Carter swatted him with his notebook.

“How’d you finish history so fast?” Carter said, “We’re going to fail again, aren’t we?”

Austin slumped into our booth, his back squeaking against the leather. “You know what they say, man: Cs get degrees.”

Austin held his hand out for me to fist bump, which I halfheartedly returned. Something else that Freud, the outdated genius had written, intrigued me.

“Oh yeah?” Austin took my textbook, intrigued that I ignored him. “What now . . . oh. Interesting.” He cleared his throat and read, “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Austin gave me a funny look. “Something you want to tell us, Nicky?”

“Shut up,” I took the book back, looking anywhere but at Carter. “Like Carter said. Dude’s weird.”

“I don’t hate that point, though,” said Carter, “about not being able to express things. Especially when it’s because of some trivial social norm.”

“Please. Explain. I love a good debate,” said Austin.

“Nah,” said Carter.

“Jerk off.”

“Well, like, what about the Bro Code?” I asked, my hands starting to shake underneath the table. This was it—maybe my one chance to bring this up organically and get their reactions.

“Exactly,” said Carter.

Oh no. Exactly? I continued, “Suppose one of us was super into Hannah, right? Except we can’t try anything because of Robert. Or the whole dating Eliza thing. Like did you feel repressed by that rule, Austin?”

Two theoretical, non-topical examples. (Not that I was into Hannah. But continuing with my theme . . .)

Austin yawned. “I ain’t got no time for no rules.”

“I can’t talk about this,” Carter muttered.

The two kids playing air hockey, a boy and a girl, began to jump up and down, arguing about whether a point counted.

“You guys have never felt stifled by the Bro Code?” I pushed. “What does that mean?”

“Probably means you’re gay,” Austin deflected.

“Aaaaand Austin’s buying,” said Carter.

“Every freaking time,” Austin groaned. Coins clinked onto the table as he pulled his wallet out.

“CBR, please,” I said.

Austin gave me a thumbs-up and trotted to the counter to order our chicken bacon ranch (a bro’s favorite pizza after pepperoni). A few years ago, Carter decided it was his civic duty to get us to stop making homophobic comments as jokes. Whenever one of us used one they owed the rest of the group food or game tickets or whatever. Austin still had them in his arsenal for when he couldn’t think of any better jokes. I basically never paid for food.

Carter gulped from his water bottle. “So, Madison,” he continued. “Girl is a Piece. Of. Work. She spends the whole time talking about you. Legit, I feel like some kind of Nick Maguire expert witness and I’m being interrogated or something.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

Austin rejoined us with a neon table number. He resumed his position of slumping as far down as he could go.