Page 23 of The Do-Over

Me: I agreed to have lunch with Brent.

Mathias: Do you enjoy torture?

Me: My mom made me do it.

Mathias: You have mommy issues.

Me: I KNOW!

Brent Tompkins, golden boy of Mayfield Home Mortgage and my mother’s favorite son, perused his menu with agonizing slowness although we’d been to this restaurant many times over. I’d never noticed before how long it took him to order.

His eyes rose above the edge of the menu. “Thanks for agreeing to meet. Do you know what you want?”

I nodded and turned to look out the window. A barrage of Texas-sized trucks passed, luxury cars stuffed between them.

A server with red-framed glasses and a hurried smile paused at our table. “Ready to order?”

“Perci?”

I ignored Brent and turned to the waitress. “I’d like a garden salad with house dressing on the side. No croutons. And a water, please.”

That’s not exactly what I wanted, but I was always careful about what I ate when I was with Brent, even now, when it didn’t matter. A spark of anger lit in my chest. Why did I care what he thought of me? I glared at him while he ordered a cheeseburger with fries.

The waitress took our menus and raced off to put in our order.

Brent set his elbows on the table and tented his fingers. “I thought it would be a good idea if we talked.”

I guzzled half my water and set it down with more force than I intended. “Go ahead.”

He cleared his throat. “I hoped we wouldn’t have any hard feelings.”

“We?”

Red bloomed across his cheeks. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed. “This”—he waved a hand between us—“didn’t turn out as either of us expected.”

I stared at him.

He continued. “Perhaps we thought this relationship was heading in a different direction. But after some deep soul searching, we found it kinder to end it before we went further.”

Kinder? Sort of like when someone shoots a horse in the head instead of fixing its broken foot. “So, we decided breaking up on the radio was the kindest thing to do?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said with a small, uncomfortable smile.

“You what?” I hated the crack in my voice.

“I thought you’d understand.”

“I’d understand?”

He fussed with his tie, an abysmal shade of mustard yellow with bright green stripes. His ugly ties were not ironic; he thought they looked professional. I used to think that was kind of cute. “Perci, that’s who you are.”

“What does that mean?”

“You don’t seem to mind anything I do. Why would this be any different?”

A strangled gasp escaped me, and I turned toward the window again, unable to answer as a sharp pain wrapped around my sternum. My eyes caught on a homeless man who stopped to pick through a garbage can, a cart holding all his worldly possessions at his side.

The server slid our dishes on the table. A thick silence grew between us. Brent dug into his hamburger. Mustard dripped from the sandwich and landed on his tie, blending in with the color. I didn’t tell him. Let him figure it out. I wasn’t responsible for pointing those things out anymore.