeth, caught between wanting to scream at him and not wanting to seem like a killjoy, a role she often felt expected to play by her present company.

“It’s the Dignity In Retirement bill,” Danial corrected, his tone neutral.

Momentarily stunned by his interception, Alex took a beat before peeling her eyes off of him to add her own commentary. “And it’s not retirement at forty-five, it’s sixty-two—which puts us very much in the middle of the pack for developed countries. You know, like Norway?” She didn’t need to specify that this was the country Guy’s family lived in, because everyone already knew it.

A wave of quiet rippled over their group, Bee and Sophie exchanging the same knowing look as they had during her argument with Danial that morning. But this time, she wouldn’t allow them the satisfaction of seeing her worked up again—not even about the thing she cared most about. Not while Enzo’s fingers were delicately grazing her back, at least. She continued on in her most diplomatic, calm tone:

“And I do think Congressman Stephens has a good chance of winning. Especially after the… recent labor issues in Pennsylvania.” She made a point of looking at Guy as she said it, remaining aware of Danial from the corner of her eye.

“What happened?” Sophie looked up from the phone that had been occupying her attention for most of the evening. “I hate politics.”

Next to her, Dev looked over with a distinct expression of fatigue.

“I’ll let you Google that one.” Alex smiled, imagining herself throwing her Aperol spritz in Sophie’s face. “But it’s bad.”

“It’s complicated,” Danial replied, setting down his utensils but keeping his voice even.