Party of Two (The Wedding Date #5)(90)
The depression that hit when she thought of whom Max would date next didn’t stop her from watching him whatever chance she got. Ellie had told her to feel her feelings, well, now she would feel them all! She’d probably never see him again in real life, so if she needed to watch him on TV for a few weeks or months to help herself get over him, that’s just what she was going to do.
One night, he was on along with another senator to talk about climate change, and the topic got heated very quickly, as climate change conversations often did. Oh hell, who was she kidding, as every kind of political conversation did these days. Finally, the other guy shouted at Max, “Senator, if you care so much about the environment, what are YOU doing about it? If you think all of this helps so much, you should pledge right now that you and your entire staff will walk to work, and you’ll all go vegan. If you’re asking all of us to make changes, shouldn’t you make all of these changes yourself?”
Max’s eyes narrowed and his cheeks got pink, even under all the TV makeup. She was still charmed that he blushed when he got excited or heated about something, damn her. But she cringed as soon as he opened his mouth—she knew Max was mad enough to spit out an immediate agreement on behalf of himself and his entire staff; that’s just how he was. She’d seen him do things like this on TV before.
“As a matter of fact, I . . .”
But then Max did something that surprised her. He stopped himself and took a breath. Then he started over again.
“I think you’re trying to distract from the point, Senator. My point has always been that it’s not individual personal choices that matter, it’s about the need to regulate corporations and get them to commit to reducing their carbon impact. Corporations are responsible for the vast majority of global emissions—not individuals. This isn’t to say I encourage irresponsible use of our natural resources; as a matter of fact, I do walk to work every day while I’m here in Washington, DC. But we have to attack this problem from the source; unfortunately there’s no amount of plastic a family can give up, or straws we can stop using, that will make a significant difference to climate change—this is a structural problem, and we need to solve it with structural solutions.”
Olivia paused the TV and sat back on the couch. Not only was that a fantastic answer, but Max had behaved in a very un-Max-like way. She’d seen it in his eyes; he’d almost made the rash, quick decision that would impact not only him but every member of his staff. But he’d pulled himself back from the ledge, and thought about it, and had done something a whole lot smarter.
Had he paid attention to what she’d said that night? And had he really listened and made a change? Or was she being irrational and taking this personally when it had nothing to do with her?
Just then, her doorbell rang. She stood up automatically to go get her delivery. It was only when her hand was on the doorknob she realized she hadn’t ordered delivery.
Who the hell could be knocking at her door?
Her heart jumped. Could it be Max? Maybe he’d come back to say how much she mattered to him. How much he wanted her back. How he’d do anything.
She stood on her tiptoes and looked through the peephole. Jamila, not Max. Of course, not Max. He was in DC, remember? On TV? Granted, she’d recorded the show, it had been filmed hours before, but that wasn’t enough time for him to get from DC to L.A.
She took a step back and opened the door.
“I was wondering if you were going to let me in,” Jamila said. She strode past Olivia into the house.
“Oh, I didn’t . . . did we have plans?” Jamila had a bag of food in her hand and walked straight toward the kitchen with a determined look. Maybe she’d texted Olivia about dinner and Olivia had texted back without remembering it? That was unlike her, but the past few weeks had been unlike her, too.
Jamila set the bag down on the counter and took a bunch of food cartons out of it.
“Sure, we had plans. If by ‘plans’ you mean you haven’t shown up for the Wednesday volunteer night in three weeks, and that I haven’t heard from you since I walked you to your car when you ran out of the community center except for that curt text that you and Max broke up, and you’ve ignored all of my texts, and I was worried about you. That’s definitely what ‘plans’ mean to me—that’s also what friends mean to me, by the way—but you might have a different definition.”
Olivia felt guilty and touched, all at once. She hadn’t wanted to show up to the food pantry, because everyone there had met Max, and they all knew the two of them were dating, and she didn’t want to deal with their kindness right now. She knew it would take only one question and she’d throw herself into the arms of one of the sympathetic older ladies there and sob for hours. So she just hadn’t shown up. But she should have texted Jamila to say she couldn’t come. And it made her weirdly happy Jamila had worried about her like this.
“I’m sorry. I’m not doing . . . great about all of this, and I didn’t want to have to answer questions about Max or listen to people talking about him or wonder if anyone was talking about me . . . I couldn’t deal with any of that. So I just stayed away.” She put her hand on Jamila’s shoulder. “But I’m really sorry for ignoring you these past few weeks. Thanks for being a friend. I appreciate it. I really don’t know what I would have done without you that night. Or for these past six months, really.”