Party of Two (The Wedding Date #5)(13)

“I liked your speech, by the way,” she said. “I don’t know if I mentioned that.” She had, but he was very happy to hear it again. “And I liked what you said about your criminal justice reform bill.”

“Thank you, that means a lot.” He knew she—unlike many people who complimented him—wouldn’t have done so if she didn’t mean it. He reached across the table and touched her hand. It was soft, warm. “The speech itself was mostly my staffer Poppy, so I’ll pass along your compliments to her. And the bill is something I’ve worked really hard on. When I became disenchanted with the way we lock kids up, I spent a lot of time talking to advocates and experts about what we could and should be doing for these kids.”

She kept her hand on the table right next to his. Just barely touching.

“That’s as unexpected as it is refreshing. We need more politicians to do things like asking experts who have devoted years to thinking and talking about how best to fix problems. It’s sad that that’s so rare, but I guess it is.”

He couldn’t tell if that was a backhanded compliment or not, but either way, he’d take it.

“Tell me more about your job,” he said. “It must have taken a lot of courage to start your own firm.”

She looked proud.

“It did. Though it took a while for me to decide to make that leap. Ellie first brought it up . . . oh God, maybe five years ago? At first it was just a joke, and then it got more serious, but it really wasn’t until last year when I finally said yes, I’d do it.”

He grinned at her.

“That’s definitely the opposite way I make decisions; I’m much more of a split-second kind of guy. What made you finally go for it, after five whole years of thinking about it?”

She opened her eyes wide and shook her head.

“That sounds . . . like a stressful way to live. As for me, so many things finally came to a head.” She paused and looked at him for a long moment before continuing. “I was a partner at my old firm, but too often there were white male associates who got far more respect than I did, and the older partners loved to yell at me. I was just sick of it. I was tired of people doubting my ideas and intelligence, tired of just having to take the abuse, tired of working incredibly long days with no time for myself, and very tired of winter in New York. Finally, one day, after holding my rage in at work one too many times, I walked out of the building and called Ellie and told her I was in.”

“I’m really sorry you had to go through all of that,” he said.

He touched her hand again, and this time she slid her hand into his.

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

“You’re a month into the firm now?” he asked. “How’s it been so far? All that you dreamed of?”

He rubbed his thumb back and forth over her hand, and she smiled.

“I’m not really sure quite what I dreamed of, but it’s been great so far. Granted, it’s been stressful—it’s just me and Ellie, and we’re doing everything ourselves, from casework and meeting with clients to research to building bookshelves to updating our website to the seemingly endless amount of paperwork the State of California wants from us. But it’s incredible to be my own boss, and to do things the way I think they should be done, every single time.”

Boy, could he ever relate to that.

“Did you know anything about running your own business before?”

She shook her head.

“Nope, we’ve both learned on the fly. We both reached out to a lot of other women we knew who have started their own firms and their own businesses, and got a ton of advice, though—thank God for all of them. Some of that advice saved us from making some really bad and expensive mistakes.”

She was so animated when she talked about her firm. He liked that.

“You and Ellie have been friends for a long time, right? I bet it’s such a change to work with someone you can really trust,” he said.

The waitress set their burgers and fries in front of them, but Max ignored the food.

“Oh, it’s been great to work with Ellie—the two of us have such different strengths, but we still work really well together. And yes, I trust her implicitly, but we also signed a very detailed contract.” She grinned. “That was a very fun day, actually.”

Max grinned back at her.

“The true way to any lawyer’s heart,” he said.

Olivia picked up her burger.

“That’s all too accurate,” she said.

They were silent for a while as they both dove into their burgers and fries, but he didn’t feel the need to rush to fill the silence. The table was just small enough that they kept accidentally touching each other under the table . . . though, after a while, it stopped being an accident, at least on his end.

She was gorgeous, she was smart, and she was funny, but more than anything, she was interesting. He felt like he could talk to her for hours. And holy shit did he want to kiss her.

“You were correct,” Olivia said as she put down her burger. “The burgers are great, but the fries need some work.”

It wasn’t that Max would have liked her less if she hadn’t agreed with his french fry opinions, but . . . well, he was just very relieved she did.

“It’s so hard to find a place that has a good burger-and-fry combination—one is almost always significantly better than the other one, and I don’t understand why.”