Cece's nose crinkles at the group that climbs onto the bus as we get off at Hart Street. 'What is it with people wearing ripped jeans? It's horrific. How are people mentally deranged enough to buy broken clothes?'

I glance down. Their knees poke out of their black cargo trousers on each step. He's drawn a bee on each with a marker (I hope), placed perfectly within the canvas of skin revealed behind the tears. 'You're wearing ripped trousers.'

'But I ripped these organically. By falling over like a real man. Don't mix me in with these posers.'

I open my mouth, rethink, and shut it.

The restaurants of Gay Village are bustling with folk grabbing lunch (or more likely: late breakfast) before the parade starts. Pride flag streamers form a canopy above Canal Street with many larger ones decorating pub fronts or hung from the balconies above. Music is already loud though it's barely noon. The sun is almost too hot.

Cece's feet start to drag, Vans scuffing the baking tarmac as they shove their hands in their pockets. Is this the kind of anxiety I'm supposed to reassure him out of or the kind that will humiliate him if acknowledged?

Maybe it's not even anxiety and just jitters from all the coffee he drank this morning—which they've never drunk before but are forcing themselves to like in an effort to "become an adult". Of all the things they could change to prove their maturity, they choose drinking coffee...

Before I can decide whether to address their nerves, they speak. 'You sure it's okay for me to come?'

'Course.'

He chews on his thumbnail. As well as he can with his grillz, anyway. They stop when they nearly choke on a chip of black nail varnish. Cece only ever wears black nail polish on his left hand—which I, for a year, thought were some subversive symbol I'm too millennial to be in the loop for until I realised that he probably just don't know how to do it with his non-dominant hand.

'Caleb well wants to see you,' I add, honestly.

Rather than the employee door in the ginnel behind the club, I take Cece in through the main door, still locked at this time. I want his first impression of Spectrum to be the space in all its glory and not a bunch of empty lemon crates piled by the door for the next person to grab though everyone just walks right past them.

I let him in first and wrestle the key out of the lock to follow. Cece hesitates past the cloakroom and the posters about alcoholics anonymous meetings, domestic violence support, and other community events Sasha hosts here during the week when the club is shut.

I smile as I watch him go silent with awe, tension melting from his posture. The main room is muralled with various queer icons in the print style of propaganda posters. Even with only the task lights on, the disco balls add sparkles to their faces. With no people in the way, Cece can trace all the details up close and read the small-print biographies.

'Hello, baby girl.'

I turn to see Caleb limp through the open employee door between the stage and the bar counter. He decided not to go in drag this year but still looks appropriately glam in what is literally his old school uniform now embellished with rhinestones in accordance with the Class of 2017 theme of the year's Pride.

With a glance at Cece to make sure they've not spontaneously dropped dead, I stride over to scoop Caleb into a hug. Caleb's Ethiopian sperm donor (a lenient term to use considering his mums found him through Gumtree and the "profile sheet" in question were written by hand) were 203 centimetres tall according to his file but Caleb ended up getting his five-three height from his Japanese mum, which means I get to kiss the top of his head with every hug.

'Hi, kid,' he calls to Cece.

Cece offers a distracted "hiya" before bursting up the ramp to a room inspired by the Sistine Chapel except even gayer. The smallest room is plunged in black light, encompassed from floor to ceiling in a mural of a dragon that squeezes the walls in on themselves. Its single visible eye follows you regardless of where you stand in the room. We both watch the staircase seconds after the echo of his footsteps has faded.

'They came,' Caleb coos. He knows how much this means to me; he has listened to me talk about it all summer. 'First Pride!'

'Yeah.' I stifle my smile in case the blooms break through my skin and freak Cece out—"don't be weird", as they say. Bobbi said it would be good to try to get him used to crowds and social situations again before they start school again in two weeks.

Caleb squeezes my arm before he leans back and snaps his fingers a few times in appreciation. 'You look fit!'

I don't still fit into the school uniform I wore when I were sixteen but I have got my Isaac Evans tie on over a white vest. It tangles with my usual set of necklaces, a plain chain and another with a compass pendant I got from Shayna and Desmond, my foster placement, as a graduation gift. I opted for the slacks I usually wear to the office as the most Class of 2017-y trousers I've got.

This is the summer I finally decided to fix up the garden and I can't complain about the tan it has given me: at least three foundation shades darker than my winter skin. And now that Cece's in West Country, I've picked up the routine of going to the gym every workday with Eilidh... Yeah, can't lie, I look good.

'You look fit,' I say back and he does. Caleb has the kind of core and shoulders that most models envy just from pushing his wheelchair up ramps for so many years. To match his clothes, he has glued rhinestones to the arch of his eyes, glitter brushed into his eyebrows and beard.

I look down at his legs. 'Are you sure you don't want your chair?'

'After the amount of money we dished out for this thing,' he says, lifting his prosthesis, 'trust and believe, baby girl, I'll start playing football again tomorrow.' He shakes his head, laughing as his own hyperbole gets away from him. 'No, I won't. I still can't run without falling over.'

'I can carry you if it starts hurting.'

Caleb's eyebrows shoot up. 'Just cause my girl's not here for one week, don't mean you can flirt with me like that, Nicolás.'

