Drew sets his cards down on the table before standing up and guiding me over to the railing as someone shouts, “Wait, I wanna see the fight!”

“Are you mad at me?” Drew asks.

And I don’t even know why he’s asking it because I’m pretty clearly mad at him. “I promised Devin we’d be at eir party, so let’s just go. We already divided our time.”

“Yeah, okay, but it’s a recycling party. It’s not like Devin needs us there.”

“And your drunk-ass friends need you here because . . . ?”

Drew rolls his eyes. “You see Devin every day at work, right? I see these guys once every few months, and with everything that’s been going on lately, it’s really refreshing, you know? It’s the first time I’ve been able to really let loose since my parents told us they were separating.”

“I get that, but—”

“Can’t you just be happy for me for a little while? I need this,” Drew says, dropping his voice low.

And I sigh because I don’t want to be the shitty boyfriend who tears him away from his one night of happiness in a while, but I also don’t want to be the shitty friend who cancels on Devin last minute. Especially after how excited e seemed when I told em I’d go to eir party.

And now I know all of Drew’s friends are watching me to make sure I’m going to be the “cool boyfriend” and give him exactly what he wants, but why does it have to come at my expense? Hell, we worked all this out beforehand so it wouldn’t come to me being put on the spot in front of a bunch of drunk people, but now it’s coming to that anyway.

“Look, if you don’t want to be here, maybe you should just go by yourself,” Drew says. “I mean, if you don’t want to be with me—”

“This has nothing to do with whether or not I want to be with you,” I say. “I want to be with you, okay? But I made a promise, and now you’re asking me to break it so you can have a few more illegal beers. Why does that make me the bad guy?”

But I already know what’s happening here, and I know how this is going to end. Drew’s not going to Devin’s party tonight. Hell, he was probably planning on bailing all along, and if I try to go on my own, he’ll use it to break up with me and claim the whole thing’s my fault.