For a moment, John considered confiding in this stranger. Maybe it would be a relief to explain it to somebody. But what would he say? I’m a grown man who screwed up a date with a beautiful woman, and now I have a crush on her and I somehow orchestrated a situation where I get to watch her date someone else, when all I really want to do is go sit down in that chair across from her and start the hell over?

It sounded dangerously transparent to his own ears, so he just shook his head and the bartender took the hint, sauntering away.

But now John was thinking.

He’d told himself, and her, that he was here, in this restaurant, playing bodyguard for Mary on a bad date because he wanted to know just how far his mother was willing to take this whole thing. But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that he’d wanted to go to a restaurant with Mary. Have a reason to see her on a Friday night. She’d been the one who’d suggested that he be her wingman, but hadn’t he been moments away from asking it himself? Wasn’t this exact scenario always going to be the way he made sure it played out? John and Mary in a dark, sexy restaurant on a Friday night in June? Who was he trying to fool? His mother didn’t play into this one bit.

He toggled his knee up and down and risked a glance at her. She was looking out the window of the restaurant, looking a little nervous herself, probably hoping like hell that Elijah Crawford wouldn’t show.

Maybe, John thought, he was making this situation harder than it had to be. He pictured the names John, Mary, Elijah and Estrella all starkly blinking in a Word doc, black on white. He pictured highlighting and deleting Elijah and Estrella. Easy as pie. With a few decisive strokes, it could be just John and Mary. No subterfuge, no interferences.

Maybe it was as simple as going to sit in that chair across from Mary, whether Elijah was really showing up or not. Maybe all he had to do was plunk his ass down and say, Mary, I’d really like to kiss you good night.

His pulse beat woodenly at the hinge in his throat. For a man who was regularly brave in the courtroom, he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a real chance with a woman.