After how good that cake was, she believed him. And after the way he looked at her, she was very glad to be here with him right now.
Max put the menu down and smiled at Olivia. He had more fun talking to this woman than to anyone he’d talked to in a long time.
“Okay, I know what burger I want,” Olivia said. “But what pie should I get?”
“How do you feel about sharing food?” he asked her.
Before she could answer, he hurried to qualify that question.
“If you don’t like to, or we don’t know each other well enough, or whatever, that’s fine, it’s just that . . .”
“I know it’s fine.” The look on her face said, I don’t care about what you think of me enough to pretend to you. Well, this woman was certainly bad for his ego.
Or good, maybe, depending on who you talked to.
“But actually, I’m fine with sharing,” she said. “I grew up in a very sharing-food kind of family. And plus, I’d rather have lots of things to try than just one.”
Oh, thank goodness.
“I did not grow up in a very sharing-food kind of family, but I’m with you on that last thing. I always want to try more stuff on a menu than I have appetite for.” He grinned at her. “So I was thinking we could get a few slices of pie and share.”
She looked at the list of pies on the menu and then back up at him.
“That depends on what kinds you wanted. I was thinking hard about both the apple and the boysenberry, and then I was also intrigued by the lemon meringue, and then there’s the pecan, and . . .”
A woman after his own heart.
“I like all of those,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s no strawberry rhubarb here.”
She shrugged, which did incredible things to that V in her neckline. This woman got more attractive every time he looked at her.
“We can’t have everything.”
Just then, the waitress came over to take their order. They both ordered cheeseburgers and fries, with everything.
“We’ll go ahead and order dessert now,” he said. “We want slices of apple, boysenberry, lemon meringue, pecan, and cherry pie.”
The waitress looked around at their booth.
“Anyone else joining you?”
He shook his head and grinned. Olivia covered her face with her hands.
“Nope.”
When the waitress walked away, Olivia’s head was still in her hands. Finally, she looked up at him. With, he was relieved to see, a grin on her face.
“When I listed all of those pies,” she said, “that was just, you know, for discussion, so we could decide which ones to order. That wasn’t me saying we had to order them all.”
Max liked how, every time Olivia laughed at something he said or did, he felt like it was hard won. Even when it was clear she was laughing at him, like right now.
“I know, but this is your first time here! Plus I want you to be able to accurately tell all of your friends back in New York how much better L.A. is—you can’t do that unless you have plenty of evidence.”
Olivia brushed her hair back from her face. One curl immediately sprung back. He wanted to lean forward and tuck it behind her ear, but stopped himself.
“That would be a waste of time. There are two kinds of people who live in New York: the ones who know L.A. is better but refuse to move, and the ones who will never acknowledge to their dying day that there’s anything good about California. Oh, well, there’s the third kind—the ones who are trying to get out. That was me for the past few years. But I never bother to have those arguments about which city is better, partly because the answer is obvious to me, but also because those arguments are pointless and make everyone mad for no reason.”
He was pretty sure she’d just insulted him again. Hardly anyone ever did that to his face these days, not even people who strenuously disagreed with him politically.
It was kind of . . . nice?
“I was going to ask why you moved back to California from New York, but I guess that just answered that question. How long did it take you to get back here?”
His big worry with this date tonight had been that he’d have to control the whole conversation himself. That’s what had happened the few times he’d gone out on first dates in the past two years—he didn’t know if it was because women were intimidated by him now, or because the type of women who were interested in dating a senator thought they should just shut up and let him talk, but whatever it was, those dates were boring as hell. But with Olivia, the conversation was easy; he didn’t have to think about it; he could just relax into chatting with her.
“I started really thinking about it almost three years ago—I moved to New York a year after I graduated from law school, and I loved living there, but every time I came to California, it got harder and harder to go back. I decided in earnest about a year ago. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ll miss about New York, but it feels right to be here in L.A. now.”
Oh good, now he could ask her something he’d been wondering about since the luncheon.
“I’m impressed that you’ve only been here for a month and just opened your firm, and the community center already approached you about joining the board. Doesn’t that usually take a while?”
She smirked at him.
“Maybe for some people.”
He let out a bark of laughter that made the tables around them stare. He really liked how cocky she was.
“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.