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Colby might have exaggerated when he first announced the barbecue. I’d barely been at work for an hour that day when Tyler flooded the group chat (meaning he texted more than 3 words) letting us know that it would be a potluck instead. He’d handle the burgers and buns but we’d have to bring everything else if we wanted any party to happen.
I liked to imagine that when he told his mother about his plans to host a barbecue, she reminded him that she would not be paying for it. Then, he quickly realized that food for 12 people was more than his jobless high schooler income could handle.
James was a sweetheart and offered to drive me to Tyler’s. So, like a suburban gay stereotype, we knocked on the front door holding a casserole and drinks. To be clear, the casserole was James, not me.
“Hellooo,” Tyler’s older sister drawled, swinging open the door both lazily and dramatically. “Welcome to Tyler’s party. It’s good to see you again, Elliot.”
She insisted on calling me Elliot because, in her words, we weren’t close enough to use nicknames.
“It’s good to see you too. You’re sticking around for the party?”
“No!” she laughed, flicking long straight hair over her shoulder. “I’m just chaperoning so my parents don’t stick around to breathe down Tyler’s neck.”
Her laughter quieted quickly when her eyes fell on James. Then, she smoothly stretched out her hand.
“Hey, I’m Tori . . . “
She trailed off, staring at James pointedly. Technically her face didn’t make her look any older than us. Her skin was a cool dark brown and her sharp brows and ombre lip were worn by half the black girls at school. But her energy alone screamed maturity. I’d bet a thousand bucks James could feel that she was Tyler’s older sister. So, the subconscious urge to gain the cool older sibling’s acceptance would have been hitting him like a ton of bricks.
“Sorry, I’m James,” he shot out his hand, almost dropping the casserole. “Nice to meet you.”
After pointing out his British accent in the coolest, most casual way possible, Tori turned around, announcing for the house that she’d be ‘in her room.’
The front door led directly into the kitchen where Tyler intently fussed over the placement of the paper plate stack and container of plastic utensils. Instead of saying hi to either of us, he looked down at James’s glass dish with a smile.
“Cool, casserole,” he sighed, plucking the tray out of James’s hands. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“I can’t. My mum helped me make this stew last night when I realized I didn’t have anything to bring.”
It was a miracle I didn’t comment on how insanely British that whole sentence was. We were the first to arrive though so when Tyler shooed us away to get comfortable, we plopped onto his couch and started talking about other things. Non-British things actually. Like the sun that was barely peeking past the clouds today for the first time in weeks. And the pointed lack of cohesive decor in Tyler’s living room which somehow made it that much cozier.
Colby showed up next, carrying parmesan crusted chicken and raising the volume in the house by 30%. Then came Rin and Stephanie and finally her friends (those girls either carpooled together or timed their entry into the house and both possibilities seem entirely possible). Several conversations were going on at once and oftentimes that meant James and I were talking about completely different things. But I stayed glued to his side.
A part of it was the fact that we were surrounded by my friends. Leaving James to fend for himself would have been an act of cruelty. The cardinal sin of partying. But also, as the food got served and people’s spots around the house shifted, it became more and more obvious that attention was on us.
We were the new couple.
The gay couple.
There’s a chance my paranoia was overdramatizing the whole thing but there’s no other way to put it. Proving the legitimacy of my relationship was starting to feel important. So we stayed thigh to thigh, the party carried on, and I didn’t think about how anytime I held James’s hand, Rin could see it.
At some point in the afternoon, Tori just materialized in the kitchen, silently piling food onto her plate. The next thing I knew, she was sitting with Khue, laughing over forkfuls of casserole. Or stew I mean. Where James and I failed in impressing the older sibling, Khue succeeded.
The backyard screen door swooshed when Tyler opened it and he automatically looked to where his sister was eating across the room.
“Tori, can you watch the burgers while I come inside for a bit?”
As the grill master, Tyler had been stepping in and out a lot. Most of the time people followed him outside to continue conversations or Colby followed him to talk his ear off but his last stretch out in the cold had been alone. I didn’t know exactly what he wanted to “come inside” for but I assumed it had to do with soaking in the socialization.
“No. Absolutely not,” she crossed her arms, a killer stare setting into place. “You’re the one who decided to have a grown-up party on your own. You handle it.”
“You can’t just watch the burgers for one second?”
“Then be forced to cook for you and your little friends for the next hour? Absolutely not.”
Half of the room was cringing just having to listen to a guy who usually seemed mature and in control get shut down so swiftly. My first thought was that refusing to help was a tad dramatic of Tori. Then I imagined Tyler “forgetting” about the burgers so Tori was left to deal with them while he entertained. If Tyler was even half as “forgetful” as my dad, that was a real possibility.
