7. Quinn

CHAPTER 7

"You have a busy schedule," Quinn said from Weston's bed as Weston set up for his stream. It was Sunday, and Sunday streams weren't for video games. Quinn loved Sunday streams. Weston could give him a lot of attention in chat.

"No rest for the wicked. Streaming demands consistency. If you're not on a lot, no one is going to watch you when you are on." He shrugged as he messed with his lighting setup. He had the barest trace of eyeliner on that made his green eyes pop.

They had already made breakfast and showered, which turned into round two of shower handjobs. Quinn had enjoyed that very much, and now he was back in Weston's bed. He had Weston's stuffed bat in his arms, and he could see the appeal. It was cuddly.

When Weston's gaze landed on him, he sighed. "You are quite the sight."

Quinn opened his eyes wide and tried to look overly adorable. Weston pulled his phone out to take a picture of him. He was fully clothed, and the bed was made.

"Can I post this as the ‘we're about to go live, come join us' post?" Weston asked. Quinn was already opening his phone up so he could save the photo when Weston posted it.

"By all means."

"Alright, we're almost set. You're sure you just want black nails? I have a million colors."

Quinn settled in at Weston's desk. "I like the colors on you, but I've never painted my nails before. I think I need to ease in."

Being on stream was nerve-racking. He had Weston's old headset on his head as they both watched chat comments pouring in. There seemed to be more viewers than usual, and Quinn wasn't sure why. Did people tell their friends? There were a lot of questions from unfamiliar names, but there were also a lot of gift subscriptions and coins flying around.

Weston made a living off this. If he could help him rake in a little more cash, that would be amazing.

"We went to the falls, and Quinn was convinced someone was going to push him in or something."

"It's a reasonable fear! If you look at a feat of nature like that and don't fear it, that is how it will eventually kill you."

"Q is an indoor kid," Weston said, reaching a hand out to grab Quinn's and twine their fingers together. Their hands were under the table, but the viewers could tell.

Lee hated PDA. Sometimes Quinn had thought Lee wanted people to think they were just two straight guys hanging out whenever they'd done something in public together. Quinn didn't care that this wasn't a real relationship. That this was just…a hookup? Friends with benefits? Weston wasn't afraid to be perceived as queer. It was attractive.

"What are we up to today? Well, we'll start by painting this man's nails," Weston said, holding their entwined hands up to show off Q's bare nails, "and then take it from there. Maybe we'll take requests—PG requests. God, I gotta update my filters. Mods, thank you so much for being lovely. All the rest of you freaks, don't make it hard on them."

Weston had one camera pointed at the two of them, and one at his desk to catch the painting in action. He picture-in-pictured them to the corner of the screen.

Quinn had watched Weston paint his nails a dozen times by now, and he knew there were a lot of steps. And all those steps involved Weston touching his hands, adjusting his finger placement, holding him still. He made eye contact as he blew on Quinn's layer of base coat. Quinn was moments from ending the stream and dragging Weston the three feet back to bed.

"You're good at this," Quinn complimented. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on the stream as Weston applied the first coat of color to his nails, but he wanted to keep his focus on Weston. Quinn would be back on chat with Weston's freaks in less than twenty-four hours. He wasn't sure when he would see Weston again.

"Practice makes kind of okay," Weston said. "Alright, do not move your hands for any reason."

His fingers were tipped in black paint, and Weston had been careful not to get any on the skin around his nails.

While they waited for the polish to be dry enough for the next coat, Weston pulled his phone out to start making a list of stream ideas from chat for the next time Weston and Quinn streamed together. Every once in a while, Weston did a stream to raise money for charity, and he'd asked Quinn to be a part of his next one. They got a ton of ideas—ASMR, different two-player games, more cooking (maybe baking?), personality quizzes. He liked that Weston was talking about next time, even though this weekend had been a random plan.

Quinn couldn't do this himself. He was having fun with Weston, but if Weston wasn't here, what would he be doing? Leaving long gaps of silence while two people on the internet watched him play Fixer Upper poorly? He didn't have half of the easy charisma that Weston had, which was why Weston had the viewership that he had.

When Weston put the final topcoat on Quinn's manicure, he showed it off to chat. "It looks so good," Quinn said, looking at his hands like they were two little strangers. The nail polish changed a lot. But Quinn had changed a lot in the last year too. Maybe it was a good thing.

"I agree with Meganace," Quinn said, eyes scanning the chat. "You should do a collab nail polish with someone."

"Yeah, well, if any nail polish brand wants to reach out, you can find my business email in my bio link."

"What color would your nail polish collab be?"

"Acid green maybe. Or the color of a Lake Superior whitecap."

"My little sister would be into the acid green. Green hearts in chat for Weston's new polish collab."

