Dylan drops their head onto the sticky table in misery but nudges their phone toward Jack all the same.

“Fact about me that surprises people…” Jack says, reading the Hinge profile prompt.

“That despite the neck tattoo, I still have to sleep with a night-light,” Andrew fills in. Dylan keeps their head plastered to the table but raises their middle finger in response.

“I get along best with people who…”

“Punch me in the face when I deserve it?” I suggest.

“Who can tell my crusty shell is just an act,” Andrew answers effortlessly. At that, Dylan peels their head off the table just a smidge.

“I’m looking for…”

“Monogamy, marriage, mortgage, all that embarrassing crap,” Dylan says with a lazy wave of their hand.

“All that normcore stuff,” I say. Jack glances up from the phone, and her eyes lock onto mine. Under the table, my knee is still pressed into the indent of hers.

“I’m looking for someone to love me even when I’m being completely insufferable,” Andrew grumbles into his now third cup of Rainier. Dylan sits up halfway and stares at Andrew in the poor lighting of this bar. And even though I can’t see my own face, I imagine I look like that. I look at Jack the way Dylan looks at Andrew.

And I don’t think I can do this anymore.

“We have to tell them.”

“Tell them what?” Andrew asks as he leans over the bar to order another pitcher—a Breakside IPA this time, for Jack.

“Tell them everything!” I hiss. Over my shoulder, I see Dylan and Jack in our corner booth looking tense and uncomfortable. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be a sex shield. I want to tell Dylan the truth.” Never mind the fact that I want to tell Jack the truth, too. That I want to know what came at the end of her sentence.

Do you think if—

“Why do you want to tell Dylan?”

“Because you’re in love with them!” I say at a volume not quite befitting the secrecy of this conversation. Andrew almost drops an entire pitcher of overpriced IPA. I modulate my whisper. “You’re in love with them, and they’re in love with you, and this whole thing is starting to feel ridiculous.”

“I’m not in love with Dylan,” he says calmly.

“Andrew.” I put a hand on his arm. “You are, though.”