Chapter Eighteen
FRANKIE
Addison has more energy than should be legal for any single person to possess. Especially considering she’s not a morning person, and it’s seven a.m. If someone had told me she’d be up this early on a Saturday—and happy about it—I’d have laughed in their face, but here we are.
She’s hopping on one foot as she attempts to tug a sock onto her foot with a toothbrush in her mouth and her hair already pulled back into a pair of neat french braids.
“Are you already ready?” she yells.
“Yes,” I grumble, but it’s a lie. It’s all a lie. I’ll never be ready for her, and I’m smiling, not the least bit annoyed at waiting on her. I’m constantly smiling around this woman, it’s insane.
“No, you’re not!”
Addison moves the toothbrush to the other side of her mouth as she bounces over to me, only one sock on. I raise an eyebrow and try not to laugh. She has no room to talk.
“You said you’d wear the sparkles,” she says, toothbrush bobbing around her garbled words.
“Ah, that,” I say, biting my cheek to hold in a smile. “I don’t know how to put them on, figured maybe you’d want to help?”
I’m sure I could figure it out. How hard can it be to attach some sticky gems to my face?
Addison beams though and her blue eyes light up.
She starts to brush her teeth in earnest with one hand while grabbing my wrist with the other.
I link our fingers together instead as she drags me to her vanity and pushes me down into the seat.
She disappears and I hear her spit into the sink, then she returns, fanning out a variety of designs in front of me.
“Which do you like?”
I try not to cringe. I’m not really the super colorful, rainbow, hippie type, and these are all more than I’d ever choose to wear myself. They’ll look magical on her, though.
“Uhh, which are you wearing?”
Addison hums in thought, flipping through them before pulling out a design of pink, purple, and blue sparkles that will go under each eye, high on the outside of her cheekbones. She holds it up next to her face and grins.
“Yeah, this one for me.”
“Alright, I’ll have the same, but rainbow.”
Somehow, her grin gets even wider.
“You want to match me?”
I snag her waist and pull her down into my lap.
“Of course I want to match you. Can’t have anyone thinking I haven’t snatched you up yet.”
I kiss her nose and she giggles, then gets to work on our faces. Before I know it, I’m wearing more color than I ever have in my life and each time I blink, the gems on my cheeks twitch. It’s annoying, but entirely worth the joy it brings Addison.
She pulls out her phone and turns on the camera, taking a selfie as she kisses my cheek, then hums a pop song about red wine as she saunters into her closet to finalize her outfit.
My jaw nearly hits the floor when she comes back out in a hot pink crop top, the bootiest of booty shorts, and white hightop converse with rainbow laces.
She pulls open a packet of temporary tattoos in various rainbow and pride designs and wets a washcloth, applying them liberally to her arms and legs.
She even puts one on the side of her neck.
It’s lips, rainbow lips, like she was kissed by a gay fairy.
I’m kinda jealous, but before I can think on it further, she’s tugging my arms this way and that, inspecting them .
‘Ugh, you have no open spots! I’d have to cover some of your actual tattoos. Is that okay?”
I blink, forcing my gaze from her barely contained breasts that are within inches of my mouth, down to her hands, where I see she’s still holding the tattoos.
“Sure, whatever you want.”
Addison places a few of her colorful tattoos on my biceps, blowing on each to dry it and sending tingles across my skin every time. Then she coats those delicious lips in sparkling glitter lipgloss and I nearly die.
“Does this mean I can’t kiss you?”
“On the contrary, please do,” she says with a grin.
I take the invitation, and to my consternation her lips taste like strawberries. I groan, swiping my tongue across her bottom lip and into her mouth, then wrapping my hand around the bare skin of her waist as I tug her into me.
Addison pulls back with a laugh.
“I’ll just have to bring this with me,” she says, re-applying the lipgloss and then pocketing it. She tapes her ID and a credit card to her boob beneath the fabric of her top while I stare.
“Gotta be careful of pick pockets,” she says. “You’ll want to keep your phone and wallet in your front pocket. Also is it okay if I leave my phone here? I don’t have anywhere to put it and we can use yours if needed, right?”
“Sure,” I gulp, still staring at her, unable to believe this sparkling, colorful woman is my date. I’m going to be the envy of every person we come across, straight or not.
I grin. “Let’s go.”
~~~
Addison shows me her favorite spots in the local gay neighborhood, Hillcrest, where the Pride celebrations and events are located.
It’s all I can do to keep up with her. She bounces from one place to the next, easily navigating the crowds and saying hi to everyone she does and doesn’t know.
She somehow collects a string of rainbow Mardi Gras beads, which she winds around her wrist before tugging me to a bridge where we lean against the railing and wait for the parade to go by.
She makes friends with the folks standing by us within minutes, and soon I’m pulled into a discussion of everyone’s favorite drag queens. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before and my heart is starting to feel too full. Like I’m too happy.
Is that a thing?
After we have flowers thrown at us, along with more beads, glitter, and confetti from the parade, we wander down the road toward where the block party will be held later.
Addison drags me into a dessert shop where we share a bowl of gelato—three scoops—then she bops along the sidewalk as she jams out to the music blaring through the streets.