"The polish color that doesn't exist," Weston reminded. The chat was filled with green. It was powerful to be at the helm of a game of Simon Says.

Weston took Quinn's hand back when his nails were touch-dry, and suddenly nearly two hours of the stream had disappeared. It was easy to chat with Weston and hang out with people he thought of as friends.

Back home, he had a gnarled relationship with his best friend he needed to heal, and a brother whose face he'd bruised to continue to grovel to. But here, he was just GoodQ, a person who sent a streamer enough flirty comments to make his way onto his channel. What he had with Weston was new and simple, and he liked that they didn't have history between them. It was refreshing. A clean slate.

The stream slipped through his fingers. He was supposed to go home after they wrapped up. He'd get home late, but they would both wake up Monday morning in their own beds.

"Yeah, Q, when will you be back on stream next?" Weston asked, using a chat comment to ask a real question.

"Soon, I hope." In the meantime, he had a cactus to water.

"Alright, we love you, freaks. See you tomorrow," Weston said, playing his outro music and then ending the stream.

Weston slumped back in his chair with a heavy sigh and pulled his devil horn headset off, tossing it onto his desk. Quinn followed suit with his borrowed headset.

"That was nonstop talking, whew."

"Are you normally more energized after these?"

"No, not at all. They take it out of me. But I do need the whole weekend to rest my hands and wrists. Can't be sixteen forever."

Quinn thought the moment had come for him to stand up and get ready to leave, but in the split second before he made that decision, Weston grabbed his wrist and pulled him in for a kiss.

"I've been wanting to do that all stream," Weston admitted.

"Same."

"We could do…more than that," Weston suggested. It would make Quinn get home even later, but the trade-off sounded more than fair. And after they got more acquainted with each other's bodies, Weston asked him to stay the night. Drive home in the morning. It was already so late and dark, Quinn wasn't about to argue. He fell asleep with Weston in his arms, the stuffed bat in Weston's arms, warm and snuggled. He was exhausted. This was a good choice. He was too tired to drive.

The only thing that got Quinn to leave Weston's apartment was the prep Weston had to do for stream that day. He was behind on several admin-y tasks, and Quinn already figured he'd overstayed his welcome. Weston walked him out to his car, and they kissed like they meant something to each other before Quinn pulled away and headed south.

For the first time, heading back to the Twin Cities was heading back to nothing. He had a house he was neglecting, relationships he was neglecting, a rapidly diminishing supply of antidepressants, and a cactus that was almost certainly dead, but he didn't know enough about cacti to call it and just throw it out.

Duluth had someone he could talk to. Someone he could hold.

The drive felt longer coming home than it had going up on Thursday, and by the time he parked in the underground parking for his parents' condo, he was exhausted.

The week after he came back from Duluth was lonely. He didn't have his regular nine-to-five to take up a chunk of his time, and while he had some freelance work to take care of, it wasn't sustainable.

He still needed something to do with his hands. He was fidgety, which is what led him to drawing in the first place. While he hung out with Weston and the rest of the viewers on chat for hours a day (which was completely healthy, obviously), he sketched. He planned. He came up with color pallets and researched what kinds of assets streamers needed.

He wouldn't tell Weston he was redesigning his branding until he saw him next. When they texted or video-chatted, they always talked about "next time." He knew he wasn't stepping on toes because Weston had mentioned that he didn't love his channel's look but didn't have enough of a direction to drop the cash on hiring someone else to do it for him.

Giving someone this much labor for free wasn't a casual offering. What he was working on, if it was for anyone else, would be a nice paycheck. But for the first time in months—maybe in a year—he was making something that was exciting to him. And hopefully Weston would like it. That was all he needed.

When he got sad, he would go through Lee's Instagram, which was completely wiped of photos of Quinn, who used to be the star of that particular show. Now, a new man was the subject of most of the photos. The man Quinn spent so many years of his life with looked like a stranger to him now. Like all those years had happened to someone else.

He took a deep breath and blocked him. He could tell himself he'd moved on until he was blue in the face, but nothing was real until social media was blocked. The relief was small, but it was there.

Looking at Hunter's Instagram, Quinn thankfully didn't feel the finality that came with divorce. Hunter had soft launched him and Jonathan a week or two prior, in a photo of Hunter sitting on Jonathan's lap on the back deck. The photo was taken from behind—probably by Syd—so you couldn't see Jonathan's face. You could see that Hunter was laughing. They were honestly cute together, now that Quinn had some distance from the sting of the two of them dating behind his back.

He missed his best friend. He'd given Hunter plenty of space since their fight, and Quinn was ready to try moving on. Hopefully Hunter felt the same. Either way, it was time to go home.