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.