“Yeah, but it’s for, like, basketball players and athletes and stoners, you know?” he says. “Cool people. I didn’t get an invitation, but I was hoping since you’re his brother . . .”

“I mean, if it’s a bunch of popular kids getting trashed at my house, I probably won’t know anybody but you.”

“That’s a yes, right?” He smiles giddily. “You can get me in?”

“It’s not the Met Gala, Grady—it’s a house party at my house.”

“So we’re getting trashed tonight?”

“I don’t drink.”

Grady rolls his eyes and then waves Fiona and Amanda over to our table. To my surprise, they actually walk up to us.

When they arrive, Amanda sits first. “Any reason you guys were staring at us?” Amanda has pale skin, dark hair that frames her cheeks in a gothic way, and a permanently serious expression.

“I . . . wasn’t staring,” I say.

Fiona takes the other seat, and Grady clasps his hands on the table like a dealer at a gambling table. “Let me just be upfront with you ladies. We’re just two single guys going to Jake’s brother’s party tonight.”

Oh, brother . . .

Fiona’s souring her lips and barely trying to disguise it. “Um . . . I didn’t know there was a party happening.”

Grady leans in. “We’re not telling everybody. It’s just a handful of people, you know?”

Amanda blinks her long lashes as she looks from Grady to Fiona. “A handful of people? I don’t know what that means, but we hate parties.”

“I don’t hate parties.” Fiona rolls her eyes like she literally doesn’t know her.

“You said you hated parties,” Amanda says. “We talked about this.”

“I don’t remember saying that?”

She grabs Fiona’s wrist. “You definitely said that. We went to the rugby game, and you specifically said you didn’t want to go to the after-party. I remember because I had to return my dress.”

Fiona pulls her arm free. “That was that party. I didn’t want to be around drunk rugby boys. That doesn’t mean I hate parties in general.”

“So, like, what’s the difference?” I swear it’s like Amanda’s eyeballs will boing out their sockets.

“I get why you wouldn’t want to come to the hood,” I say, making her notice me finally.

She grimaces in my direction. “The . . . hood?”

“Clark City. Well, it’s hood-adjacent. Not fully gentrified yet.”

Her eyes are petrified circles. “Why would we have a party there?”

Amanda is from Sunwood, named for its prestigious private university, known for its supermalls and ice cream stores that sell pumpkin-spice flavor. To her, hood and hood-adjacent are the same thing.

“I’ll see what I’m doing later on,” Fiona says.