Pride

"This is a disaster," Colt said.

Ash didn't say anything, which was worse, in its own way.

Their party—their party, the first one ever, as far as Colt knew, for Wahredua High students, hosted in the school gym—was supposed to start in an hour. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that it looked—

"It looks like my grandma's funeral," Ash said.

Colt opened his mouth to try to deny it.

"With more penises," Ash added.

"Bro!"

"Bruh, your dad gave us a lot of dicks."

"They're not dicks! They're balloons!" Although, now that Ash said it, Colt could see how the putty-colored balloons (which Pops had gotten on clearance) actually did look like dicks. And Ash was right: there were a lot of them.

It wasn't just the balloons, though. It was, well, everything. A few black-and-white streamers drooped at the corners of the gym. The snack tables looked bare under transparent disposable tablecloths, and that didn't even address the fact that the snacks were single-serving packs of granola. A mix-up meant that no one from the school's support staff had shown up to give them access to the sound system. Even the special shirts Colt had gotten for him and Ash were…not what he'd imagined. He'd liked the idea of something simple, white tees with a black design. He hadn't expected the design he'd labored over for two weeks to be impossible to read because it had been printed the size of a quarter. As despair threatened to overwhelm him, Colt struggled to figure out how this could have happened because he'd been so careful, planned everything to the tiniest detail, even asked Pops to help—

"Because if I want a sausage on a stick, I'm going to ask for a goddamn sausage on a stick."

The voice came from the hall, and it was rough and bristly and pleasantly masculine. Colt couldn't help himself; he stood a little straighter.

Next to him, Ash tried—and failed—to stifle a groan.

"I like that you're expressing your wants and needs," said another voice. "Communication is one of my top ten turn-ons. It might even be my number one. No, wait, my number one is emotional honesty. Or is it back sweat? Either way, a high-risk sexual activity like, um, ‘sausage on a stick' isn't something we usually talk about with the waitress at the Waffle House—"

The crash of lockers, and subsequent giggling, put an end to that line of conversation, and a moment later, North and Shaw appeared in the doorway (they had told Colt he could call them by their first names, even though Pops said he should say Mr. McKinney and Mr. Aldrich). North looked the way he usually did—his short blond hair mussed, he was wearing a T-shirt for Columbia Records and well-worn jeans. Shaw wore a linen jumpsuit that made Colt look rapidly away (and then sneak a second look). Ash blushed, hard, and actually scrunched down inside his tee.

"What the fuck is this, a funeral?" North said, staring around the gym. When his eyes landed on Colt, a hint of a flush climbed his cheeks. "I mean—oh. There you are."

"Hi, Colt! Hi, Ash! Ash! Ashley! Ash-ley!" Shaw was practically dancing as he waved with one hand. His other arm was looped around a box of—

Colt groaned.

"Are those condoms?" Ash asked.

"Your dads asked us to drop them off!" Shaw said. "Well, mostly Emery. And I helped!"

"You didn't help," North said. "You asked Emery how many gimps were going to be at the pride party, and before he could answer, you told that story about the twink in the stockade, and that was raunchy even for me." North's gaze slid back to Colt, and his color rose even higher. "Uh—"

"I thought your party started in an hour," Shaw said. "When are you going to take all this straight people stuff down and start setting up?"

In the silence, the hiss of the gym's HVAC system sounded enormous.

"Shaw," North said with what had to be the most awkwardness Colt had ever heard from an adult (barring Pops).

For a moment, Shaw's expression went blank. And then he said, "Oh!"

Colt started to say something—what, he wasn't sure—and then he had to fight for control as tears stung his eyes. Ash made a miserable sound and squeezed his shoulder.

"Oh," Shaw said again, his tone brightening. "Oh no! Colt, it's okay! It's great! We'll just tweak a few things, and it'll be perfect!"

"Famous last words," North said. "He said that about my nipples once."

Shaw looked at him.

Colt looked at him.

Ash tried not to look at him.

