Page 20 of Catching Sparkles

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense,” I said. In that case, it was probably true. I hoped.

“And you guys are all going to do the parade thing this weekend, right?” Mom asked, wedging her comically sized wooden utensils into a giant bowl of salad to toss it up.

“Yeah!” Josie confirmed, grinning widely. “Baby’s first pride parade,” she mused, glancing down to her round stomach and giving it an affectionate pat. “Benji’s totally excited. You’re coming too, right Rhys?”

“Uh…”

“Wait, have you ever been to one?” She asked.

“Ah, not exactly.” Obviously, I had no issues with queer people or their pride or their right to celebrate, but I wasn’t exactly a parade guy.

“You have to come!” She told me. “It’s so much fun!”

“What is?” Benjamin asked, leaning his head back in through the door to join the conversation.

“The parade,” Josie explained. “Rhys has never gone to one!”

“Oh, man,” Benjamin laughed. “Yeah, come with us! You’ll have a great time.”

Clearing my throat, I prayed the awkwardness I felt creeping through my veins wouldn’t show on my face.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s not really my scene,” I said.

“It’s everyone’s scene,” he argued. “There’s tons of stuff to do and everyone is so cool and nice.”

“You’ll die when you see Kendall’s outfit,” Josie added, and I had to disguise the sudden choking sensation I felt by pretending to have a coughing fit.

“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. Did she know what had happened between us? Kendall had promised not to mention it to me, but… Maybe he wasn’t keeping it as much of a secret as I’d thought. He and Josie probably had the kind of relationship where they told each other everything. Come to think of it, he had that kind of relationship with Benjamin too.

Oh, god. Did my brother know that I’d gotten so worked up from Kendall kissing and teasing my dick and whispering stupidly sexy stuff to me that I’d exploded in his mouth like a busted fire hydrant?

Why couldn’t a rabid grizzly bear break into our house and tear me to shreds?

“He, um… Commits to a theme every year,” she said, her sentence punctuated by my brother’s laughter again.

“A theme?”

“Last year was a butterfly,” Benjamin said. “Year before that was…”

“A bunny,” Josie piped up.

“Ah, yeah. How could I forget that one?” Benjamin snorted, shaking his head. “That fluffy cottontail.”

I blinked, imagining Kendall tucked into some cheap kid’s Halloween costume prancing around the parade. Well, if he wanted to sweat in the summer heat in some bulky, campy outfit then that was on him. I wasn’t sure why Josie thought I’d care so much about seeing that.

“So you’re going to come, right?” Benjamin asked.

“I don’t know,” I said again, trying not to grimace.

“You should go,” Mom told me. “You’re young! Go out and have some fun.”

Fun? Who said a loud, crowded parade would be fun?

“I bet Kendall would think it’s really cool if you showed up,” Josie said. I slowly turned my head from where I’d been looking at my mom to stare at her as my heart rate picked up. Was she fucking with me? Teasing me because she knew what had happened between us? After a few seconds of silence, her brows drew together. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. I wasn’t doing myself any favors saying no, whether she knew or not. If they didn’t know, it would look weird for me to be so vehement about not going. If they did know, then they’d think I was purposely avoiding him because of my own embarrassment. I was screwed either way. “Yeah. Whatever. I’ll go.”

“Awesome! We’re going to have so much fun!” She cheered, pumping her first into the air, sincerity etched all over her pretty face. I suddenly remembered how Benjamin told me how happy she was to be able to get to know me, and to have another person around to be an uncle to the soon-to-come baby.