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Bill pats my shoulder again and then says something to Jessie and Mac, but I don’t hear any of it over the buzzing in my ears. I’m shaking a little, and I take a deep inhale and a big gulp of my drink to banish the tears.
I will not cry in front of all these people.
I turn to Ian, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking past me, and before I can say anything, he walks over to his dad’s friends and starts to chat with them.
The tent comes back to life, Bill offering everyone food and everyone reaching for plates and filling them with chips and potato salad eagerly. Everything goes back to normal as if that moment didn’t happen.
Except for the fact that Ian isn’t talking to me. He’s talking to everyone but me, in fact, making a point to single out Mac and chat with him for a bit, and then Jessie, then going back to his dad and friends.
“Is it just me, or is Ian avoiding me?” I ask Jessie when it’s just us standing at the food table. She’s shoving her second hot dog into her mouth, while I’m dressing my second burger with mustard and ketchup and relish.
“No, I definitely noticed that he’s talking to everyone but you,” she says around a mouthful of food.
“What are we talking about?” Mac asks as he sidles up next to Jessie, piling chips onto his plate. He’s got a fresh hot dog, which he drowns in ketchup, and then he stuffs almost half of it into his mouth.
“How stupid boys are,” I say, throwing him a look of pointed disgust.
Mac just nods, chewing on his meal, his cheeks bulging like a chipmunk, lips covered in ketchup. “Is twue,” he tries to say.
Jessie shakes her head at her boyfriend. “Can’t take you anywhere,” she says as she hands him a napkin.
“Is he seriously mad at me for standing up for him?” I ask Jessie, who won’t have the answer, but I ask anyway.
She shrugs and rolls her eyes. I roll mine too and start in on my burger.
“It’s almost time for the game,” Mac says, his mouth no longer full and the half a hot dog he had left on his plate nowhere to be seen. He holds up his phone to show me the time. “While we break this down,”—he gestures to the tent and the grill—“why don’t you grab him and talk to him?”
“You’re the best,” I say. I give Jessie a finger-gun. “You’d better lock that shit down.”
She turns a tomato shade of red, and Mac nudges her with his elbow, giving her a pointed look. I scarf down my burger and scurry away before they start flirting too hard.
The Fates must be on my side, because I find Ian alone, tying off a full trash bag.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“Hey,” he says, but he doesn’t look up at me.
“Got a new bag?” I hold up my plate, pretty much scraped clean of any evidence there was ever food on it.
“Yeah, one sec.” His voice is sort of dead, like he’s tolerating this sad excuse of a conversation. He tosses the old bag toward the truck and holds open a new one for me.
After I throw my plate in, he sets the bag off to the side and starts to walk away, but I stop him, grabbing his bicep as he passes me.
“If you have a problem with me, at least have the balls to talk to me about it,” I say.
His nostrils flare and his jaw works, the muscle on the side of his face popping as he grinds his teeth. “You were superdisrespectful to my dad,” he says in a low voice. He looks around to make sure no one can hear us.
“Let’s go talk over there.” I point to the space next to us in the lot, which our tailgating neighbors have already cleared out.
Ian looks around again and then nods, and we walk just a few feet away from everyone else. Enough to give us some privacy.
Ian crosses his arms and finally looks at me. “I know my dad was fine with how you talked to him and what you said, but I wasn’t, okay? I didn’t need rescuing, and you don’t talk to someone’s parents that way. It might be okay for you to talk to your parents like that, but I would never disrespect my dad the way you just did. First of all, I’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble, and second of all, it’s just . . . not okay.”
“I’m not sorry for the way I spoke to your dad, and I’m not sorry for sticking up for you. You sat there and let him walk all over you?—”
“He wasn’t walking on me—he was just excited.”
“He was! He was planning your entire?—”
