LGBTQIA+ Oneshots

Barbecue

Robert Hunter x Carlos Garcia
Chris Carter Books
Bisexual, Polyamory

Word count: 1887

Robert was late. Carlos and Anna had invited him to a barbecue again. He was used to it by now. Even if he wasn't there for a barbecue, he was there for dinner often.

Robert pressed the little button on the door bell.

Just a few seconds later, a woman about Anna's age answered the door. Her general skin tone reminded Robert more of Carlos, though. Kind of his type...

"Hi." she said and smiled at him brightly. "Hello." he said, not quite in the mood to talk. Somehow, the Garcias always managed to have new people at their barbecues. Every time Robert had gotten used to their friend group, they managed to add a little bit of spice and find a new friend Robert did not know yet.

"You must be Robert. Saw you on a picture in the living room." Robert raised an eyebrow: "I am Robert but I'm pretty sure I'm not on any pictures here." "You are. Some work thing. What's Carlos doing again? Traffic cop?" Robert felt his eye twitch. "He's a detective. A fucking good one, I might add. Ultra Violent Crimes Unit of the LAPD. Not an easy job to get." She laughed and threw her hair over her shoulder.

Robert was still standing awkwardly on the door step. "Can I come in?" he asked. "Oh, yeah. Come on. Carlos is in the garden grilling and Anna is getting him a drink or something." Robert just nodded. He entered the hallway, hanging up his jacket. He didn't need it, anyway.

He walked towards the garden, going into the kitchen on the way to grab himself a beer but he did not meet Anna there. She was probably outside with everyone else.

"I'm Lara, by the way." the woman finally introduced herself. "Nice to meet you. I'm Carlos' partner." "You mean co-worker?" she asked, grabbing herself a class of something that looked like it was made out of melted gummy bears and Robert did not want to know what Anna had tried to mix this time. Sometimes, she liked to get experimental and made some very interesting drinks.

"Well, yeah. We're colleagues but if you are a detective it's called having a partner. What do you do?" He tried his best to be friendly and get himself together. It wasn't her fault that he was in a grumpy mood.

"I'm a pre-school teacher. I always loved being around kids but I would never want my own. I need to many breaks from them to be a good mom." she laughed and Robert grinned. He understood her. Not quite the liking being around children part, more the needing breaks from kids part.

"I get that. Children can be a lot." he said, walking outside with her. "How do you know Carlos and Anna?" he then added, trying to keep them from getting stuck with their conversation while he was looking around for Carlos and Anna. He saw Anna at the table, topping someone's drink up and Carlos at the barbecue with another man and a woman, talking. Not wanting to interrupt any of them, he just sat down, deciding to say hi in a few minutes. Lara sat down next to him and crossed her legs, scooting a bit closer. She brushed her hair behind her ear and smiled at him. "I met Carlos in college. We'd been flirting for a while but it didn't quite work out. But we stayed friends. And then I met Anna and it made a lot of sense that it wasn't working out. I think, I just flirted with him and he didn't flirt with me."

Robert definitely needed to ask Carlos if people here knew about them being poly or not. He did not want to out them but he also didn't want to seem dumb. But he was pretty sure that Carlos was in fact flirting with Lara back then. He knew that Anna and Carlos had opened their relationship pretty much as soon as they started college.

"Oh god, you're single, right?" "Depends. Are you flirting?" Robert grinned back at her. "Possibly." she smiled and brushed her long brown hair back. Her make-up glittered in the sun and Robert noticed that the blush on her cheeks was not blended evenly. He said nothing about it, though.