Andrew and I had planned a cookout for Memorial day weekend. We planned it as safely as we could- outdoors, we have plenty of space between the backyard, the deck and the patio. We invited my husband’s family that lived nearby, our friends that were in the area, and planned to have the pool open and the traeger going first thing in the morning. All in all, we were expecting around 40 people.
One person my husband wasn’t expecting was Andre. I had met Andre last year, in a story for another time, and we had met up twice since then. After some internal back and forth about whether it was a good idea or not, I reached out to him and invited him. Our cover story, which I gave to my husband, was that he was a co-worker whose family was out of state for the holiday weekend, while he stayed behind to watch the dog and finish a project at work that had a deadline. We’d socialized with co-workers and their spouses before, so this wasn’t too much of a stretch.