As I waited for Leo and Angela to arrive, I was a little bit wary—because Leo had been treating me like a delicate flower all week, since my football jersey meltdown. But then I remembered that was a whole other world ago. Did I have the same meltdown here? My memories said maybe, which is the most useless thing a memory can say.

When Leo and Angela arrived, he didn’t give me that are-you-okay-since-the-last-time-I-saw-you look. Instead, he seemed to be in a mood of his own.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Angela.

“New guard at the gate,” she told me.

That shouldn’t have been a problem—all my friends have permanent guest passes to get them through the gate. It would have been fine if the gate was automated, but there was a human involved, which can be far more problematic than technology.

“Do you wanna know what he said?” Leo snarled. “Do you?” Leo stormed across the foyer and back. “He took one look at us and said, ‘Work hours are over at six.’”

“So did you tell him where to stick it?”

“I’m sure if I had, the damn rent-a-cop woulda Tased me, or worse.”

I shook my head. “Dude, you’re driving a pickup with tons of crap in the back. He probably thought you were a contractor, or something.”

“Are you really that naïve?”

Angela came between us. “Let’s save the drama for the movie,” she said, but Leo wasn’t done.

“You’re like a horse with blinders,” he told me. “You never see anyone’s point of view but your own.”

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I remember thinking why would I ever want to see things from his point of view, if it meant I’d always be pissed off?

Although we didn’t talk about it anymore, Leo’s mood took a long time to lighten. It just went from angry to brooding, like he was obsessing over all the things he wished he would have said to the gate guard.

We decided to play some pool and polish off the chicken before starting the movie—the choice of which was still in debate. I proposed a three-team tournament; the first team to win two games would get to pick the movie. We chose teams by the type of movie we wanted. Kendra split from Norris and joined Paul, who also wanted a comedy. That just made Paul awkward. Leo and Norris were the horror team, and Angela and I were team sci-fi.

In the first game, Norris sank the eight ball halfway through the game, giving the victory to Kendra and Paul.

“My hands were too greasy from the chicken,” Norris complained. “And that eight ball had a mind of its own.”