Sonia waves him off. “Yeah, like, Europe, whatever.” Then she grabs a glass, fills it with water, and drains the contents in a few long drags. “Sorry, I’m dehydrated. I went to my college’s five-year reunion last night and got a little carried away with the drinks.”

“Ehm, okay?” Dr. You’re-So-Losing-Our-Bet unfolds his napkin on his lap and gives me the evil, don’t-you-dare-mock-me-about-this eye. I make an innocent face. Luke ignores me and goes back to looking at his date. “Where did you go to college?”

“NYU. You?”

“Stanford, for my bachelor and master degrees,” he says. “And then Berkley for my doctoral. For my post-doc, I was a fellow at Michigan.”

Show off, I mutter to myself. But Sonia has an opposite reaction. She gasps loudly, asking, “Oh my gosh, what did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you wind up at Michigan?”

Uncertainly, Lucas replies, “Uh, for a research study on youth transitional age, but then I specialized in couples’ counseling.”

Sonia sits back in her chair. “And they sent you to prison for that?”

“Prison? No, what…?” The puzzled look on Shrek’s face turns to exasperation as his brain clicks. “I said fellow, not felon.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sonia reassures him. “I understand if you prefer not to talk about the time you spent in jail. It couldn’t have been easy.”

And I swear I have to turn my head not to laugh in his face. I stare at my watch and note that no matter how weird Lucas’ date is, at least she was on time. Mine is already ten minutes late. Oh crap, what if I got stood up? That’d be bad enough on its own, but to be blown off in front of Shrek would be disastrous. A catastrophe.

Feeling a lot less smug, I stare back at the restaurant entrance and sigh in relief when I see the same hostess from before heading my way with a tall man in tow.

They reach me a minute later. The hostess smiles and leaves, giving me my first unobstructed view of the guy the agency selected as my potential Mr. Right.

Mmm.

Mr. Tolstoy is tall, but more in a lanky way than hunky. His hair is unruly and on the longish side, and while the style might’ve worked for him a few years ago, it doesn’t anymore now that his hair is thinning out. He’s wearing a pair of dark jeans, scruffy leather shoes, and a white shirt that either has not been ironed or that has been worn too long already. The pale-blue linen suit jacket that completes the outfit is equally wrinkled, and is that a coffee stain over his breast pocket?

I try to keep an open mind and get up to greet him with a smile.

“Hi,” I say. “I’m Vivian.”