“Don’t look at me like that when your grandma is flying here from Nola,” Sofía says.

“My grams can hang,” Chloe says, and Sofía waves her off.

“Ladies,” Benny says. “I have no parents coming this weekend, so I’d really love to find a man on this holiest of weekends.”

“You have more men than the Republican party,” Chloe says.

“Allow me to translate,” I offer. “When Benny says he wants to find a man, what he’s really saying is, ‘I’m picturing a costume-themed wedding that will take place immediately upon meeting my future husband, and we will marry beneath the full moon.’ ”

Benny holds up his phone with the “I’m in this picture and I don’t like it” meme on the screen.

“You’re ridiculous,” Sofía says, laughing.

I’m also laughing. “You think I’m joking?”

“Marriage?” Chloe scoffs. “Girl.”

“Here’s a secret,” Benny says. He pulls up Grindr on his phone. “When I meet someone hot, I’m mentally planning the wedding in my head. The trick is after the hookup because if he’s all, ‘let’s cuddle, I love you,’ I’m immediately like, ‘Okay, this was nice, don’t call me, gotta go, bye.’ But if he’s emotionally distant and plays hard to get, I’m a goner, lost somewhere in a daydream where I’m at our beautiful country kitchen whipping up biscuits while he watches football in the living room.”

“Wow,” Sofía says. “You’re fucked up.”

“You just sent women and gays back, like, a hundred years,” Chloe adds.

“What’re we talking about?” Jack says, emerging from the masses with a tray of food for us to share.

“Nothing productive,” I say, and Benny scowls. “Unless you have any tea on Rhett?”

Benny leans forward, elbows on the table.

“What is a Rhett?” Sofía says.

“My straight roommate Benny is in love with,” Jack says.

“Are we sure he’s straight?” I ask.

“Can confirm he’s done some very not-totally-straight things to me,” Benny says.

“Oop—” Chloe shouts.

Then Benny practically throws his body across the table. “I just want him to love me! Is that too much to ask?”

“Have you actually talked to him?” Jack asks. “Had an honest conversation?”

Benny stares at him blankly. “Does not compute.”

I hold my tongue because Jack and I haven’t talked at all about what happened last weekend, and I haven’t brought it up. There’s been this strange tension as if he’s gotten a peek inside my world outside of him, and maybe he didn’t like what he saw. Or maybe that’s just the story I’m telling myself. All I know is that his parents are coming up this weekend, and every time I bring them up, he avoids the topic.

So. Yeah.

“You could talk to Rhett for me, maybe?” Benny asks.