Party of Two

by Jasmine Guillory

  “And we can use actual wineglasses instead of plastic,” he said. He touched his glass to hers.

  She set to unwrapping all the food he’d brought.

  “Ooh, you got some good stuff. I’m going to pretend I don’t see that pie until later, but I’m very excited about it. And this cheese looks oozy and perfect. I’m starving.”

  He tore off an end of the baguette and handed it to her.

  “Me, too.”

  He hadn’t realized that until now.

  She looked at him, and her expression softened.

  “When did you eat last?” she asked. “Do they feed you at those things?”

  When had he eaten last? That half a bagel he’d downed for breakfast while he read a stack of memos and briefing papers.

  “Technically, yes, there’s usually food at these things—there was today. But the problem—and the thing I still forget, even though I’ve been in this job for going on two years now—is that even when there’s food I almost never get the opportunity to actually eat it.” He laughed. “Today wasn’t so bad, because the food was just things like sandwiches and vegetables and dip, but a few months ago I went to something in the Central Valley and there was all of this amazing Mexican food and I kept putting food on a plate and taking one bite and then having to shake someone’s hand or take a picture with someone else and my plate would disappear and I would get a new one and it would happen all over again. I think I gave up after my fifth plate and just made my staff go out to an enormous Mexican meal with me after we left.”

  Olivia handed him a piece of baguette, covered in that good, oozy cheese.

  “Here, eat this. I can’t have a senator faint from hunger in my living room. That feels like a felony of some sort.”

  He looked away from her and pretended to check the bag to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He’d briefly forgotten why they were here on her living room floor instead of on their way to the Getty, but those jokey words of hers brought everything back.

  He cleared his throat.

  “I . . . the reason I was upset this afternoon . . .” He put his wineglass down and rubbed his temples. “It’s kind of a long story, we don’t have to go into all of that.”

  She touched his arm gently.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I don’t mind long stories.”

  He looked into her eyes and could tell she meant it.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “You know I was a prosecutor before I was in the Senate, right? Well, I had this mentor early in my career, a family friend; he was the whole reason I became a prosecutor in the first place. He was an old-school prosecutor, very hard-line, all about safety and how kids especially need to learn what they did was wrong, and I listened to him. Far too much. People talk about prosecutorial discretion; well, at first, mine went in the ‘more jail, more punishment’ direction. This isn’t a defense, but I floated through most of my life as a privileged trust fund kid, not really paying attention to politics and all of the bad things that could happen to people—sure, I volunteered some in school, but I guess I bought into that whole ‘they didn’t work hard enough’ bullshit.” He sighed. “That job made me wake up. After a few years in, and a few years of seeing the hard situations these kids lived in, and the racism they dealt with every day, and listening to advocates who somehow never gave up on me, I realized how much I didn’t want to keep being that kind of prosecutor. Hell, that I didn’t want to be that kind of person. Throwing kids behind bars could, and often did, ruin their futures and cause so much harm to their families. I was the one causing that harm. I came very close to quitting my job then.”

  He looked at the floor. He still remembered how angry at himself he’d been then, how he’d realized how wrong he’d been, how much pain he’d caused.

  “Why didn’t you?” Olivia asked.

  He looked at her, for the first time since he’d started this story. She was giving him that look again, like she really cared about the answer. Like she really cared about him.

  “My friend Wes. I called him and told him I was going to quit and why, and he yelled at me.” Max smiled to himself. “I’d never heard him like that. He told me he was glad I’d finally woken up, but what a damn waste it would be if I woke up just in time to hand over the job to another clueless trust fund baby. He said we needed good prosecutors, that those kids needed me, now more than ever.” He looked down. “Until then, I think I really believed I deserved everything I got in life. That job made me realize . . . so much. About everything. Among other things, I still can’t believe my eyes were so closed to the way racism infects every part of the criminal justice system. There were just so many little things that I just didn’t see. Or worse, ignored.” He shook his head. “I listened to Wes. I stayed at that job, eventually I even became the DA. I’ve worked hard for years now to help kids like the defendants I saw, so they can change their lives, and stay in school, and so one mistake won’t follow them forever.”

  He looked down at his piece of baguette covered in cheese. He’d somehow lost his appetite.

  “But?” Olivia said.

  He sighed.

  “But today, at the event this afternoon, I saw a kid there. He’s not a kid anymore, he must be in his early twenties now. His brother was one of those defendants who I worked hard to toss in jail in those early years of my career. The kid seems like he’s doing well, but when I asked him about his brother, he told me he’s back inside.” He shook his head. “And that’s my fault. All of it. I could have helped his brother. He wasn’t a bad kid; most of them aren’t. I could have gotten him into programs to rehabilitate him, made it easy to wipe his record, gotten him back to school, to his family, to people and places that keep kids—and the adults they become—out of prison. But I did the opposite, and here we are.”

