He smiles again, and when I look down to what he’s wearing, I have to close my eyes to stifle a laugh.

“Did Steph put you up to this?” I ask.

“What?” He follows my gaze. It’s subtle, but with the hair, green eyes, and glasses I can tell where he was going with the white shirt and loose tie beneath a gray zip-up jacket. Harry Potter. The lightning-bolt scar drawn on his forehead helps; that probably should have immediately tipped me off.

His brows furrow. “Oh my God.” He takes in my robe, the tie, the wand, the wild dark hair I teased to within an inch of its life while I sat in traffic. “Are you kidding me? The only two single people at this party and we match?”

I can’t stifle the laugh this time, and it tears from me, surprising him as it does everyone who has ever heard it. I am small but my laugh is mighty.

He stares at me with a slow-growing, amused grin. “Wow.”

“Hi.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Evie.”

“Is that short for Evil?” He pretends to be scared as he tentatively returns the handshake. “Are you sure you’re Gryffindor? Your laugh makes me think you have a secret lab and are building an apocalyptic robot dog that’s going to eat every smug person here. Slytherin for sure.”

“It’s short for Evelyn. The cackle is my gift. It keeps the delicate ones away.”

“I’m Carter.” He points two thumbs at his chest. “Not delicate, I promise.”

Is he . . . flirting? I consider the rolling tumbleweeds of my dating life and marvel that I can’t even tell anymore.

Carter is sort of dorky, despite being hot. The glasses look real, dark and thick-framed. He’s taller than me, but not too tall—which is a bonus in my book—with eyes that are a startling green, hair deep brown and thick . . .

I blink out of my inspection and back down to his face, realizing how long I’ve been staring at the top of his head. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” He points to his own costume again and smiles. “This was about the best I could do on half-assed motivation and an uninspired closet.” He looks me over again. “You’re an amazing Hermione, though. Harry and Hermione. Perfect. I ship it.”

My stomach does another little tumble. “My friend Daryl was supposed to come along as my Ron, but she had to bail at the last minute. She’s dead to me.”

Carter’s laugh comes out as a loud, surprised guffaw before he pops the tab on a can and takes a long, slow drink.

Honestly, I’m trying to stay cool and not look too closely at him, but failing.

Living in LA, and especially working in Hollywood, I meet beautiful people every day, even dated a few. But in a town full of pretty faces, I’ve become immune to the predictability of them, the symmetry. Carter is pretty in a distinctive way: His eyes are big, and lined with the darkest, thickest lashes. His jaw is sharp. With the thick frames of his glasses, his is an oblivious type of beauty. He needs a haircut. When he smiles, I see that his teeth are white but not perfectly straight. It makes him seem immediately friendly. And his imperfections are surprising in a sea of Invisalign, Botox, and self-tanners. He looks . . . real.

Now, before you think I’m putting too much thought into this, let me remind you that I am no longer in my twenties, and when you meet men at my age you immediately place them on one of three lists, just to make life easier for everyone: datable, not datable, or gay. Datable basically means you wear your bra when they’re around, and you don’t talk about bodily functions or pimples. Not datable or gay: anything goes.

“You’re ahead of me there. I never even had a plus one,” he says. “I was threatened into coming by our illustrious hosts. How do you know them?”

“I used to work with Steph at Alterman.”

Something passes over Carter’s face—a flicker of recognition, maybe?—but before I can question it, Steph walks out juggling an armful of plates. Carter and I both struggle to make room for them amid the Red Bull.

“What’s up with the bar selection?” I ask her, gesturing to the table. “Are you expecting frat boys later?”

“Oh my God, can you imagine?” Her question comes out breathy—nearly orgasmic—and I stare blankly at her. “Everything else is over there.” She lifts her chin, gesturing to another table in the living room that I now see is covered with wine, beer, and all the usual spirits.

I slump my shoulders in mock defeat. “But that’s in married territory.”

“We don’t have tickets to that side of the room,” Carter adds.

Steph looks like she’s about to roll her eyes at us but then freezes, and her mouth drops open. “You guys match.”

Carter and I exchange a knowing look. “We talked earlier,” he says. “Made sure to coordinate it for maximum awkward.”

She slaps his arm. “Shut up! Mikey and I knew the two of you would really hit it off. Did you know that we’re all in talent management? I mean, guys. The two of you are like a match made in heaven, right?”

Just before she heads back in the direction of the kitchen, Steph scrunches her nose at us as if we are a cute set of porcelain figures on a shelf and she’s tilted us just so toward each other.

When Carter turns to me, we stare at each other for a wordless, stunned beat.

“Those assholes set us up,” he whispers.

“It appears so.” I glare back in Steph’s direction. “Don’t they know that sort of thing never works?”

“It’s like that movie with Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl where they have that disastrous date.” He pauses with his can partway to his lips. “Or wait . . . am I remembering that wrong?”

A sensation like Pop Rocks goes off in my chest—I know which movie he’s talking about. “You mean Knocked Up?” He nods, and I roll on: “It’s not a date, actually. They meet at a club after she—Katherine Heigl—gets a promotion. She meets Seth Rogen at an actual club here in LA called Plan B, and they get drunk and have unprotected sex. She realizes she’s pregnant eight weeks later and then they have the awkward date where she tells him.”

When I finally come up for air, I see him watching me, eyebrows raised over the top of his Red Bull. “That was an impressive summary for a movie that came out over ten years ago.”