Dylan’s thumb hovered over his phone.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The same people who had been laughing loudly enough to shake the silverware were suddenly silent.
Tessa stood beside her chair with one hand pressed against the table, the color draining from her face.
“Dylan,” she said again, quieter now.
“Don’t do this here.”
He looked at her across the table.
“You did it here.”
The words landed harder than a shout.
My uncle Reuben shifted in his chair.
My mother stared at Dylan’s phone.
Aunt Valerie stopped pretending to straighten her napkin.
I remained seated because I still didn’t understand what was happening.
Dylan had barely spoken to me all evening.
We had exchanged a polite hello when Milo and I arrived, nothing more.
Until that moment, I had assumed his silence during Tessa’s jokes was discomfort, maybe embarrassment.
Now I realized it had been restraint.
Tessa recovered enough to laugh once, but there was no humor in it.
“Oh my God.
Are you seriously going to create some huge scene because I made a joke?”
Dylan’s eyes didn’t leave hers.
“No.
The joke created the scene.”
Her father cleared his throat.
“Maybe everyone should calm down.”
Dylan ignored him.
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I should have stopped this sooner.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
Tessa folded her arms.
“This is ridiculous.”
Dylan turned his phone so the screen faced him again.
“I asked you yesterday not to do this.”
Tessa’s chin lifted.
“Do what?”
“Use her as entertainment.”
Her eyes flashed toward me.
Suddenly I felt like an intruder in an argument that had apparently started before I ever walked through the restaurant doors.
Dylan continued.
“You told me you invited her because your mother wanted everyone here.
Then you spent twenty minutes joking about what you were going to say if she actually showed up.”
Aunt Valerie slowly looked at Tessa.
My mother’s lips parted.
Tessa laughed again, but too quickly.
“I was venting to my fiancé.
People do that.”
“That isn’t all you were doing.”
He tapped the screen.
Tessa moved around her chair.
“Give me the phone.”
Dylan stepped back.
That movement changed the room.
Until then, several relatives still looked as though they expected the disagreement to dissolve into an awkward joke.
But watching Tessa actually reach for the phone made everyone understand there was something on it she desperately did not want heard.
Uncle Reuben tried to rescue her.
