“I am honored to have served as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court for thirty-six years. During those decades, I have seen this country go through remarkable change. We’ve weathered recessions and boom years. Our partisan divides have ebbed and flowed. We’ve changed our understanding of security and broadened our definition of marriage. Through all this, one thing has remained a constant in my life: I have loved coming to work. My colleagues are men and women of integrity and passion, of profound intellect and careful attention to detail. I will miss them, and I will miss devoting my days to the law. Thank you for this opportunity to serve.”

  O’Neil stepped forward, and the two men shook hands. The bank of cameras recording this moment erupted as photographers scrambled to capture the two legal powerhouses together in one frame.

  After Obama spoke about his responsibility to nominate a successor, the justices descended the steps, skirted around the cameras, and walked to the black limousine that Kellen had reserved for the occasion.

  Once they were settled in the car, Kellen popped open a bottle of champagne, and they toasted to Alistair. The limo took them to Kellen’s, where family and friends were milling around the backyard, waiting for them, and a sign reading Congratulations and Thank You, Alistair stretched between two trees.

  Caterers had set up small circular tables with chairs all over the yard, and servers walked around with champagne and trays of food. Victoria wondered how much all of this was costing Kellen, but the chief justice had absolutely insisted he host Alistair’s retirement soiree, and no one else was going to win that argument.

  Marcia, small still, but with more color in her face than the last time Victoria had seen her, held out her hands to her husband as the justices entered the backyard, and he hurried to her. Near the end of the impromptu receiving line, Victoria barely overheard her say to someone at the front, “How was it? I wanted so badly to be present when he made his speech, but my doctors said no. Did he cry? Did Kellen?”

  Too bad Genevieve was in Austin for a big fundraiser. But Michelle Lin was sipping wine and looking supremely bored, so Victoria wandered over, grabbing a glass of champagne from a waiter on her way.

  “Obama gave a nice speech,” Michelle said.

  “So did Alistair.” They drank in silence for a long moment.

  “It’s the changing of the guard, I guess,” said Michelle. “I suspect as soon as we have a Republican president, Kellen will retire too. He joined the Court the year after Alistair, and I think he’s tired. They’ve been my colleagues for sixteen years. I don’t know what the Court even looks like without them.”

  “Do you think they felt that way once, when some of their mentors retired?”

  “Probably. That’s the Court, right?”

  “I think that’s life anywhere.” Victoria watched, as Eliot McKenzie sat at a table with Alistair and Marcia. Jason Blankenstein was talking to Ryan Jamison, partisanship be damned. “Look at our colleagues. Such ideological differences. But sometimes, none of that matters.”

  “How are things between you and Kellen these days?”

  “I think as long as we ignore some of our differences, we’re great.”

  “Sounds fatalistic,” Michelle said.

  “Or pragmatic. I’m hungry—shall we see what our food options are?”

  They milled around the yard, sampling the fig tarts, mini ahi tacos, and grilled asparagus.

  “How’s tennis these days?” Victoria asked.

  “I need a new doubles partner. The woman I’ve been playing with for the past few years has tennis elbow and can barely squeeze a racquet. You don’t play, do you?”

  “No, I really don’t. I play some badminton here and there, but that’s the extent of my experience with racquet sports.”

  “You swim, right?”

  “Yes, and I promised Genevieve I’d try yoga. Well, actually, I promised not to say a single derogatory thing about yoga or pass judgment until I’ve gone to five classes.”

  Michelle whistled. “Let me know how that goes. But Victoria, if you start coming to our conferences with kombucha instead of tea, Jason and I are going to stage an intervention.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Michelle headed off for more champagne, and Victoria wandered into the house in search of a restroom. She’d never spent much time on the main floor of Kellen’s house—he typically hosted his gatherings in his drinking room downstairs. The layout was labyrinthine, and she had passed through a formal dining room, the kitchen, and a sitting room before she turned a corner and ran into her host.

  “Oh, sorry, Kellen. I was looking for the restroom.”

  His good-natured smile bespoke happiness brought on by champagne. “I told my wife we should put up signs. It’s that way.” He pointed at a door over his shoulder, and she moved to pass him.

  “Victoria,” he said and leaned against the wall. “I know we don’t see eye to eye on many things, and I know for you, some of those things are personal.”

  She waited for him to go on, not sure where this was headed.

  He sighed, probably frustrated, but she wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

  “It may surprise you to know that Alistair has been, in many regards, my closest friend,” he continued. “In addition to being friends, he was my best adversary. His opposition, and the way he framed it, made me a stronger and sharper writer. And while it may strain credulity, he did sometimes change my mind. If you asked him, I’m sure he’d say that the reverse is also true—that I sometimes changed his. I meant what I said in front of the cameras today—I will miss him. The Court and all it stands for will also miss him.”

  With his hands in his pockets, he scrutinized her for a moment. “I wondered if you would take his place, and be my new best adversary.”

  It felt very much like being asked to prom by a boy she’d never looked twice at.

