“I mean, without a date,” he clarifies, completely unnecessarily.

“I know,” I say. “I’m bringing my boyfriend.”

Even as I’m saying it, there’s a voice screeching in my brain, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

I face the window and pantomime a scream, one hand dragging down the side of my face. I wonder if this exact scenario inspired Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

“Your boyfriend?” Peter’s voice emanates sheer disbelief.

No, my brain says.

“Yes,” my mouth says.

“But . . . you didn’t RSVP for a plus-one.”

I’m not usually a liar. In fact, I still sometimes lie awake thinking about a time in the sixth grade when I’d just switched schools and a girl struck up a conversation with me about my horse necklace, and in my desperation to make friends, some foul demon possessed me to tell the girl I loved horses and grew up going to horse-riding camp every summer.

I’d been horseback riding twice. I fell off the second time, if that matters.

After that conversation, I’d avoided that girl out of guilt. Lucky for me, we moved again six months later.

But apparently the demon has finally tracked me down again, because without thinking, without planning, a lie emerges from my mouth, fully formed: “I didn’t need a plus-one. He got his own invitation.”

The weighty silence tells me Peter is doing invisible calculus now. Only he’s got the brain for it. “You can’t mean . . .” His voice slides past disbelief straight into incredulity. “You’re with Miles?”

No, no, no, the voice in my head screams.

“Yep!” my mouth chirps.

I am instantly back to silent Munch-screaming out the window.

The next silence extends too long. I’m incapable of breaking it, because the only thing I can think to say is, I don’t know why I said that—it’s an outright lie, but I also cannot. Cannot tell him that.

Peter clears his throat. “Well, the wedding’s not for a few months.”

“I know,” I say. “Labor Day.”

“A lot could change before then,” he says.

My jaw drops. Is he really insinuating that my fake relationship won’t survive three months to his wedding . . . when his relationship started just over a month ago?

“We’ll be there,” I say.

NO, my brain screams.

“Okay,” Peter says.

I need to get off the phone before I involuntarily spring a fictional pregnancy on him. “I’ve got to go, Peter. Take care.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You t—”

I hang up.

I pace in front of the window for about five seconds, then go straight to Miles’s door, a sinner on her way to confession.

I knock. No answer.

I pound. “Miles? Are you up?”

I rattle the knob. Or I expect to, but it’s unlocked. So instead, I basically just fall into his room, catching myself against his dresser. The TV atop it wobbles, and as I steady it, a voice says from behind me, “Are you stealing my TV?”

I turn, expecting to find Miles sprawled out in his bed. Instead, he’s standing in the doorway, fully dressed with a grease-mottled paper bag in hand.

I release the TV. “I almost knocked it over,” I explain.

“Why?” he asks.

“I told Peter we were dating,” I say.

He stares at me for three seconds, then laughs. “What does that have to do with the TV?”

“Nothing,” I say.

He laughs again and turns back to the hallway.

“Where are you going?” I call.

“To get sriracha,” he says.

“Why,” I say, trailing him to the kitchen.

“For my breakfast sandwich.” He drops the bag on the counter on his way to the fridge.

“Did you hear what I said?” I ask.

“You told Peter we were dating,” he confirms, rifling around the fridge for the hot sauce.

“Aren’t you mad?” I say.

He spins back with the sriracha bottle and an unmarked jar of something dark and goopy. “Why would I be mad?”

“Because we aren’t dating,” I say.

“I’m aware.” He dumps the bag out onto the counter, and two yellow-paper-wrapped sandwiches fall out. He slides one toward me, then turns to the already full coffeepot.

“How long have you been up?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Hour or two.” He carries two steaming mugs back to the counter. He gives me a mug with Garfield the cat wearing a cowboy hat on it. “Cream? Sugar?”

I shake my head. I’m not much of a coffee drinker. I’ll just sip enough to take the edge off of this hangover.

Miles opens the jar and spoons a little probably-maple-syrup into his coffee. “Is that good?” I ask, leaning forward to watch.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Seems like it would be, though. Did you drunk-dial?”

“What?” I say.

“Did you call Peter drunk?” he says, unwrapping his sandwich, flipping it open, and absolutely slathering the egg and avocado inside with sriracha.

“No, he called me.”

He pauses with the sandwich halfway to his mouth. He lets out another laugh and lowers the sandwich. “Wait. Did we RSVP to their wedding last night?”

Hearing it said aloud, again, sends a full-body shudder through me. Groaning, I drop my face against my forearms on the counter.

“Wait, wait.” Miles presses his palm into my forehead and tips my face up so he can meet my eyes. “That’s why he called? Because he got the RSVP?”

I nod. “He called to tell me I don’t have to come. That he knows how hard it will be for me to be there, all by my lonesome, so utterly shattered and alone and lonely and unloved.”

Miles snorts. “Smug little prick.”

“He’s six four,” I say.

“Smug giant douche,” he amends. Then, after a minute, “Or, I don’t know, maybe he genuinely thought he was being nice?”

“No, you were right the first time.”

Miles unwraps my breakfast sandwich partway and shoves it toward my face. I take a bite, and then he sets it down in front of my chin.

“Wait!” He braces his hands against the counter, face brightening. “So he called to try to make you feel so pathetic you wouldn’t come ruin his special day, and you told him we were dating?”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“That fucking rules,” he says. “How’d he take it?”

“Some silence, some scoffs of disbelief,” I say. “A gentle reminder that the wedding’s not for three months, and there’s no way you and I will still be dating by then. Pretty perceptive of him, given that we’re not dating now.” I drop my face, groaning anew at the fresh round of hammering inside my brain.

“Eat something,” Miles says. “It will help.”

I pitch myself onto one of the mismatched wooden stools at the counter and slide the sandwich toward me, taking a forceful bite.

“Maybe we should date,” Miles says.

I choke. He watches me coughing, an impish grin forming on his impish mouth. “Yes,” I finally manage. “A shared cuckolding is the most fertile ground from which love could ever spring.”

“Yeah, that,” he says, “and it would piss them off.”

“As you pointed out,” I say. “They don’t care. They’re getting married, Miles.”

“And six weeks ago, you were getting married,” he says.

“Hey, if you’re willing to keep reminding me of that daily, I can go ahead and rename my morning alarm something other than WAKE UP, YOU’VE BEEN JILTED, BITCH.”

“No, I mean, a few weeks ago, you and Peter were engaged. And yet, he was jealous of me, and you were jealous of Petra.”

“Excuse you,” I say.

“I’m quoting you,” he says.

“From when?” I say.

“Halfway through the third time you put on ‘Witchy Woman’ last night.”

I narrow my gaze.

“You don’t remember anything that happened, do you?” He seems tickled at the thought.

“I remember Glenn,” I say.

“Gill,” he says.

“Right.”

“My point is, just because they’re engaged, it doesn’t mean they’re above jealousy.” He takes another sip of coffee. I reach feebly toward the maple syrup jar, and he nudges it closer to me.