My response is cut off by Cece's stomps on the ramp as he bounds back down, phone in hand. 'Who painted these?'

Caleb and I exchange glances to confirm that neither of us has any clue. 'You'll have to ask Sasha,' Caleb says. 'He's around here somewhere. Inventing new sexualities to name drinks after...'

Alexander, or Sasha as is the Russian nickname, is the owner of Spectrum. I'd best describe him as the Santa Clause from The Rise of the Guardians if he was a leather daddy who spent half of his profits on queer mutual aid.

Sasha has survived a lot in his life to end up as the trusted mentor he is to the whole community; there is not a queer person in Manchester who's not got a story about Sasha. It also means that less than our boss, he is more of an absentee landlord who sometimes slices lemons between calls from his sponsees.

Cece has already moved on to inspecting the art on the laminated menus. With both elbows on the bar, I watch him. I don't think I've seen him this giddy since they were maybe ten. Even the F-U-C-K written across his teeth by his grillz don't make them appear less like a child.

'You could do summat like this. Graffiti don't have to be illegal—there are loads of places that would fight to get you painting murals.'

He's only half listening. Which we may be better off for since there definitely is such a thing as too much encouragement with Cece.

'Maybe...' They jab a finger onto the menu. 'Can I have one of these ace ones–?'

I yank the menu out of his hand and slap it back on the bar. 'No.'

To the rest of us, Pride is a party as a protest. For Sasha, it's an opportunity to make ridiculous Pride Week drinks. Spectrum and The Funky Flamingo have been in a decade-long feud over Pride cocktails. They get more mental every year. All I can say is thank fuck Cece's visit coincided with Pride week. Dodged a fifteen-step chemistry lab bullet with that.

'The nonbinary one then?'

'You can't have any of them.'

'That's discrimination.'

'Or,' I say, 'it's called "the law".'

Cece clicks his tongue but the scowl is gone when we follow Caleb to the back, past the doors to the kitchen, and into the dressing room. It's vacant, though might've recently been hit by a tornado.

'Duchess and Sarah have already gone,' Caleb says, dropping into his seat in the row of vanities. 'I just need a few more rhinestones and we're ready.'

Mostly out of boredom, I pull on a pair of lace gloves that lowkey look fit but I reckon I'd quickly change my mind about their comfort once we're out of air conditioning. I fold them, then pick up and fold the rest of the clothes from the floor.

Caleb glues a final pair of stones to the corners of his eyes and ties a bedazzled durag over his cornrows. It's summat I've harassed him into: always wearing a scarf in winter and covering his head from the sun in the summer (given it's not raining, which, you know, this is Manchester). I've got a bucket hat over my locs, one of those weird explorer ones with a strap under your chin. It's fit in a Milo from Atlantis sort of way.

Caleb stands up, still holding a brush. 'Can I do your makeup, Cece?'

'You put a speck of glitter on me and I will commit mass murder.'

'Okay, as you should.' Caleb nods along. 'I was only planning to block out your eyebrows. Then you can make the liner even bigger. More eyeliner!'

Cece glances at me and I smile. 'Um...okay.' They sit in Caleb's vacant chair and he gets to work gluing down their eyebrows.

Cece's shoulders stay cinched, a tautness in their outline from the discomfort of someone touching their face. He tangles his fingers into the sleeves of their shirt. With their regular chained and studded cargo trousers, Cece is also wearing an old school uniform shirt, not that anyone would guess. The white fabric is covered from collar to sleeve in permanent marker drawings like the ones on his cast—"But I am wearing my uniform, sir."

'So how's West Country, Cece?' Caleb asks as he gathers a generous amount of black cream eyeshadow to a brush.

'Boring. They talk stupid. It is dead pretty, though. I went to a beach! Bobbi said she could teach me to swim if I wanted but that would've ruined my eyeliner. But I walked in the water.'

They dig out their phone, trying not to move their head. He shows Caleb pictures and Caleb gets excited over each one though I've already told him every detail of everything Cece has ever done in their life.

Verdict: I am definitely as boring as a parent.

'This is your dog? Nikki told me you got one.'

'Well, she's not exactly mine, but yeah, that's Esther.' A smile tugs at Cece's mouth as he slides through infinite photos of the doberman.

'You named her Esther?' Caleb asks. 'Isn't that a grandma name?'

'I named her after that kid from The Orphan.'

'You named your dog after a psycho murderer?'

Cece shrugs, reading the small print on the back of the glue stick. 'I think we should normalise murdering your foster parents.'

Caleb throws his arms up the way I've seen aunties do at his church to praise the Good Book. 'Why wouldn't ya?'

Notes

Like a real man: This is a meme mocking toxic masculinity.
Gay Village: Neighbourhood in Manchester. As the name suggests, this is the hub of queer culture in the city.
West Country: Unofficial term for the south-west of England, dominated by rural areas.
Gumtree: Classified advertisement website. Essentially, the British equivalent of Craigslist.
Grillz: Jewellery that is worn on your teeth. They can be solid or hollow, encase a single tooth or a whole row, and can be encrusted with different kinds of gems.

03: wear rhinestones, like a real man

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