  Mateo would never call his office, he knew that. He wished there was something he could do for him and his family. Especially since he wasn’t accomplishing what he wanted to in the Senate.

  “And I guess it hit me particularly hard today, because my criminal justice reform bill—one of the whole reasons I ran for Senate in the first place—has a really hard road ahead. I have such a big list of things I want to change. Mandatory minimums, policing, bail, funding for public defenders, the way we try children, and so much more. I know, it’s all ambitious, but I thought I could start big, and at least get some of that passed. But none of it? It just feels like . . . nothing I do in this job matters. Like nothing is going to change.”

  Now that he’d started, it was like he couldn’t stop talking.

  “I was really hopeful about the bill when I first announced it—I got a ton of press attention, I was on all of the TV shows, and people kept saying how important criminal justice reform is, blah blah blah. I know people bring up bills just to use as talking points—hell, I’ve done it, too—but with this one, I really wanted to make some real change. And there have been some strides, in the past few years, but I guess there’s a limit to how much change people can really handle. How much good they really want to do.”

  Olivia rubbed his arm gently, up and down. The expression on her face was softer than he’d ever seen it.

  “That bill was the whole reason you ran for the Senate?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Well, criminal justice reform in general.” He laughed. “I didn’t even think I’d win. I jumped into the race on a lark when the Senate seat came open. I just hoped it would raise my statewide profile enough so that when it came time to run for governor a few years later, I’d have a real shot. And then, strangely, everything just kept going my way.”

  Olivia poured more wine into both of their glasses.

  “Do you regret it? Running for the Senate, I mean.”

  He thought about that question for a long time before he answered.

  “No,” he
finally said. “No, I don’t regret it. Not even on my worst days, the days I’m frustrated at the world and every other member of Congress, and it’s midnight and I’m in my boring Washington apartment. Even then, I want to scream and rant at everything wrong with the government, but I want to make it better, and I think right where I am is exactly the place I should be.” He looked at her and smiled. “Thank you for making me realize that.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Olivia stared down at the bright red blanket she’d pulled out of her linen closet to turn into their picnic blanket. She’d assumed Max had run into an ex, or had gotten a call from someone in his family, or had to fire someone on his staff, or something else stressful but easy. For something like that, she could listen to his story, pat him on the shoulder, sympathize with him, tell him he’d done the right thing (if, indeed, he had), and then they’d eat pie and hopefully make out.

  But this was different. This wasn’t what she’d expected.

  Should she tell him . . . no, definitely not. There was no point. Plus, tonight had been heavy enough as it was.

  Strangely, though, it had been heavy in a good way. She’d enjoyed going out with banter-y, fun, hot-boy Max the past few times she’d seen him; she’d looked forward to doing it again tonight. But tonight she had serious, thoughtful, introspective Max. She might like him even better now.

  A lot better, actually.

  “Thank you for telling me that,” she said. “And for not blowing me off when I asked you if something was wrong.”

  He smiled at her.

  “Thank you for asking,” he said.

  She looked at him, and the look in his eyes was so warm, so grateful, she had to look away.

  “Okay,” she said. “Here’s what I propose. We sit here and eat our food and drink our wine and watch a really dumb movie on my brand-new TV there, and then we eat that entire pie, and then maybe we’ll drink more wine.” And maybe after that they’d make out, but she hoped that part didn’t need to be said. “Does that sound like a good way to recover from today?”

  He smiled at her.

  “Just you, here with me, is a way to recover from today. Thank you for being here.” He moved closer to her. “This would have been a depressing, lonely night without you. I’m really glad to be here.”

  He stroked his finger across her cheek, and then pulled her chin up toward his. He kissed her on the lips, gently, tenderly, but still with so much power. Olivia lost herself in that kiss. She put her hand on his cheek and felt his stubble there from his long day. Everything in her wanted to speed him up, to unbutton those last buttons of his shirt, to move his hands to where she wanted them, but she let him lead the way, and kept the kiss just as slow and gentle as he wanted it.

  Finally, he pulled back and stroked her hair.

  “I’m really glad to be here,” he said again.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” she said.

  She touched his cheek, then traced her fingers over his dark eyebrows. She marveled at his long, curly eyelashes. Life was so unfair.

  “How’d you get this scar?” she asked, her finger on his left eyebrow.

  He laughed.

  “Back when I was still an assistant DA, I was out at a bar one weekend with some friends, and some people near us got in a fight. I, very stupidly, jumped in to break it up, and got hit with a broken beer bottle. I probably should have gotten stitches, but once everything died down, I just wanted to relax and see the end of the game. I had a black eye for like a week afterward.” He kissed her softly. “Most people don’t even notice it anymore.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder while he picked up the remote and flipped among all of the possible streaming services for a silly movie for them to watch. For the next hour, they sat there together, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, snacking, drinking wine, occasionally giggling softly at the movie, until he pressed pause.

