The crowd was thick and pulsing on Eager Street next to the Hippo, one of the historic gay clubs, and shirtless men and women with cropped hair were everywhere, and someone was carrying trays of gelatinous purple shots for a quarter a piece. Meg quickly handed over a dollar and got shots for all of them, Dare squeezing it out of the cup with delicate precision, Quinn regarding it dubiously before sucking it out, Meg knocking it back and digging in her pocket for more money.

Jack looked around him at all of these people—happy people, defiant people, people fighting against a world that hated them—and took three shots in quick succession. The grain alcohol rushed through him like a kiss.

They wound their way through the crowd, getting as close as they could to the parade route, and they caught beads and candy and condoms, tossed from the floats, and it was messy and hot and insane, and Jack thought that he maybe should have had some water before this. Because he felt wonderful, and that was a dangerous feeling.

After the parade had finished, they grabbed food from vendors, Meg ravenous as she always was, and they acquired more shots, the sun wheeling in the sky into the purple starless glimmer of light pollution, nighttime in the city. Music pounded around them; Meg wound her arms around his neck, and she was pretty and sweet like the first snowballs of summer. Quinn and Dare had found their way to an unoccupied corner and were doing their usual, quiet, intense debating—art or reason, feeling or logic—the throngs of people passing them by unnoticed. Two people in love but not ready to say it yet.

Meg’s body was firm and still so soft against him, the smell of cocoa butter and wind, and he did love her, he did, of course he did, and—

A flash of light. Platinum hair. Holographic glitter, and a laugh that had always sounded so nasty, but which now sounded—

Free.

Genni Jones’s blue-black hair in its signature flapper’s bob swung loose and shiny in the gloaming, her thin arms resting on Theo’s shoulders as they danced. She was wearing—of course—an utterly scandalous sequin halter top, jeans slung so low on her hips that he could see the edges of her hip bones as she twirled.

Behind Theo, Phillippe’s dark skin shone with oil. He danced close and filthy, hands on Theo’s hips, his chin resting on Theo’s shoulder but rich brown eyes staring with unaccustomed tenderness at Genni.

And Theo—