“Okay.” I take my seat again and sip on my beer, which is slowly getting better. Julien then pulls out a small Bluetooth speaker and blasts some music out of it, and we sit there. Just like that, the night has gotten back to normal. Samuel starts watching TikToks on his phone and convinces Hoon to join him on the couch, because Hoon is 100% whipped for Samuel; Julien starts doing his own karaoke; and after being down here for a good hour and a half, Hoon pulls UNO cards out of his bag and starts shuffling them carefully.

I’m out first, emptying my hand in a cruel move that leaves Julien with six freshly drawn cards in his hand.

“No stacking!” he shouts.

“No one said we couldn’t stack.” I laugh, opening my second beer can of the night.

We prefer to play for as long as we can instead of ending it at the first person out, which means the game lasts for another hour and comes right down to Hoon and Julien.

I don’t know when things get so hot, but at some point, I unbutton the top few buttons of my shirt and roll up my sleeves. I feel queasy too. Probably should’ve eaten something before I came here.

“You look like you’re thinking,” Samuel says. He’s definitely tipsy by now.

“Do not,” I say. We’ve moved to the couch, not even caring about the mold or bugs.

“Yeah, you do.” Samuel leans in. “You’re getting that crease right there.” His finger traces the skin between my brows.

“Stop.” I pull away from him.

“You’re going to get wrinkles!”

“And you’re going to get smacked,” I tell him.

Samuel holds his hands out defensively. “Whoa, okay, okay. Enough of that. No need to get upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Yeah, you are.” Samuel scoots closer to me. “How are you going to handle this wedding? Josh is still going, right?”

“I don’t know. His brother is Michael’s best man, so of course Josh and his parents were also invited.”

“You’re going solo? That won’t be much fun.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have time to find a date,” I say. Nor would I want to if I did have the time.

“You know.” Samuel wraps an arm around my shoulder. The only time he can get away with something like that is when he’s drunk. “If I wasn’t going with my parents back to New York, I’d totally go with you.”

“As if I’d want to drag you along.”

“How dare you!” he says with a sloppy smile. “I’m a catch!”