“So, we’re talking to the press. It’s a bit risky.” Kanesha frowned. “I mean, obviously the right thing to do, but what if fire giants invade?”

“Then we fight them off without mussing our hair.” I sighed. “I agree with you, but this is important too. My dad agrees.”

“And we have the ACLU and a senator on our side.”

“Exactly.”

“Which is exactly why I predict fire giants invading.”

She…had a point.

Then, she changed the subject. “The blue shirt or the yellow-green?”

“Yellow-green, I think.” I had a better sense of color than she did. I wasn’t going to mess with her hair, though. I didn’t have the skills to do good stuff with black hair.

Mine looked pretty good, and hers did look good as we headed to meet with some journalists. Unarmed, because I knew my concealment tricks might not work on cameras. Which made me nervous. I always felt nervous without some kind of a weapon.

We were led into a room with a couple of journalists, a photographer, and a lawyer. The last stood up and shake hands. “Ms. Rudi. Ms. Clem.”

Kanesha flinched and murmured, “If we get married I’m taking your name.”

I murmured back. “You can just change it.” Even if I was rather flattered by that.

Catching the awkwardness. “Simon Lawrence, Washington Post, and we can use first names.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. I moved to sit down.

“So…how long have you been together?”

“A…bit over a year.” I had to do some mental math.

“About that,” Kanesha agreed.

I could feel something, a presence I didn’t like. I was pretty much daring whoever it was to mess with us. This was important.

“And you met…”

I looked embarrassed. “In a foster care group home.”

“That’s a new one, but I think I might gloss over it. It would distract from the issue to go into foster care and its…issues.”

He’d used the word issue twice, but I didn’t press him on it. “Okay.”

He asked a few questions about my modeling career, Kanesha’s college life and plans to teach in the inner city. I could tell we intrigued him – maybe he didn’t think we quite went together.

Maybe he could tell Kanesha was the brains of the party here. I didn’t mind.

We were going to embarrass some bigots and that was just fine by me.