Tori’s eyes scanned the room, eventually falling on me where I sipped absently on a soda can.
“Elliot, you’re a helpful guy,” she smiled, perfectly straight white teeth gleaming. “Do you want to help Tyler with the cooking?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t even have the chance to say no. Her cool older sibling powers were too strong. The excuse of keeping James company didn’t work when he and Mickie looked like two peas in a pod. I’m not sure how they started talking about rock music but when I begrudgingly peeled off the couch, they were exchanging song recommendations.
Tyler thanked me with a pat on the back on my way out. And a second later, I stood outside, staring at the closed barbecue. Tyler had positioned it so he could see directly into the living room but even with the glass, I couldn’t hear a thing. I could see their mouths moving and hear a vague buzz of happy noises but nothing to keep me up to date with any conversations.
I completely understood why Tyler wanted to not be here.
Like I thought, there wasn’t anything pressing for him to do inside. He grabbed another burger from the tray and munched energetically while Colby yapped about something, but he could have done all of that next to the barbecue.
Tori was a genius for saying no.
I’d been ignoring my phone since we got here because I wanted to stay present but now the slim black rectangle called to me like a siren. I’d barely turned it on when the screen door slid open again and Rin walked through.
“Shit, it’s cold out here,” he cursed, tugging his measly zip up tighter around his body.
“So why are you out here?” I asked. “You should be inside with all the cool people.”
“I am with all the cool people,” he said immediately. “How could it be cool in there without my best friend?”
He let those words hang in the air, his smile just gentle enough to let me know he was being serious. So I turned away from him, hiding my face behind my hands.
My feeble attempt to avoid embarrassment backfired. Rin laughed, forcibly pulling my hands off my face to reveal a horrible blush. I thought he’d be done when he exposed my face but he kept his hands locked around my wrists, drawing me in just a bit closer with the hold.
“You blush so easily,” he muttered, eyes slowly tracing my face. “It’s cute.”
Of course he pulled this shit now when I had burning meat to look after and both of our partners watching us with the see-through doors.
“Shut up.”
Laughing when I said that made it sound normal, I think. I hoped laughing reduced some of the sting when I pushed against his chest, anxious to regain some much needed distance. Because nothing about what he just did felt normal but normal is what the two of us desperately needed.
Luckily for me, we were standing next to a freaking barbecue. Whether I liked it or not, I was in charge of getting this stuff cooked for the foreseeable future. Why not use it as a distraction from the mind numbing guy next to me?
So that’s what I did. It was good timing for Rin to pull the worst prank because the bottom of the patties had been pretty close to burning. As slowly as I could, I flipped each and every one, stalling long enough for my overactive gay heart to calm the fuck down.
Rin leaned against the side of the house by that point, his shoulder pressed against the brick.
“Did you try some of Colby’s parmesan chicken?” He asked after a beat of silence.
“With the recipe he got off of pinterest?” I clarified, getting a quick snort out of Rin. “Yeah.”
“You told him it tasted good?”
“Yup.”
“You thought it needed more salt?”
“Absolutely!”
“Me too!” Rin pushed off the wall, eyes wide with excitement. “I thought I was the only one because everyone else was going back for seconds.”
“Same! I wasn’t sure if I was crazy and just needed to stop sprinting towards high blood pressure but yeah, that shit needed seasoning.”
James was fun to hang around and easy to talk to, but there were some things I never talked to him about. I didn’t let him see how judgmental I could be about the food people made or the hairstyles strangers wore. I didn’t talk about nose zits that drove me crazy or ask him if he noticed them. I definitely didn’t make dumb jokes about barbecues looking like old men talking if you swung the lid open and close.
But I didn’t think twice before doing any of that with Rin. I trusted him to think of me as a decent human being after he saw all of my gross skin things and childish jokes.
I’m not sure how long it was until the entire party poured out of the house, laughing and giggling about football. What I did know is by that point, the last of the burgers were cooked and took up two trays. I’d also resorted to warming my hands with the grill so my fingertips didn’t freeze and fall off.
James ran up behind me, flinging his arms over my shoulders and across my chest.
“Tyler wanted to play some football,” he explained, nuzzling his cheek against mine.
“But it’s freezing out here!”
“Well you’ve been out here forever,” James retorted with a chuckle. I don’t think he was accusing me of anything but my eyes darted over to Rin anyway. A guy who was pointedly looking away from my boyfriend and I.
Did us staying outside for so long seem weird? We hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Come on, guys. It’ll be fun,” Stephanie said as she tucked herself into Rin’s side. “We can’t even get that cold if we’re running around!”
Any last reservation in my mind left when I saw Rin follow her with a twinkle in his eyes. Call it jealousy or immature coping mechanisms–I don’t care. If Rin was going to frolic across the grass, then I would too!