  “Kellen. I understand what you’re saying about your relationship with Alistair. Political and ideological disagreements don’t have to equal personal dislike. But what you don’t understand is that your fundamental belief that I’m going to hell is personal. That’s pretty hard to look past.”

  “There’s a difference between religious views and person-to-person interactions,” Kellen said, looking exasperated already.

  “Only to someone who wants to intellectualize the issue. This isn’t a court case or a constitutional issue, Kellen. This is my life.”

  “Protestants never understand that when the Catholic Church says ‘hate the sin, love the sinner,’ they mean it.”

  “I think Protestants believe that we are our actions. There’s no separation between deed and person.”

  “But there is, in God’s eyes,” Kellen insisted.

  “In the eyes of your god, maybe.”

  “But that’s part of my point, Victoria. Whether you want to accept or reject wholesale my belief system, you have to understand the way it works internally. I might not approve of your relationship with Genevieve Fornier, but that doesn’t make you any less of a person in my eyes. I don’t approve of Alistair’s preference for the New York Yankees over the Boston Red Sox, but I still love and admire him.”

  “You’re comparing my love life to sports fandom?”

  “Only literally,” he said, but she didn’t feel like joking. “Okay, yes, I did just do that. I was just trying to make a point.”

  Victoria ran her fingers through her hair. “Let me see if I’m understanding what you’re saying. I might not buy into the logic that you can love the sinner but hate the sin, but as long as you’re telling me that that’s how you approach the situation, I should trust you?”

  His head cocked to one side thoughtfully. “Yes, I think that’s what I mean.”

  “Okay, and if I told you that I believe our actions determine who we are, and that your voting against gay marriage and same-sex parental rights tells me you’re a person who doesn’t think I’m worthy of full civil rights, would you find my world view internally consistent and, in turn, trust me?”

  He laughed uncomfortably. “You’re basically saying we’re at a standstill.”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s not enough for me that you think I’m smart and write good legal opinions when you find some fundamental part of me abhorrent.”

  “I never said abhorrent!”

  “The Catholic Church does. Anyway, try this one on for size: Genevieve and I decide we’re going to have a date, and we’d like to invite another couple to join us. We think you and your wife would be lovely dinner companions, so we ask you on a double date. Would you come?”

  “Of course we’d come! This gets at the very point I’m trying to make. We’d love to have dinner with you.”

  “That dinner doesn’t constitute a sin? It’s indicative of our romantic relationship.”

  “You love each other. That’s fine. Just don’t, uh…”

  “Don’t invite you to join us in the bedroom?”

  “Right.”

  “Jesus Christ, Kellen. Finally something we can agree on.”

  “I want us to be friends.”

  Something in his voice and posture reminded her of her grandfather. She hadn’t thought of him in years, and she wondered briefly if he would disapprove of her life with Genevieve too.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought. “I want us to be friends, too,” she said.

  They nodded at each other with absolutely nothing specific resolved at all.

  “When are we having that dinner date, then?” he asked with a grin.

  She took a deep breath. “Kellen, I will agree to a dinner date with you, but you have to understand that I don’t view it as purely social. I will spend the entire time trying to convince you that the Church’s stand on homosexuality is wrong and that you need to understand that my love for Genevieve is no different than your love for your wife.”

  His jaw worked back and forth for a moment. “I accept your terms. I doubt you’ll succeed, but you’re welcome to try.”

  “Well, if Alistair could change your mind about things, understand this: I’m twice as persuasive as he is.”

  Kellen laughed. “I’ll have my people call your people, and we’ll make it happen. But first, the restroom’s that way.”

  She stood alone in the bathroom and studied her face in the mirror. Maybe it was the dim lighting, but she looked more relaxed, more self-assured than she’d ever seen herself. She’d been afraid of this very confrontation with Kellen, but she’d survived it. And she felt fired up to argue with him—and convince him to rethink his position toward her, and the entire LGBTQ community.

  She washed her hands and headed outside to help herself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from one of the caterer’s trays. The groups had shifted, and Jason and Michelle now surrounded Alistair and his wife. She was heading in that direction, when a light touch on her arm stopped her.

  “Missed you,” Genevieve whispered in her ear.

  Spinning around, she drew her arms around Genevieve and squeezed. “Missed you back.” They kissed, and when they separated, Kellen appeared at their side with glasses of champagne for each of them.

  “Genevieve Fornier—lovely to actually meet you,” he said, and they shook hands. “I don’t know if Victoria’s told you yet, but you two are going on a double date with me and my wife.”

  Genevieve choked on a mouthful of champagne, and her eyes watered. “Oh? She hadn’t mentioned that.” She blinked, then shrugged and grinned at Kellen. “Sounds great. Where are we going?”

  He rested a hand on Genevieve’s shoulder, and Genevieve rolled her eyes. Genevieve contended with patronizing physical gestures from old men pretty much every time she was part of a roundtable media interview.

  “Well now, I don’t know,” Kellen said. “Victoria?”

  They both turned to look at her, and she laughed. “Um, Genevieve? Ideas?”

  “Sure, let’s do Blue Duck Tavern.”

  “Done,” Kellen said. “Looking forward to it. Genevieve, thanks for coming—you two enjoy the party.”