  “Are you ready for pie?” he asked her.

  “I was arrested when I was a teenager,” she said.

  He stopped halfway through leaning over to get the pie, and sat back down.

  She hadn’t meant to say it. And she definitely hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She hadn’t meant to tell him this at all. She almost never told people about her arrest; not because she was ashamed of it, but because it always made them look at her differently, and she hated that.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly.

  “It was stupid, just one of those teen things. There was this guy I liked, and he wanted to break into the school one weekend night just to prove he could, and I thought if I went along with the group, maybe he’d like me back, so I did. We got caught, of course, and we all got arrested. It was . . . terrible.” She flashed back to that moment the police had come in, that call she’d had to make to her parents, the look in her baby sister’s eyes the next morning. “It ended up okay—community service, it got wiped from my record, et cetera, and I’m fine about it now, I have been for a long time, but it was really awful at the time, and for a while later.”

  She rarely thought about that year anymore. She told her story occasionally, but it was more of a recitation at this point, an uplifting little story about survival and triumph. She never touched on the actual hard parts; how she’d disappointed her family, how she’d disappointed herself, how she’d worried about her future, so much so that it made her sick to her stomach for months on end.

  “Anyway, in the grand scheme of things it was just a blip, and I was fine, and it’s not something I think or talk about much. The few times I’ve told people about it, they often get weird—fascinated in a creepy way, or all condescendingly proud of me. Sometimes I’ve talked about it when I’ve volunteered with kids and teenagers, and once a few years ago I alluded to it at a city council meeting to help my sister out, but I don’t tell a lot of people about it anymore. But I thought . . . I guess I just thought I wanted to tell you.”

  He took her hand.

  “You didn’t have to tell me, but I’m really glad you did.”

  She kissed him this time. She kept her kiss soft and slow, but as she drew him closer to her, his kiss, his touch, got more passionate. His hands roamed around her body, and my God did they feel good. She didn’t let herself touch him below the shoulders until his hands were on her thighs; then she sighed happily and moved her hands down his chest. She slid her hands up underneath his shirt.

  “Can I?” she whispered in his ear.

  He nibbled at her neck as his hands moved up and down her body again.

  “Mmmhmm.”

  She pushed his shirt up and over his head, and gave herself up to stroking his chest as they kissed. His chest hair was springy under her fingers; it delighted her. She couldn’t stop touching him, kissing him. By the way he kissed her harder, he felt the same way. She trailed her hands down to his waist, and lower. His hands slid up under her dress.

  This felt too good. She pulled away from him.

  He reached for her again.

  “We don’t have to stop,” he said.

  She wanted to listen to him so much, but she knew she couldn’t.

  “It’s been an emotional day for you, and as much as I want to take you at your word right now, it feels like it’s a better idea to chill out a little, eat some of that pie, and watch the rest of this movie.”

  He sighed.

  “You’re probably right about that.” He reached for the pie again, but this time he turned around with a grin on his face. A very sexy grin.

  “I have a better idea than pie.”

  She scrunched her nose at him.

  “Better than pie? How is that—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, he pushed up her dress and knelt at her feet.

  She looked at him in disbelief. W
as he really going to do what she thought he was going to do?

  “Max, you’ve had a long day, you don’t have to . . .”

  Why the hell was she arguing with him about this? What was wrong with her? She shut her mouth and let him guide her legs open.

  He knelt at her feet and pushed her legs further apart.

  “I know I don’t have to, but I really, really want to.”

  Well, if he put it like that.

  He tiptoed his fingers up the inside of her thighs, and she giggled.

  “Any more objections?”

  She folded her arms behind her head and smiled down at him.

  “Not a one.”

  He slid first one finger inside her, then a second. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. God, the way he touched her, she couldn’t get enough of it.

  He spent a while exploring her with his fingers, touching her in slow circles that felt so good she could hardly bear it. And then, thank God, she felt his tongue against that spot where she most wanted him. Finally, she screamed, and dropped her hands by her sides.

  He sat up, disheveled and grinning.

  She sat up, too, and smiled at him.

  “Now do I get some pie, so I can decide if that was actually better?”

  Max let out a bark of laughter and stood up.

  “Oh, Olivia. I like you so much.”

  The smile fell from her face as he cut their pie. She liked him so much, too. Oh no.

  Chapter Eight

  Olivia fell in line with Jamila on the way out to her car on Wednesday night. In the past few weeks, it had become a routine that Jamila would drive her home after her volunteer shift. It had been another productive evening: this time they’d made forty servings of lasagna, with roasted carrots as a side. Olivia couldn’t believe how proud she felt at the end of the night when she saw the sealed packages, all lined up in the fridge and ready to be delivered the next day. It felt amazing, like this was a real accomplishment—no matter what else she’d done today, she’d done one tangible thing to help people.