I can’t believe I’m so nervous. Chez Andre is an intimate spot with candle-lit tables and classy, but not gaudy, decor. There’s only enough room for four couples at a time, and based on what Parker was telling me about the staggering of the reservations, they must be charging up the butt for these tables. I came up with that classy description all on my own.

When we first arrived at the restaurant and Parker took my arm in front of everyone and escorted me to the table, I’d never felt so treasured. I wouldn’t exactly call the relationships I had in the past relationships. We lived in a small town. I was every curious straight boy’s experiment in high school, but never anything more. Whatever. Then in college, in the art department, people like me were a dime a dozen. So I perfected my flaunt and my flair, and I got laid. It didn’t occur to me to want more until now. And now I’m afraid Parker is spoiling me so that I don’t just want it, I need it.

I look around at the other couples here for the Valentine’s dinner, and it’s guys who probably golf all weekend and their wives covered in tacky jewelry, bought specifically so the husbands can golf all weekend guilt-free. Actually the kind of couple I would have imagined Parker and Shelby were, pre-divorce. Now that I know Parker, though, I know he didn’t bring us here to flaunt his wealth or success. He’s treating me to this new experience because he wants to share something amazing with me, like how I felt showing him the biking trail.

“I’ve always wanted to eat here,” I tell Parker as he spoons a bite of Velouté de Châtaignes to his lips. I have no idea how to pronounce pretty much anything we’re eating tonight, except for the brie and baguette that was the appetizer. “I had a co-worker whose husband brought her here for their anniversary. She bragged about it for weeks.”

“I’m sorry you don’t have work friends to brag to right now,” he says with a gentle nudge to my knee under the table.

“Can’t exactly brag to Zach, since he’s the only one I’m working with right now.” Not that I would brag. Maybe at a different time in my life, and with a different man. But being here with Parker feels, I don’t know, sacred.

“You could, if you wanted to. Tell him. If Shelby knows, then it makes no sense for the people who will actually support me not to know.”

The waiter takes away our bowls and returns with a silver brush and pan to sweep away the baguette crumbs from the table. I catch Parker’s eye and we’re both trying not to grin at the absurdity of it all. At the same time, there’s a part of me that thinks the special attention is pretty cool.

“Tell me something about yourself that I don’t already know,” Parker says once the waiter has left.

“Random.”

“Maybe, but play along.”

I survey the room as I try to jog my brain for an interesting factoid. Nothing comes to mind.

“I can do a triple clover roll with my tongue.”

Parker blinks like he’s trying to figure out what that means. I glance around to make sure no one’s watching, then demonstrate, making three rolls of my tongue. His gaze, now transfixed on my mouth, doesn’t even twitch as a plate of steak au poivre and haricot vert, which I now see is just a fancy way of saying green beans, is set in front of him.

“Try again,” he says with pursed lips.

“Excuse me?”

“If you thought I didn’t already know about your skilled tongue, you haven’t been paying attention.” He cuts into his steak and brings a dripping bite to his lips, leaving them shiny and tempting. Damn, this meal is going to kill me.

“Fine, I’ll try again, but it’s your turn now.”

“Let’s see,” Parker begins, but cuts himself off with a bite of dinner. “When I was in elementary school, I wanted to try out for the cheerleading squad. A letter went home to all the students at the end of fourth grade, talking about football and cheerleading tryouts for entering fifth graders. I thought football sounded boring, but I wanted to do all the flips and jumps that I saw cheerleaders doing on TV. My dad just about had a shit fit. So football team it was.”

“I was on the football team in middle school.”

I’m expecting surprise, but Parker smiles. “I can see it. Little Mal running around, whooping it up, tackling everyone.”

I laugh at that picture, because it’s such an adorable one that my optimistic Parker has painted. “Sorry to disappoint, but I hated it. I only joined because my parents had just divorced, and my dad was moving to Massachusetts. I thought it was my fault. That he was leaving because I wasn’t the son he wanted. I thought if I could butch it up enough, he’d stay.”

Parker stifles a wounded sound and reaches out for my hand. Seeing his emotions on my behalf starts making me fluttery, so I do the only thing I can.

“Obviously that didn’t work. Can you even imagine trying to tame all this?”

Parker makes the sound again and squeezes tighter.

“I’m going to need my hand if you want me to eat.”

“Sorry.” Parker pulls away and refocuses on his dinner. Thank fuck. That man sees too much.

By the time we are presented with dessert, after another silver sweeping and a tiny scoop of lime sorbet that the waiter called a “palate cleanser,” I’m so stuffed I’m certain that my red satin blouse is going to burst at the waist. I’m also glad I wore the red, because the gat-something, I don’t remember the name, has a cherry filling that is extra drippy. The napkin in my lap looks like I murdered someone for dinner.

I erupt with giggles at the thought.

“What’s so funny?” Parker asks, looking at me like I’ve finally gone and lost it.

“I had these delusions of being sophisticated and cultured, the art-school-snob effect, before coming here. But now, all I can think is that my napkin looks like a crime scene, and I’m trying to picture which of these trophy wives would actually be the most likely to commit murder.”

Parker snorts, loudly, and one of the couples at a nearby table glares.

“Definitely her,” he says with a tiny nod in the direction of their table. “Her looks alone could kill.”

We giggle quietly, but the husband still fixes me with a censuring look that reminds me of Parker’s dad. I bite my lip and try to fold my hands into my lap while avoiding the messy napkin.

“How’s your mom doing?”

Parker’s good mood evaporates. “My dad keeps sending me updates. He wants me to move back home.”

My mood dries up faster than Parker’s. That came out of nowhere. But surely he’s not considering it.

“Are you considering it?” I ask before realizing the emphasis I placed on the sentence doesn’t make sense, given the rest of the thought was only in my head.