  He drifted away, and Genevieve rounded on Victoria with an inscrutable look on her face.

  “What have you gotten us into?”

  “He said he wants to be, um, besties or something. Best adversaries. I don’t know. I’m just rolling with it.”

  “I will too, then,” Genevieve said, and she ushered Tori to an unoccupied table.

  “How’d the fundraiser go?”

  “Good. Exhausting, actually. Listen, there’s something I want to tell you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—”

  “That explains the migraines,” Victoria joked, but Genevieve looked at her seriously.

  “Actually, it might. I spoke with some of my doctors about my migraines, and it’s distinctly possible that they’re stress related. That I might be…overly optimistic about my superwoman skills when I think I can be an active litigator and the president of a civil rights organization. Neither Jamie nor Penelope actually do both with any regularity. I thought I could be different—better, maybe. But it’s not a competition. It’s my life, and I want to be happy.”

  Genevieve’s hand was resting on the tabletop, and Victoria covered it with her own. “That’s great, babe. I honestly have no idea what you’re saying, but that’s great.”

  After a short exhale, Genevieve said firmly, “I’m done arguing cases. Which fixes many issues, not the least of which is any professional conflicts between us.”

  The implications of this ran through Victoria’s mind like movie credits. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to give up something you love for me. For us.”

  “Because you’re not giving up your house for us? I mean, we close on the new place next week, so if you’re having doubts…”

  “That’s different,” Victoria said.

  “Is it? Regardless, this isn’t entirely for us, but… I do have to give things up for us. That’s what a relationship is—prioritizing things as a partner, not a single person. You’ve done that in a big way. It’s my turn.”

  “Genevieve, I’m not keeping score,” Victoria said.

  “Look, if it makes you sleep better at night, we can say this is entirely for my health. Let’s just try this for a while, and see if the migraines stop.”

  “And if you miss it?”

  “The migraines? I think I’ll live.”

  Victoria swatted at her shoulder. “Smart-ass. Arguing in court.”

  “I’m sure I will. I miss Chicago. Hell, I sometimes miss law school. Doesn’t mean I want to go backward. It’s just nostalgia.”

  Victoria took her hand, and they gazed around Kellen’s backyard. “We’ve come a long way, Genevieve Fornier. Everything around us is changing—the Court will be completely different next year. Your work will be different. We’ll live in a new house. And with all that change, I still feel stable. You make me feel stable.”

  She turned to look at Genevieve’s face, to bask in her glow for a minute, but was surprised at the mischievous expression she found there.

  “Yeah? You feel stable? Because I had a radical idea that might rock your world.”

  A prickle of fear rose up Victoria’s throat, but Genevieve touched her cheek and whispered, “Wanna get married?”

  Victoria managed to knock her elbow into her champagne glass in a moment of epic grace, and Genevieve laughed loudly. “Just the reaction I was hoping for.”

  Victoria scrambled to blot the spread of champagne across the white tablecloth with napkins, then froze and sat back down. She cocked her head at Genevieve. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Wow, talk about romance,” Victoria said.

  “Well, we can make this a big deal and throw a huge party, or we can just ask Alistair to do it in his backyard. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you either way.”

  “Hard to argue with that logic.”

  “So you’ll think about it? What kind of party you want, I mean? The marrying me part—that one you should just say yes to. Because we fought really hard for the right to do this. And we should use that right.”

  “Then, yes, you nut.”

  Genevieve kissed her, a sweet kiss full of promise, and Victoria briefly imagined what it would be like to kiss like that while wearing white dresses in front of all their friends and family. And reporters. And cameras. It would make Genevieve very happy, and honestly, it might make her happy too.

  Their kiss was interrupted by Alistair clinking his champagne flute with his fork. He gave a speech thanking everyone for the party and the years of support and friendship—at least, that’s what Victoria vaguely heard. All she could do was look at Genevieve’s face and map the expression of love and happiness she found there directed at her. It was a lot like the way she looked in that picture of them that went viral. And a lot like the look Genevieve gave her when, two decades ago, Victoria had confessed she was in love with her.

  She vowed to do everything in her power to keep Genevieve smiling like that for years to come.

  * * *

  Listening to Genevieve packing up the books from her study—or, rather, her colorful language as she wrestled with packing tape, turned out to be one of the more hilarious perks of helping her move.

  “Need a hand in there?” she called from the living room.

  “This…fucking…box,” Genevieve grunted.

  “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control. I’m ordering pizza.”

  Genevieve’s head poked around the corner. “You are? Really? Why?”

  Victoria knit her brows. “Because we’re packing up your house… Isn’t it a law that you have to eat pizza while packing?”

  “Yes, that’s a law I’ve defended in court many times.”

  Victoria rifled through one of the drawers in Genevieve’s kitchen until she found a carryout menu for a pizza joint. There were grease stains on it, indicating the menu had been well used. She started to dial, then realized she had no idea what Genevieve liked.

  The study was a mess—knickknacks, books, and office supplies were strewn everywhere. Genevieve sat on the floor trying to cram a book into a box that was already overflowing.