Page 63 of Please Don't Leave Me

“Ouch, you got glitter in my eye!” I rub my eye with my fist for one second before Quinn slaps my hand away from my face.

“Don’t touch your eyes; you’ll smear my masterpiece!”

I look behind him to check myself in the mirror and see that I didn’t even touch the rainbow going across my face. “It’s fine.”

Quinn is painting my face for a day full of Pride festival activities. June is always an exciting month for him, and he’s constantly busy with his friends. I’ve been going to the festival with him ever since he came out to me at age 13.

Every year, I let him paint my face and pick out my outfit. Though I do have ultimate veto power in case he tries to put me in fish nets and booty shorts like he did a couple years ago. I put a hard stop to that.

I’m all about supporting him and going all out, but I do have boundaries. This year, he put me in a crop top that says, ‘Ask me about my brother. He’s fabulous,’ and jorts with little rainbows embroidered on them. Now, he’spainting a large rainbow stripe across my face and insists on using glitter. I’m not against wearing glitter; I just hate how messy it is.

“Are you almost done?”

“Yes, you big whiny baby.” He finishes it by wiping off the excess glitter.

I look at myself in the mirror and have to admit that it looks pretty cool. He did a good job.

“Who is all meeting us there?”

“Just some friends from the club and a few guys from work.”

“You convinced the guys from work to come? I hope for your sake they finished up the Anderson project and didn’t just leave it half finished to go to this.”

I’m a pretty chill boss, but I hate disappointing clients, so I’m strict with promised deadlines.

“Don’t worry, they finished it up yesterday afternoon.”

“And you signed off on it?” I recently started letting Quinn do final checks and sign off on projects. It’s been a big help, especially during the busy season.

“It looked really good. Now quit fussing; today is about fun!”

It’shot as hell out, and I’m regretting the face paint. We spent the last hour mingling in the beer garden area, and now we’re just walking around and checking out the different vendor booths. We walk past a drag show and stop to watch the contestants for a bit, getting brief relief in the shade. A drag king takes the stage and dances. At the end of their performance, we cheer, and they run backstage. Up next is a drag queen in a large gown. I have no idea how sheisn’t passing out from the heat in that outfit. Her performance is very entertaining, and one of Quinn’s friends runs up and throws some money on the stage for her.

We keep walking around and stop to buy some pottery from the booth of a local studio. I don’t have many mugs at my place, so I buy one that has a curvy female figure etched on it. All of this artist’s pieces have nudity on them, and I respect the commitment.

Our group is constantly changing as we lose people and gain new friends, so I can’t keep track of who’s in our group and who isn’t. I know Brian from New Year’s Eve, the guys from work, and a few of Quinn’s other friends, but Quinn is currently flirting with someone I don’t recognize.

He waves me over, and I go to join them.

“Sam, this is Daniel. Daniel, this is my brother Sam.” We shake hands, and Quinn points a finger at me while whispering to Daniel. “I know he’s adorable, but he’s horribly straight, so don’t get any ideas.”

I never get tired of him introducing me like that at these events, where I am clearly in the minority.

“I’ve DJ’d a few of Daniel’s parties. Tonight, he’s throwing a big one, and we’re all invited. I turned down his request to work it because I plan on being completely wasted.”

I scoff at him. “Shocker. I guess that puts me on babysitting duty then.”

“Oh shut up. I want to see you having fun tonight, too. I want you to be so in the moment that you question your sexuality.”

I roll my eyes because we’ve been over this before. Just like he can’t picture sleeping with a girl, I can’t picture it with a guy. It’s that simple; I’m very straight. All I can donow is shake my head at him and laugh along. I love Quinn, and I hope he never changes.

I look to Daniel, who is also rolling his eyes at Quinn. “Thanks for inviting us, sounds like it’ll be a fun time.”

We just arrivedat Daniel’s party. I wanted to swing by the house to wash my face paint off, but Quinn was in too big of a rush to get here, so it’s somehow still on my face. With all the sweating I did today, I’m shocked it’s still in as good of shape as it is. Quinn better not have used anything that is permanent or stains skin. I can’t imagine showing up to a project on Monday with a slightly faded rainbow across my face. Though I’m sure Quinn would piss himself laughing if that happened.

We mingle for a while near the bar before I wander off and find a quieter spot to sip my drink and chat with Brian. I guess he needed a little social breather as well. We’re talking about all sorts of random things, and then the conversation takes a turn to the spicy side.

“Have you ever hooked up in public?”

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