“So you and Gideon are getting close,” he said, moving a little nearer to me on the couch.

“I guess so,” I said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. And Sam moved closer still, his expression almost carefully blank, like he knew he was making me nervous, and he liked it.

Sam leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You want to know what he told me about you?”

“I really don’t,” I said, forcing a laugh that even I could hear fell flat. “Want to watch the movie?”

“Nope,” Sam said, still looking right at me. “We should be friends, Emily.”

“We are,” I said lightly, just wanting this strange exchange to be over as quickly as possible. It was underscoring for me that I was never alone with Sam; I was beginning to realize that I preferred it that way.

“Really?” he asked, leaning even closer to me.

Two things happened then, very quickly, the kind of quick where you don’t have time to think anything through, you just react and hope for the best. Sam leaned in to kiss me and I saw Sloane rounding the corner, coming in from the kitchen, carrying two glasses in her hands.

And I could have just ducked or turned away from Sam. But I didn’t. I let him kiss me, and I waited just a second more before I broke away, pushed him away from me and said, loudly, “What are you doing?”

There was the sound of glass breaking, and I looked over to see Sloane, her blue eyes wide, shattered glass at her feet and what looked like Coke spilling onto her shoes, the new white pony-skin ones she’d saved a month to buy.

Sam’s head snapped around, and he looked from Sloane to me, shaking his head. “It isn’t . . . ,” he said, talking fast, his voice high. “Emily was totally throwing herself at me after Gideon left, and . . .”

Sloane looked at me, like she was looking for the answer. I looked right back at her and shook my head. There was a fraction of a second where I wondered if she would pick Sam, his version of things, their three months over our two years. But this worry faded when I saw in her eyes how completely she believed me. “Em, would you mind waiting by the car?” she asked, her voice quiet and breaking. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

I nodded, scrambled to my feet, and grabbed my purse. As I headed to the front door, I saw that Sam’s expression was equal parts shocked and angry. “Wait, you don’t even believe me?” he asked, his voice rising.

“Nope,” I heard Sloane say, still quiet, before I stepped out into the night and pulled the door shut behind me.

I just stood on the Welcome, Friends!mat for a moment, trying to put everything that had just happened into some kind of order. Deep down, I knew I could have stopped it. But if Sam was going to try and kiss me anyway, shouldn’t Sloane have seen it? So she could finally see what kind of guy he was?

I knew I was justifying something that I shouldn’t have done, but before I could continue to talk myself into it, an SUV pulled into the driveway. Through the windshield, I recognized Gideon, who was already smiling at me as he killed the engine and got out of the car. I walked down Sam’s front steps and over to my car, and we met halfway.

“Hey,” he said. “Leaving already?”

I glanced back toward the house. I knew I didn’t have a ton of time, if Sloane did go through with ending it, like I was fairly sure she was going to. Sloane didn’t fight with people, ever, so even if Sam wanted a long, drawn-out breakup, he wasn’t about to get one. “I am,” I said slowly. I had no idea what—if anything—I should tell him. I had no doubt that Sam would soon spin this story whatever way suited him.

“I forgot my phone,” he said, nodding toward the house.

“Listen,” I said quickly. Between his curfew and the fact that I had a feeling that Sloane wasn’t going to want to linger, I had to make this fast and get it over with. Because Gideon and I were done. I felt a small pang as I realized this, but I pushed on past it. We had always been the add-ons to our best friends’ relationship, and it wouldn’t make much sense for us to continue, just the two of us. There probably wasn’t enough there to last on its own. Better to get out now, before we’d had the chance to try and preserve something that wouldn’t have worked. “I think Sloane and Sam are breaking up,” I said, glancing back toward the house.

“No,” Gideon said, his face falling. “Are you sure they’re not just fighting? Because—”

“So I just . . . ,” I started, then stopped when I realized I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I’d never had to break up with anyone before. “This has been really great,” I said after a moment. “But . . .”

Gideon just looked at me, and I saw understanding slowly dawn on his face. “Wait,” he said. “Emily. What are you saying?”

“Just that I think it would be too hard now,” I said, realizing as I did that there had been very few actual nouns or verbs in that sentence. “I just do.” The door opened, and Sloane came out barefoot, carrying her ruined flats. “So . . . take care, okay?” I asked, hating myself even as I asked it, but telling myself that this was for the best. It would be better to end it right then, rather than drawing it out.

Gideon was still looking at me like he was hoping that at any moment, I might tell him this had all been an elaborate joke. But I made myself turn away from him and headed to my car, but not before I got a glimpse of the xoxoI’d drawn on his skin not very long ago.

Two hours later, the cake had been eaten, the birthday song had been sung, and most of the guests had departed.

And I was tipsy.

It wasn’t something that I had planned on, at all. But when I arrived at the picnic table, Collins had given me a red cup of beer and a fork—he hadn’t remembered to get plates for the cake. He’d gotten the cake at a discount, since someone hadn’t picked it up, which was also the reason it read You Did It, Wanda!There was no indication of what, exactly, Wanda had done, just a few lopsided red sugar roses on the corners. The cake was sickly sweet, and at first, I’d just sipped at my beer to balance out the taste. But as I’d had more, I found it made my strained conversations with Frank’s other friends a little easier to get through. None of them could understand why I was there, most of them appeared to think I worked with Frank and Collins, and the remainder seemed to be convinced that I was dating Doug.  And it wasn’t until I’d finished my second cup that I realized I was officially tipsy. I was baffled as to why until I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat that day except for birthday donuts with Frank, hours and hours before.

Which explained my current state, but didn’t help me do much about it. I ended up sitting on a picnic table with Collins, who was finishing up the last bites of the cake and bemoaning his romantic woes to me. It was perfect, because it seemed like he was more interested in a monologue than a dialogue, and whenever I had too much to drink I got oddly honest and told people things I never would have otherwise.

“And I’m a catch, right, Emily?” he asked, waving his fork in his general direction. “I mean, the C-dawg’s got style. He’s got panache, you know? And he knows how to please the ladies.”

I started to feel slightly sick, and I wasn’t sure it was the beer. “Um . . .”

“And yet all these girls just passing up their ride on the C train! Their loss, though. Am I right or am I right?” He took a big bite of cake and ended up with frosting on his nose.

I reached over, held his face steady, and wiped it off while Collins blinked at me, surprised. It was another thing that I did when I’d had a bit to drink—I acted without thinking first, without running through possibilities and outcomes, and just did. “I don’t know,” I said, thinking back to the girl he’d been hitting on earlier that night, and all the girls he was forever making a spectacle of himself in front of at school. “Did you ever think about asking out someone maybe a little less . . .” I paused. I had a feeling that I was going to insult him if I kept going and said something along the lines of “on your level.” But my brain at the moment wasn’t coming up with any other alternatives. “You know,” I finally said. “Someone that you’re maybe already friends with.”