It’s incredible, seeing so many people of all walks of life coming together to celebrate each other and our culture.
We make our way back toward where we parked a few hours later, and I notice a Pride flag flying high in the sky above us.
It’s massive, bigger than any I’ve seen before, and there are people of all shapes and sizes dancing together in the street underneath it.
I blink in wonder.
My heart is feeling too full again.
My thoughts snap back to the present when Addison’s hand is tugged from mine, and I look down from the flag to see she’s been swooped into a dance with a queen right there on the sidewalk.
She’s laughing, her head thrown back as the two of them shimmy and shake, twirling and grinding to the beat.
I grin and pull my phone out, taking a video, then Addison asks her to sign her butt cheek where it sticks out from the bottom hem of her shorts.
The queen gladly does, of course, even putting on fresh lipstick and leaving a kiss next to it while calling her ‘darling’.
Naturally, I can’t let that go without meeting it, so saunter over to claim my woman.
I tug Addison’s sparkly lip gloss out of her pocket, coat my lips, and start planting kisses all over her bare skin.
I bite her neck and press a kiss over the mark, wrenching a gasp from her lips.
Then I reapply the gloss, and leave a sticky mark on her left boob.
More gloss, bicep. More gloss, wrist, then next to her belly button.
Addison’s gasp has turned into joyful laughter and she twists her fingers into my hair, blue eyes widening when I yank one of her legs up, hooking it over my elbow as I kiss her inner thigh.
Someone wolf whistles behind us and I grin, leaving another kiss on the opposite knee, then the back of her calf. Finally, I turn her around, get my lips nice and sticky, and mark her other ass cheek.
I sit back on my heels, admiring my work as I squeeze her ass once, then move my hands to her hips and turn her around to face me again.
Addison’s face is flushed and her smile looks permanent when I stick the lipgloss back in her pocket and slowly stand, letting my fingers dance across her bare skin.
“Addison,” I say, my voice husky.
“Yeah?”
“Move in with me?”
She grins, then bites her bottom lip.
“Yeah?” she says, voice tentative.
“That better not be a question, sweets.”
I free her lip with my thumb, then wrap one braid around my fist.
“Let’s try that again. Addison, my love, will you please move in with me?”
She shrieks, throws her arms around my neck and leaps into my arms. I catch her under her ass as she wraps her legs around me.
“Yes!” she says.
That’s more like it. I spin her around, both of us laughing, then drop her back to her feet before bending her over backwards for another, harder kiss.
Someone whistles again, then there’s cheering, whooping, clapping. I don’t pay attention to it until we run out of air and I pull her back up to standing.
She’s breathless as she looks down at me, her pretty blue eyes dreamy with desire. Then her gaze snags on my neck just as mine snags on hers. More color that wasn’t there before.
Someone has thrown a rainbow lei over our heads, and when I look up, there’s a circle of the gayest folks I’ve ever seen surrounding us. Cheering, clapping, sharing in our joy.
“Picture, babes!” someone yells, so I pull out my phone and hand it to them.
They snap a few shots and hand it back, then the crowd continues on their way. I click into the first picture when a notification pops up prompting me to accept an unknown airdrop.
I look up, my eyes darting around, to see the person who just took shots of us on my phone walking backwards away from me. They wink, smile, then spin around, disappearing into the crowd. I hit accept, and a flurry of pictures are sent to me. Pictures of me and Addison from moments ago.
I look back at my phone, angle it toward Addison so she can see, and we flip through the new pictures.
There’s me kissing Addison’s boob, her head thrown back in a laugh.
Me on my knees with her leg hooked over my arm, kissing her inner thigh with her hands tangled in my hair, the connection between our eyes nearly tangible.
Addison jumping into my arms, both of us laughing as I twirl her around.
Me dipping Addison into a kiss, her hands clenched in my shirt with one leg hiked to my hip, my arms bracing her with my hair flopping across our foreheads.
Addison standing back up, one hand cupping my face, her eyes full of adoration while mine are filled with love, the Pride flag waving in the breeze above us.
I lower the phone and look at her, seeing tears in her eyes to match mine. I stick my phone back in my pocket and yank her into me, holding her tight.
“Yes,” she whispers.
I pull back, my body protesting even as my mind wants to see her clearly for this. I cup my hands around her face, swiping my thumbs gently across her sparkling cheekbones.
“I love you, Addison,” I say, ignoring the tremble in my voice as I do my best to memorize this exact moment.
Addison blinks and a single tear falls, but she’s smiling so hard I’m not worried for a second.
“I love you more, Frankie,” she replies.
I can’t stop smiling either. We stand there, grinning like fools and staring into each other’s eyes until someone drunkenly stumbles into me.
I roll my eyes and Addison’s smile turns wry.
I take her hand in mine, but that’s not close enough for me.
I wrap my arm around her waist, touching as much of her as I can, getting sticky glitter lip gloss all over our skin.
I tug her as close to me as possible, and she tips her head down against mine.
We wander the streets, stepping over colorful stray feathers and sparkling fake gems, never letting go of each other, our smiles never dropping.
Simply sharing in the joy of those around us, together.