He took three more steps forward and took her by the shoulders. “You think you were the only one who was humiliated, Mary?” He squeezed her shoulders once, firmly, and then stepped back from her, pressing his fingers to his forehead in deference to the headache. “You want to know how I felt? I’d scrambled across town to be on time for the date, so I was still in my work clothes, sweaty and smelling like fried chicken because one of my clients works at a Crown Fried Chicken and it was the only place she could meet me. So, then, there I am, in a fifteen-dollar haircut, twenty-nine dollars in cash in my wallet, at a restaurant expensive enough for me to have to charge dinner to my credit card, on a date set up by my mother. My mother. God bless her, Mary, but what man in his right mind isn’t humiliated by a date set up by his mother?” He paced away from her, still pressing his fingers against the headache. “My mother is a lot of things, but reality-based is not one of them.” He turned to her. “You know how she described you to me? A beautiful, bubbly blonde who loves to chat about movies and music. She said you liked going to the beach and pilates. She said you were thinking about starting business school.”

“That’s all true—”

“She made you sound like you were about twenty-five years old, Mary. I thought to myself, John, the rumpled work clothes and cheap haircut won’t matter to a twenty-five-year-old. She’ll be impressed that you even have a full-time job. That you made it through law school. If it’s a match, hopefully you can start taking her to happy hours at more affordable restaurants, and she’ll be impressed that you know how to life-hack your way through this fucking city.”

He paced again. “You say you felt like a million bucks? Mary, you looked like a hundred million. A billion. My first date in six months, and I’d been expecting a softball. Someone who I could maybe impress with a law degree until I could get comfortable enough to flirt with her. But in walks this—” he waved his hands in the air, searching for the words “—sophisticated creature in some sort of dress...heels...your hair...” He trailed off, not adept enough to actually describe how she’d looked. “And then you saw me across the restaurant and smiled at me with that fucking smile of yours.”

“What’s wrong with my smile?” Mary croaked.