Shortly after, both drinks in hand, the guy (who introduces himself as Andre) follows me back to my table. “Here, you can take yours now, if you want,” he offers.

“Oh, it’s not my drink,” I say.

He slows his step as he steers around tables full of bowlers sipping pink liquid from soup bowls. “Who’d I just buy a drink for, then?”

“You,” I say, “just bought my sister a drink for her twentieth birthday. Very chivalrous of you. We’re at that table over there.”

We reach my sister, Rosie’s, table—well, specifically, it’s two tables pushed together to fit all nine of us—and Rosie gives me a look of impressed approval. Piece of cake, I mouth.

She’s the one who spotted Andre sitting with his own friends a few lanes over from us while we were bowling. She was very dramatic about it, too, declaring to everyone within earshot that she’d commit a federal crime to get his number. After we’d finished our game, we’d come to the dining area for the real draw of the alley for Rosie—Instagrammable mocktails and flower-covered walls set up specifically for photo opportunities—and Andre and his friends had done the same, only they’d sat on the other side of the area.

So, obviously, when we noticed Andre head to the bar alone, the table decided someone needed to wing-woman, and, also obviously, I had to volunteer. I’m pretty sure it might be illegal in some states to refuse your sister a favor on her birthday. Or maybe that’s a Mafia thing. Anyway, I figured as long as he was single and into girls, I’d surely be able to convince him to wish my beautiful, single sister a happy birthday. Mission accomplished. Sort of.

“Rosie.” I slide into my seat beside her. “This is Andre. He bought you a birthday drink.”

“That is so nice, thank you,” Rosie says as the other girls at the table give him innocent, pleasant smiles of their own, like we totally didn’t plan this.

My best friend, Olivia, beckons for him to sit. “Well, she can’t drink alone on her birthday, can she?”

Andre looks between Rosie and me, before grabbing a chair from an empty table nearby and setting up next to Rosie. If he’s surprised about sitting with Rosie instead of me, he definitely doesn’t seem upset about it. And so he shouldn’t be. As far as I’m concerned, he’s won the lottery with Rosie.

“How do you do that?” Olivia asks quietly. “I could never.”

I shrug. “I dunno. Can’t be my stunning good looks, because you’ve got those in spades.”

“True.”

I return to my mango-lychee mocktail—which, thankfully, comes in a tall glass, and not a bowl. “I just talk to them. They’re just guys, they’re not intimidating.”

“Only women intimidate you?” Olivia quips.