Party of Two (The Wedding Date #5)(80)

At least Jamila was going to be there, and probably a few other people she knew from the food pantry. It would help to have friendly faces around, and hopefully even someone to sit with during the town hall, since she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be surrounded by Max’s staff.

When she pulled up to the community center, her status as The Girlfriend was clear. One person waved her into the reserved parking area, and then another person escorted her to the “greenroom” to wait for Max.

He and his whole entourage—it was a big one this time—walked in ten minutes before the event was scheduled to start. And for the life of her, Olivia couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. Max immediately crossed the room to her.

“Hi,” he said under his breath. “I missed you.”

There were people all around them, and she knew they were all looking at them, even if they pretended not to. She and Max couldn’t touch or even stand that close to each other. But the way he looked at her felt like a caress.

“I missed you so much,” she said. His Hawaii sunburn on his nose had faded, and he was wearing that pale blue shirt and striped tie combination she particularly liked. And . . .

“I like the shoes,” she said.

He glanced down at his new shoes and blushed.

“I hoped you might.” They grinned at each other. It was so good to be with him again.

“Okay, everyone!” Someone with a very cheerful voice and perfectly straight hair stood by the door. “The community members are mostly here; we’ll just wait a few more minutes for stragglers and then get going.”

Max’s staff always seemed deeply competent. Olivia liked that so much.

“This’ll be fun,” Olivia said to Max as they walked down the hall toward the auditorium. “I haven’t really seen you do your thing since that first luncheon—Fourth of July was all softballs. I’m sure I’ll have some notes for you.”

He looked at her sideways, and she giggled. The doors to the auditorium swung open, and Olivia started to step to the side so she could drop behind Max and out of the spotlight. But before she could do so, he took her hand.

The hundreds of people inside scrambled to their feet, flashbulbs went off, and Max and Olivia walked inside, hand in hand. Knowing Max, he hadn’t planned for this in advance, he’d just grabbed her hand at the last second. She tried not to let her irritation show on her face. Instead, she forced a smile as Max gave high fives to the people in the crowd closest to him.

As soon as they were toward the front of the room, Olivia let go of Max’s hand and looked around for somewhere to go. Jamila gestured to her from her seat at the side of the stage, where she sat with some of the staff from the center. Olivia made a beeline for her and then tried her best to fade into the background. But she knew that no matter how much she tried to disappear, it was impossible; everyone in this room knew who she was, and many of them were probably taking pictures of her right now. She had to look alert and interested and friendly and intelligent, and she had to keep a smile on her face the whole time. She felt the tension settle into her shoulders as she tried to do all of that. Shit, her shoulders—she had to think about her posture, too, didn’t she?

The executive director of the center made a too-long speech that tested Olivia’s ability to keep that damn smile on her face. At one point she made eye contact with Max, who of course had a perpetually interested, intelligent smile on his face—how the hell did he do this? He had to deal with this every day, all day, didn’t he? He winked at her, almost imperceptibly, and she winked back.

Finally, the executive director introduced Max, and Olivia smiled for real. She’d teased him about giving him notes about his speech, but he was good at this—really good at it. She’d heard parts of the speech before, of course, had seen bits of it on TV, but it was smart and substantial and also made it clear that he really wanted to hear from the audience, and cared what they had to say. And he was funny, too—he got everyone clapping and laughing again after the director had almost put them to sleep.

Then the town hall part of the program started, and a bunch of Max’s staff dispersed through the crowd with microphones. Both adults and teens asked questions and raised ideas: about schools and how overcrowded they were, about health care, about after-school care, about jobs and job-training programs, about access to mental health services, about the police. He got some tough questions, but she was proud of him for how he handled them—he listened, he didn’t get defensive, and he gave honest answers whenever he could.

And then a tall, lanky kid toward the back took a microphone.

“My name is Jerome Thomas. I . . . um . . . last year I got in some trouble at school, and I served some time. It wasn’t . . . Well, anyway, I don’t want to ever have to do that again. But I don’t want that to brand me forever, you know? But I don’t know how to get away from it: jobs ask you if you’ve been arrested, and I know people are going to look different at me at school. What can I do? Where can kids like me get help?”

Olivia looked at the stage without seeing it. She felt so bad for this kid, and she understood him so well. The world was stacked against him—she hoped he had people around him who would support him through this, and help him succeed and thrive, despite his mistakes, like she had. But no matter what, he had a hard road ahead. She slid a hand in her bag to see if she had her card case with her. She’d ask if someone on Max’s staff could run back over to the kid and hand him her card so she could try to help him.