“How I might have misinterpreted this?” My voice screeches and several patrons at surrounding tables subtly—and not so subtly—turn our way. I reach for my martini and for a second really consider how good it would feel to watch the olive-green-tinted liquid drip down his self-tanned face.

But then I wouldn’t get to drink it. I chug the remainder of the cocktail before holding my empty glass in the air.

A server rushes over and removes the glass from my hand, as if he’s been waiting for me to chuck it at someone.

“Hi, yes, more of these please.” When the server gives me a wary look, I point across the table. “This motherfucker thought it was appropriate to bring me—his girlfriend of four years—to our first-date spot to break up with me.”

He winces sympathetically. “I’ll just keep them coming then?”

I salute him with my invisible glass. “Good man.”

The keeper of the martinis, aka my new best friend, scampers off.

Leaving us with a silence that now doesn’t feel painful as much as it does heavy. The longer we sit and stare at each other, the more my ire flattens into defeat.

“Can I ask why?” I try to remove any anger from the question so he knows that I mean it, that I really want to know. Even though I’m not totally sure myself.

He sighs and picks up my hand again, but this time the gesture is one of comfort, as if there’s a chance we might actually walk away from this still friends. “Lana, you don’t want to be with me any more than I want to be with you. You know the two of us aren’t actually right for each other.”

“Then why have we been together for so long, Evan?” I might as well be asking myself that question since I know he’s right; the two of us don’t belong together. We shouldn’t be dating, let alone thinking about getting married.

His grip on my hand tightens. “Do you want the real, honest answer?”

I purse my lips, nodding, even though only half of me—the sadistic half—wants the truth.

“Every girl I dated before you hated my mother, and I liked how you two clicked. I get that she and I have a relationship that might be closer than most, but I never thought it’d be an issue in my dating life. But all my old girlfriends complained about her and how much time she and I spent together, and how much I shared with her.” A hint of an apology darkens his eyes, also brown, though with zero flecks of gold.

“Until me.”

“You know, sometimes I think you like her better than me,” he grumbles under his breath.