“Alright, here are the rules!” Colby announced. The scratched up and slightly deflated football in his hand was far from new. But with how the people around me buzzed with pent up energy, I doubt anyone cared. “Your team has to get this ball to the other side. If you hit the ground with the ball in your hands, the other team gets possession. Got it?”
Colby split us right down the middle and the most chaotic game of ‘football’ ensued.
I never stopped running even though I rarely knew where the ball was. There was laughter, a lot of cursing, and Tyler’s constant yells of ‘foul!’ It was the dumbest thing I’ve done in a while. Which is why it was also ridiculously fun.
Even Tori seemed to relax as she moved easily across the field. Most of the time she treated it like the backyard barbecue game it was. But if Tyler was anywhere nearby, she sped up, meaning Tyler defending her was terrible for our team and great for hers.
Rin and I were on opposite teams too. While everyone ran around with the vague hope of earning points, we could also just mess around with the excuse of helping the team.
One by one people dropped out of the game, getting too cold or too tired or just hungry enough to eat more food.
The result was that more and more, the ball ended up in my hands. I think we were down to three people on each team when Rin tackled me for the first time. It didn’t hurt because we made contact at 0.2 miles per hour. I gave up halfway through the tackle and we started laughing before we hit the ground.
Rin rolled us over as we went down, taking the brunt force of the fall. And right before he stood up to take the ball for his team, he squeezed my arms just a bit.
So when I tackled him next, I gave him a wink.
Then he tackled me and managed to squeeze my ass.
It was a joke, this playful exchange. I knew it was. But rolling around on that field with him was a moment I couldn’t give up.
I think that’s why we were the last two running back and forth across Tyler’s backyard. Colby had taken the burgers we cooked inside and anyone who still wanted to know which team would win watched with their hands hanging over the barbecue.
Khue, for example, was the first to drop out of the game but if I managed to make this next touchdown, she and everyone else on my team would technically be the winners. I think that’s why she cheered so loudly from the porch and refused to go back inside.
“You got this Elly!”
Her words of encouragement rang in my ears when Rin kicked the ball to me to start the last round. My lungs burned and the fingertips hugging the ball under my armpit stung red. Rin darted toward me with renewed speed and my odds of getting past him plummeted.
I thought we were both getting tired but suddenly he’s coming at me like a player fresh off the bench?
I tried to juke him out, switching my directions suddenly enough to get him off my back. But I had, like, 0 practice with it and just tripped on my own two feet. Rin’s arms swung out, pulling me down in time for it to look like I didn’t make myself fall.
We hit the ground hard that time and rolled three times before finally coming to a stop.
“You okay?”
“Yup. Fine,” I bit out from under him, eyes clenched shut. “The only thing I bruised was my ego.”
“Your ego’s fine. Everyone knew I was going to beat you anyway.”
I should have screamed at him. Or given him a purple-nurple like any mature adult would. Instead I just stared at him like an idiot. Because his dark hair was damp and sticking around his temples. And his lips were dry from staying out in the cold with me for so long. And his eyes hadn’t left mine even after our laughter stopped.
“We won!”
Stephanie’s cheers prompted Rin to stand up, peeling his body off of mine. How long had we laid there, touching like that? With our legs tangled up and chests pressed together? James stood inside the house and when I stepped through the doors, he tried to cheer me up.
“You put up a good fight. I mean, you pinned him down a million times.”
James moved in, ready for a hug, but I jerked out of the way.
“Sorry, I’m just gross right now. I need a shower,” I chuckled. For dramatic effect, I started rubbing lingering dirt off my arm and James kept his distance.
It was the best truth I could give him. It would be hard to explain that I couldn’t touch him when I still felt Rin on my skin. Even harder to admit that touching him felt horrible when I just wanted to run back outside and roll around with Rin some more.
I shouldn’t have done it but I still looked out the backyard doors, searching for Rin. I found him standing in front of Stephanie. I guess she was thanking him for getting their team the win. Moments before she grabbed his face and pulled his head down for a kiss, our eyes met. He didn’t look at her when she talked; his eyes were stuck on me. And those eyes stayed locked with mine when their lips connected.
James took my hand, pulling me into the kitchen where the hot drinks were kept, but that image refused to leave my mind.
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Translating my chapter ideas into full chapters is always a journey. Most of the time they never turn out how I imagine them to but hopefully, the vibes are still there.
Thoughts on the innocent games between Elly and James. I really hope you guys are picking up what I’m putting down but I can’t know for sure without getting your comments so . . .
Anywho,
Please check out my socials!
Please, vote, comment, share, follow, anything else you can do with this book and I’ll see you next week! Bye!
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