Carlos grabbed a handful of French fries.
“Did you . . . want her to be your girlfriend?”
Drew gulped the third beer.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It doesn’t matter, though. She hates me now.”
Carlos raised his eyebrows.
“Do you not have eyes? Because that’s some bullshit right there. You forget, I’ve seen the two of you together. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Unless you did something terrible that I don’t know about . . .”
Drew shook his head. Yeah, maybe she had looked at him like that, but that was before.
“I’ll tell you the whole story, then you’ll see.” Apparently the answer to Carlos’s earlier question was: “Three beers.”
It took him another beer to get all the way to the text message from Monday morning. Why did it hurt so much to tell Carlos what happened?
“See? I should have ended this a long time ago, before she could hate me.”
Carlos looked at the phone for a few seconds, and then up at Drew.
“No, you shouldn’t have ended it a long time ago. What the fuck is wrong with you? You know, I always thought you were kind of an idiot, but I never knew you were this fucking stupid.”
Drew stood up and kicked the table. Ketchup flew across the floor.
“I bare my fucking soul to you, tell you how a girl left me asleep and naked in my bed, and this is what I get? Fuck you. Why don’t you spend time dealing with your own fucked-up life, instead of worrying about mine?”
Carlos looked up at him from the couch with a blank expression on his face. He didn’t budge.
Drew put his head in his hands and shook his head. What was wrong with him? Carlos didn’t deserve that.
“Sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”
Carlos nodded.
“It was. Sit down.”
Drew looked at him, looked at the mess on the floor, then at Carlos again. He sat back down on the couch.
Carlos sighed and leaned back against the couch cushions.
“Okay, look. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you this, but after what happened, I think I have to.”
Drew lunged for him.
“Did you actually hit on her? You fucking asshole, I never really thought—”
Carlos pushed him back down on the couch.
“Relax, dude, of course not. Come on, you know me better than that.”
Drew leaned back against the couch cushions and sighed.
“I do. I’m sorry. I’m a jackass. What terrible thing are you going to tell me now?”
Carlos stood up and dragged the coffee table back in place.
“It’s something Emma told me after you guys left the party. She said she was feeling kind of bad, because when she and Heather and Robin and Lucy were all in the kitchen with Alexa, they started talking about you.”
Drew slumped down and reached for a bottle, but they were all empty. Carlos went to the kitchen for more beer for both of them.
“This must be bad if you’re bringing me more beer. What did they say?”
Carlos opened both bottles and sighed.