I shrug. “I like Counting Crows.” I am kind of kidding but not really. “Hard Candy” always sounds perfect after a bong rip.

“You’re really something, Em.”

“Don’t call me that.” I plop on the stiff minimalist couch. “Everything in Its Right Place” cloaks the apartment in a sinister mood. “Where the weed at?” I ask.

Thomas goes into his bedroom, and I open Instagram. WtfBeau has the little pink-and-orange circle indicating a new story. He doesn’t normally post stories, so this feels exciting. I make sure the sound is off and open it. He’s at the Big Sleep with the man from yesterday at Subtropical. They have their arms around each other and are dancing to Drake, surely an ironic act.

When Thomas comes out of his bedroom, I put the phone facedown on the couch. He walks over to the kitchen and puts a few nugs in a Ziploc bag, and I practically start drooling, like a heroin addict or something. Maybe this is part of my OCD. When he comes back into the living room, I snatch it from his hand and put it in my bag.

“No ‘thank you’?” He sits down way too close to me on the couch. I don’t want our legs touching, so I hop up on the ledge.

“Do you ever go to the Big Sleep?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, “I love that place.” He starts to untie his shoes—hideous burgundy sneakers that resemble overpriced bowling shoes.

“Can we go?” I ask.

Thomas laughs. “You want to go to a club?” he asks. “Where people dance and have fun?”

“I love to dance!” I say. I get up and start shaking violently to Radiohead’s “The National Anthem,” jumping around like a maniac.

Thomas hops up and starts dancing with me, and I want to sit back down but instead practice my acting, pretend to enjoy Thomas’s obsequious company. We dance and laugh and shake our hair.

“See?” I say, out of breath. “I love to have fun.” I put my hands on my head to open up my lungs. “Let’s go to the club.” I am heaving.

He leans over to kiss me, and this time I don’t pull away. I go with it. I am acting. And I am amazing at it. Maybe there will be a director tonight at the Big Sleep who will see me kissing Thomas and know I am just acting because no one as alluring as me would kiss a loser like him, and he or she will cast me in a film and I will become the next Tilda Swinton.

“I thought we were gonna stay in and hang,” he says, and slides his hand onto my waist. The primal part of me likes the feeling. But the thinking part of my brain does not.