"God fucking damn it," North said. "Can't you turn eighteen already?" Before Colt could respond, North said, "Shaw, go get your Mary Poppins trunk of bullshit or whatever you call it. You with the pretty hair, help me throw away this granola."

Ash loved that, of course. So much so, in fact, that Colt wondered if maybe he needed to kiss Ash or something, just to remind him how things worked around here.

But there wasn't time for any of that because faster than Colt could believe, Shaw was back, carrying a plastic tote stuffed to the brim with what appeared to be feathers.

"It's mostly boas on top," Shaw said as if that made any sense, "as a decoy. And it's not a Mary Poppins trunk because that's copyrighted. And I was going to call it the Wonderarium, but then North said that might be copyrighted too. So, now it's just my fun tote."

"Full of bullshit," North said as he popped a wiener balloon.

"Ignore him," Shaw said. "Let's see what we've got."

It turned out to be more than Colt had expected. Much more. First came the decorations—streamers, balloons, tablecloths, even a brightly colored banner, all of them in rainbow colors. Even better, nothing looked like a putty-colored penis.

"Now, I can't keep food in here because North has this hilarious idea about—what do you call it, North?"

"Bacteria," North said sourly, phone pressed to his ear. "And I'm taking care of the snacks."

"No cheese!" Shaw put in quickly.

North just scowled at him and turned his attention to Ash, who was running across the gym to hang one of the streamers. "Pretty hair," he bellowed, "let's see some fucking hustle!"

Ash grinned and ran faster.

Colt was starting to wonder if this, maybe, was the other side of the coin—and if maybe Ash felt something like this, sometimes, when Colt wanted to talk to North about cars.

"Now just pop off that tee—" Shaw said, already reaching for Colt's shirt.

"Um," Colt said, "I don't know—"

"Pop it the fuck off," North shouted, turning the phone away from his mouth. "You look like a virgin who died inside a Banana Republic."

That cracked Ash up.

"We're just going to fix it," Shaw assured him, "and then you can put it back on. How do you feel about crop tops?"

Colt wasn't sure how to put into words that he mostly felt like screaming.

"Crop tops would be fire," Ash said, grinning as he wrestled with a tablecloth. "Do mine next!"

Which was how Colt ended up bare chested, watching as Shaw cropped his tee with pinking shears. Then Shaw handed him a Magic Marker and said, "It could use something a little more, um, fun, right?"

"I don't know what to write," Colt said.

"Bruh," Ash called from the tables, half-wrapped in another tablecloth. "I swear this thing is attacking me."

Which was how Colt's shirt ended up with brUH on it. Ash's, of course, said, brO. And it was distracting, to say the least, to see Ash's expanse of tanned midriff, the hint of his abs, the dark hair below his navel.

"And now a touch of fairy dust," Shaw said with a lopsided grin, holding up a tube of glitter gel.

Colt was about to decline when Ash elbowed past him and said, "Me first. Get my eyes, Mr. Aldrich. Oh, Colt, then you can put some on my chest."

Well, maybe it wasn't a terrible idea.

The first people started to arrive as North barged into the gym carrying a stack of bakery boxes.

"Tinkerbell," he shouted, "a little help." When Colt started to rise, North gave a snort. "Not you."

Ash even had a little glitter on his ears, and Colt had a hard time wrapping his head around how cute that was.

North joined Shaw and Colt on the side of the gym as Ash unpacked cupcakes (rainbow frosting, of course).

"You guys," Colt said. And then he stopped, his throat tight. "I don't even know what to say."

"Happy to help," Shaw said with a smile.

North put his hand on Colt's nape and squeezed once. "This, little bro, is what we call found family, and it's the fucking shit."

"It's what we do for each other," Shaw said. "One day, you'll get to do it for someone too."

Colt nodded. And he was surprised to find himself smiling by the time Ash joined them, and even more surprised by the quick peck on the lips.

"Oh!" Shaw said with terrifying enthusiasm. He held up the box of condoms. "What do you want to do with these?