Christa stared at me with one eyebrow raised, but then, with a shrug, she seemingly decided to let it go. With her butt still firmly pushed into Harry’s crotch—as it had been since high school—Christa gestured to Drew, then yelled to me over the music, “I didn’t peg you for one to like older men, though I guess none of us really knew what you liked.”

He’s twenty-one, not seventy, I thought but didn’t say.

Harry pumped his eyebrows. “Hey, bro, think you can get us a couple drinks?”

“Nah, we don’t need that,” Drew said, nonchalant, but even though his body was completely relaxed, I knew he was on edge.

Harry mumbled a curse that was swallowed by the music, and Drew pretended not to notice.

Harry’s eyes met mine, which—shudder—reminded me that there had always been something about him that made me keep my distance.

“Andrew looks a little out of your league,” he said to me with a toothy grin that clashed with his tone. “How’d you bag him?”

“I strung up some Sichuan food as bait and waited a few days,” I yelled back. Drew laughed, but no one else did, obviously. I shared a giant, in-joke smile with him.

“Wait, what?” asked Luke, his bopping slowing.

“We met in class,” I told them with a wave of a hand. Drew’s smile disappeared.

“Ohhh, another UChicago nerd—now it makes sense,” Luke said with a laugh, even his barely-there sways coming to a halt. He turned to Drew, telling him, “She had quite the prudish reputation in school, though that’s obviously changed with you given what y’all were doing a minute ago. My man!”

Luke lifted his hand for a high five but Drew left him hanging, excusing himself and then weaving his way to the closest exit. I hurried after him, but my shorter legs slowed me down. By the time I pushed my way outside, Drew was on his phone, the Uber app open but no ride requested yet.

The door shut behind me, and the blaring music suddenly became a background buzz.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

His arms dropped to his sides and he looked at me with sad eyes. “Why are we here with them, Chloe?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feigning innocence. But everything down to my churning stomach already knew what he was talking about.

He exhaled forcefully, then gave me a pleading come on look.

“It all happened so fast!” I burst out. “I lied and told my parents I was seeing Gen tonight, and then I remembered that her mother knows someone who’s my mother’s patient, and so, you get it, I had to make sure we covered our tracks—”

“Chloe, Chloe, just stop for a second.” He raked a hand through his hair. “There are so many lies I can’t even keep them straight.”