Fuck, this was still a metaphor, wasn’t it? I was too hungover for metaphors. “It’s not about imposing your values. But we’ve been together for a long time and people change each other and that’s normal. And, unless the people are arseholes, good.” I gulped down my third glass of water. “I’m never going to be a vegan the way you’re a vegan. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to feel I’m missing out if we go to a nice restaurant and I sometimes choose to have the salad.”

He seemed, at least, to be thinking about it. And when he asked, “And are you in a salad mood tonight?” I was ninety percent certain he was talking about the food.

“How about”—oh, I was so fucking grown-up—“I compromise. I’d like the eel to start for old time’s sake. And I’ll join you for a vegan main.”

Oliver’s lips twitched. “So, I’ll order for you, but you’ll tell me what to order?”

I grinned at him, getting my own metaphor on. “Kind of the best of both worlds, don’t you think?”

This seemed to be going better. It was definitely going better. I’d managed to avoid throwing up in the bread basket, Oliver had nearly smiled, and here we were in our first-date restaurant, not having any awkward conversations about anything.

At least until I popped the last piece of eel sandwich into my mouth.

“Lucien.” It was like someone had flicked a switch and put Oliver in serious mode again. “I do need to talk about last night.”

“I told you nothing happened.”

“And I told you that wasn’t the problem.”

The biley panic was rising again. “Oliver, there shouldn’t be a problem. It was one night, I went a bit wild, I overslept, I showed up here with a headache, and I’m sorry.”

“But are you sure you…” Oliver began. Then stopped again. “It doesn’t have to be one night if you…if you don’t want it to.”

I reached for my water glass. “Honestly, I’m not sure I could take another one.”

“No, but…but you’ve made it quite clear that you…that you value that way of expressing yourself?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “A balloon arch is just a balloon arch. It doesn’t mean anything except that I like rainbow balloon arches and you don’t.”

“I don’t think that’s actually true, and I don’t think you do either. And it concerns me that we’ve had such difficulty designing a wedding that we feel represents us both equally.”

This was supposed to be an evening for us. Our special evening. Our last special evening. And all we’d done was talk about my dad and wedding shit. “Oliver, I’m sick of the fucking wedding.”