A brief but soaking rain fell as she sped uptown in another white-knuckle cab ride, smushed between Dennis and Jenn. Exiting the car, she stumbled onto the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a pond-sized puddle along the curb. Once inside, the relentlessly red bar on East Fifty-Fifth Street was a sauna packed with hip New Yorkers in rumpled business attire and man buns who didn’t seem to notice that Dennis’s roommate’s band, Electric Canopener, stunk. Electric Canopener covered nineties grunge tunes so loudly the steamed-up mirrors on the walls rattled along with her fillings. She ordered a white wine spritzer. The bartender looked like she asked for milk and cookies.

Jenn leaned close. “Still can’t stand the taste of beer?”

“Makes me want to vomit.” As sweat ran between her shoulder blades, she tried to blink the scratchiness from her eyeballs. She groped in her backpack for eye drops. No luck. In her efforts to lighten her bag, they apparently didn’t make the cut. Jerking his arms in arhythmic spasms, Dennis sang along with the band, occasionally tromping her foot or elbowing her in the ribs.

Electric Canopener launched into a Nirvana tune, and Dennis hooted and clapped his hands above his head.

Inches from her face, his armpits were dark with sweat. Longing to put a few feet between her nose and his stink, she swiveled, but sweaty bodies packed the room. Warm drops of a liquid she prayed was water plunked on her head from an unknown source. Jenn and Adam smooched against a wall—her petite frame concealed by his Division I soccer player bod. She downed the spritzer in gulps. Just how long would they stay?

Mercifully, Adam was also not a fan of Electric Canopener. After the first set, she trailed him and Jennifer, pushing toward the exit. Fully intoxicated but with zero intention to bail, Dennis scrawled his number on a matchbook and pressed it into her palm with promises to show her his collection of bayonets in the fall. She smiled mirthlessly and stuffed the damp matchbook into her backpack.

After enduring the bar, escaping into the misty night air felt like a dip in a lake—even if she was in Manhattan, and the sidewalks smelled like Chinese food.

The apartment was within walking distance, and Jenn suggested they enjoy a stroll home.

Aching feet or no, she was so relieved not to be sandwiched in the back of another cab, she agreed. Lagging behind the couple, she gazed at skyscrapers shrouded in clouds and couldn’t help overhearing snatches of Jenn’s and Adam’s whispered conversation.

Jenn yanked Adam’s hand. “Why did you invite him?”

“You wanted someone harmless, right? Dennis is as harmless as they come.”

Harmless? Why harmless? She caught her toe in a sidewalk crack and tripped a step.

“And that band?”

Jenn’s voice rose an octave. Ugh. Tessa hated causing a tiff.