She was giving me strong stop-messing-about face. “This is serious, Luc. You’re talking about potentially blowing up a wonderful relationship with a wonderful man. Are you sure you don’t want to get married and aren’t just being, y’know, you?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. “I’m…I think I’m sure, Bridge. Like, we had this really nice evening at Quo Vadis—”

“Oh, your first-date restaurant,” cried Bridge, clasping her hands. “That’s so romantic.”

“Yes.” I found I was gripping the rail far too tightly, either for emphasis or security. “That was the problem. It was romantic. It was…” Well, actually it had been fraught at the beginning. But then it had been kind of perfect. “It was great. It was the best evening we’d had for ages. And I kept wishing we could just go back to that. Except that’s not how relationships work.”

There was an expression of deep sorrow in Bridge’s eyes, like I was falling into a sad cloud. It was the expression she’d always go to when she was trying not to let me know how badly I’d let her down. “No, Luc. It’s not.”

“I’ve fucked everything all the way up, haven’t I?”

Bridge was uncharacteristically silent.

“Bridge?” I asked.

“I’m thinking.”

“And?”

“I think,” she said slowly, “you might have fucked everything all the way up.”

If there was ever a time you didn’t want someone to agree with you, this had been it. “What do I do?”

She was silent again. And then, “I suppose you’ve got three options.”

“Okay?”

“Get married anyway?” she suggested.

My stomach sloshed in time with the waters below. And my hands got insta-sweaty. “Not wild about that. Next?”

“Leave Oliver at the altar.”

“Also not great.” My stomach continued to slosh and my hands continued to sweat. “Three had better be a doozy.”

“Um…hope really hard that the last few months have all been a dream.”

“I’m hoping,” I said. “Is it working?”

“I don’t know.” Bridge’s eyes got wide and confused. “I don’t feel like I’m in someone else’s dream. But how would I tell?”

“Is there a fourth option?” I asked desperately.

“I could try to think of one,” offered Bridge, ever supportive. “But since the dream plan was the best I could come up with, it might take a while and be worse.”

Oh God. I’d had something wonderful, and I’d ruined it like I always I did. “What if I just ran away?”

“That’s still leaving Oliver at the altar, only without having the guts to do it to his face.”

“Cool,” I said. “Let’s do that one.”

Bridge subjected me to her sternest stare. “I know you don’t mean that, Luc.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” I paused. “What if I fake my death?”