“Yeah, but, like, how do you know someone’s not a serial killer?” I sip whatever drops of my drink are left among the ice at the bottom of the glass.

“Hey, maybe that could be our start-up,” he says. “A serial-killer-free dating app.” He waves his arm, as if to paint a picture of this visionary idea.

“Ha-ha, quite funny.” I smile and look away, not wanting to get into a conversation about the project, even a facetious one.

Across the dance floor, a large bouncer moves the red velvet rope for a moment to let Braden and Colleen down while fending off the requests of the crowd haggling to get upstairs.

They walk toward us.

“Hey, guys,” Braden says as soon as they are close enough for us to hear. He then turns to Colleen, “Looks like the bathroom’s right over there.”

She smiles and looks past him to me. “Hey, Sara.” She wiggles a hand at me.

I wave back halfheartedly before she disappears toward the ladies’ room.

“Women,” Braden says, like I’m not one. “This girl acts like she can’t make it to the shitter without me.”

“You’re disgusting,” I say.

He doesn’t care. “May as well order while I’m down here.” He waves at the bartender. “Save on tip.”

“I’m pretty sure you still tip if you order at the bar,” Robbie says.

“Why?” Braden asks, not looking up from the bottle service menu. “They barely do anything. Just hand it to me.”

Braden leans over the bar and inquires about ordering another bottle. I overhear the guy saying it’ll be an extra fifty for the sparkler, and Braden countering that the upcharge was only twenty before.

“It’s all so made up,” I say in Robbie’s ear. “Who can go in the house, who can get on the bus, who is a VIP. People are idiots.”

“What’s that?” a voice says.

I turn to Braden. A disco light flashes behind him, shining through the edges of his hair like a halo. A halo on the devil, how ironic.

“I was, um, saying—”

“People aren’t stupid,” he interrupts, seeming to have actually heard me just fine. “They just know the game. You get to sit at the cool kids’ table if you bring the class cookies. You get to go to the prom after-party if you buy the limo. Bottles and tables at clubs, the red rope—they’re just the grown-up version,” he says. “People know there’s value in being wanted, and that it’s the kind of value you can count in Benjamins.”

A waiter taps him on the shoulder, and he signs a bill after barely glancing at it. “Yes, the boundaries are arbitrary,” he says. “But they are real. People sell them.”

Before I can say anything in reply, Colleen is back and they are gone.