“I wasn’t at first. He mentioned it at the party when he first told me about the Alzheimer’s. He had it all planned out – my move back. I told him then I’d think about it, but it was just to put off turning him down.”

He folds his napkin into smaller and smaller cloth triangles, noticeably avoiding my gaze.

“You sound like something has changed.”

“Kind of,” he says, the words like sighs escaping through his lips. “Like I said, he keeps sending me emails. Stories of what she’s forgotten now or some near-disaster he was barely able to prevent. I know he’s manipulating me, but then I think, it isn’t her fault he’s manipulating me. And isn’t being there for her what’s most important?”

Of course it is. If it were my mom, I wouldn’t even hesitate. No matter how crazy she makes me, I love her and would do anything for her.

“So you’ve made up your mind.”

I meant for it to be a question, but I can tell by Parker’s face that it doesn’t need to be. Still, he argues, whines would be more accurate, like a toddler whose Tinker Toys are being taken away.

“No! I haven’t. I don’t want to go. I’ve never been happier than I am right now, right here, in this moment. I don’t want to give that up. My brain says it’s the right thing to do, but my heart …”

Parker doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t have to. My heart does it for him – a spiderweb of hairline fractures just waiting for that final blow to burst apart.

The walk to the car feels like an ending, not just to this date, but to everything. Every emotion running through his brain shows on Parker’s face, and I can tell that he’s doing everything in his power to avoid coming to terms with the fact that he really has made his decision. And it’s the right one. The unselfish one. The one that I expect an amazing man like Parker to make.

After I settle in, I turn on my phone. I turned it off once Parker arrived so that I could focus on our date, but I need something to do with my hands or I’m going to go crazy. My phone blares with over a dozen notifications of people posting to my social media account. That’s new. I usually never get comments.

I pull up the site, and it feels like someone poured ice water into my veins. That someone being Shelby.

You’re going to hell.

You’re an abomination.

You have a mental disorder.

And those are the nice ones, all posted by people who have one friend in common. Shelby McWilliams. Shelby was nice enough to leave a much longer and more explicit rant.

“Parker,” I say when I can finally find my voice. “I think I know how Shelby found out about us.”

It’s too dark to see his reaction, but the air in the car goes abnormally still, like if he doesn’t move or breathe, reality can’t penetrate the safe bubble of his Volvo.

Fuck, I can’t believe I was so stupid. “I’m so sorry,” I rush to say. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking.”

The air returns to normal as he pats my arm and laughs with forced relaxation. “It all worked out. She had to find out sometime, and now I don’t have it hanging over my head, so don’t worry about it.” He acts like that’s the end of it, but only gives himself a few seconds’ pause before adding, “What was it?”

“I posted the picture of us on the bike ride. The one where I kissed you. I didn’t tag you in it, but I posted the other one of us too, and I did tag you in that one. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put you through this.”

I wrap my coat tighter around me, as if it will somehow protect me from my own stupidity. I immediately pull up both pictures online and delete them. It hurts to do it. Having Parker’s smiling face on my site made me feel normal and happy. Now that’s gone, but at least the hateful comments are gone too.

“Hey, it’s okay. I think it’s actually going to be worse for you than it is for me.”

“How’s that?”

“All of this happened in front of our lawyers, and Shelby swore vindication. My lawyer, Ms. Grassi, is afraid Shelby’s team will use you, or something about you, to make this all infinitely worse. If that’s even possible. Ms. Grassi wants to do a preemptive background investigation on you, so we can be prepared for whatever Shelby’s lawyers might throw at us.”

Whatever chill I felt earlier disappears, with heated indignation quickly taking its place.

“God, this is not how I wanted to spend our evening,” Parker says, oblivious to the car’s sudden change in climate. “Fuck Shelby and my father.”

“Or you could just ask me.”

I don’t mean for my voice to be so small. It’s supposed to be filled with righteous anger, damn it.

“What?”

“Instead of allowing your lawyers to go crazy playing how-can-we-pin-this-on-the-freak, you could just ask me if there’s anything in my past that could be a problem for you.” My voice returns and rises in parallel with my anger. “Although I’m still fuzzy on how I could be a problem for you anyway. You don’t have kids. You don’t even have a dog. Even if I am corrupting you, it doesn’t have anything to do with your divorce from Shelby.”

Parker chances a glance in my direction, his eyes wide in astonishment.

“I don’t understand why you’re getting upset.”

“Really? You won’t press charges against your psycho wife when she assaults you, but you’re fine with lawyers investigating a totally innocent party in all this. Me. Because I’m different. You’re okay with that. You think your lawyer’s right.”

Parker huffs out a frustrated breath and twists in his seat. “Do I think that the situation is right? No. But my lawyer is right. Look, I’ve been in divorce hell for over half a year now. I just want it over and done with. And if Shelby’s going to use you to drag it out for longer, then yes, I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent that.”

I don’t have the heart left to argue. Whatever it takes. That says it all. When Parker turns onto my street, I click out of my seat belt and put my hand on the door handle.

“Just drop me off. We’re done here.”

“Mal, don’t be ridiculous,” Parker says, pulling to a stop behind my truck in the driveway.

“You know what? This wasn’t going to work anyway. It was fun. But you have to live your life for your dad, and your mom, and apparently for Shelby. Everyone but yourself. So I’m taking myself out of the equation. I hope that smooths the way for your divorce. I will be a speed-bump on the path to your freedom no longer.”

I slam the door before he has a chance to respond, and rush through the front door. I click the bolt into place and lean with my ear against the hollow wood door. Parker’s car pulls away not even a full minute later. I slide down the door until my coat pools around me and my satin-covered ass hits the cold vinyl floor.