My Mustang rattled over several potholes during the drive to the O’Connor’s residence, and Austin cranked our music to cover it. No matter how much crap Austin and I had given him the last few weeks, Carter still stood firm that he wasn’t coming to the bonfire. There was no way, however, that we’d let that happen.

“I’ll make the call.” Austin put his phone to his ear. This was serious business, which required, gasp, an actual phone call. Misconstrued texting would make the situation worse—when it came to bros, of course. A bro would never talk to a chick on the phone unless she called him first. Even then, only after two dates. Before that? Straight to voicemail.

“We’re here. Yup. Nope. Um, bullshit. Totally. Of course we would never force you to wear a bikini, who do you think we are? Okay. Sure, here he is.” Austin handed his phone to me, clicking it into speaker mode.

“Dude,” I said, “you’re three whines away from Taylor Swift status.”

Taylor Swift status n: petty, whiny, and all things unnecessarily dramatic.

“Nick,” Carter spoke slowly and shortly, “I can’t go back there.”

“And I can’t parallel park. Oh, snap. Looks like we’re both going to be doing things we can’t tonight.”

“Think I should go in there?” Austin cracked open his door.

“Carter,” I said, “what’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“They call the cops like last time and I have to wear a coconut bra all night in jail.”

“If that happens again, you know we’ll be sitting in the cell with you. Sounds fun. Now get your butt out here, man. I need to get gas.” The phone beeped as our call ended.

Austin honked my car’s definitely loud, definitely-not-dorky horn. A minute later, Carter strode down the front entrance’s steps, pulling his arms through his plaid overshirt.

“All right, your wish is granted.” Carter slid into the backseat. “This had better be some bonfire.”

“It will be now.” Austin reached for a fist bump.

“We have ignition,” I said, as my car sputtered and coughed. “Ready for takeoff. Dude, why were you giving us such a hard time? It’s going to be awesome.”

In the rearview mirror, Carter shook his head. “Freaking Josh Daley. He’s like, asking me all about how he’s doing with Eliza, and whether she likes him. And I’m like, read the room, man, I’m not talking to you about this stuff. Now she’s going to this with him, and he told me not to tell people about it, even though they’ve been going out for like a month and they went to the movies last night. I can’t deal with his crap.”

“Eliza’s coming tonight?” I asked. Before this year, she’d barely hung out with us. Now it felt like she was everywhere. Or maybe she’d always been everywhere, and I’d finally started to notice.

Austin coughed. “What Nick meant to say was, that’s B.S. You can’t take the same girl out twice in one weekend and then say not to tell everyone.” Yes, Austin considered himself and me “everyone.”