Pride

Chapter 17

The world around Scooter was loud and energetic as people began to put together posters and banners. In the center of it all was their paint-covered boyfriend, laughing along to a joke somebody made. Committees had quickly started forming and businesses were either denying or agreeing to help... Unfortunately, most of it was the former. It had been around two weeks, Scooter's birthday had passed, a date had been set and they had received donations in forms of money and merchandise from stores.

Bay had happily taken on the role of putting together decorations and designing flyers. Now all that was left was to take the banners and decorations, have Emrys and Arcadia pass out the rest of the flyers, and finish convincing the last of the clubs and communities to participate. As far as Scooter knew, Bonnie and Hattie had worked their asses off in that aspect.

Scooter had been handling most of the financial aspects and organizing things with vendors and invites to specific organizations. They had reached out to places outside of Asper Hollows such as places that sold Pride merchandise, places that had been known supporters of their community, and local celebrities. It had been exhausting, but Scooter was good at talking to people and they would gladly take the stress off of Bay's shoulders.

Down on the streets of Asper Hollows, two skateboards glided along the cracked sidewalks. The first was a shorter girl with long pencil-straight black hair and dark hooded eyes. A baggy shirt with creme, dark blue, and light brown vertical stripes engulfed her body and was tucked into a pair of black jeans. There was a thin silver wallet chain connected to her jeans and a fake septum piercing hung from her nose.

The second was a much taller boy with tight, neat curls held out of his face by a black headband. He wore a baggy white t-shirt with the word Nike printed across it in baby blue letters. His light blue jeans were cuffed and his worn white and baby-blue shoes matched his shirt. Unlike the first girl, he wore a bright smile on his lips and would go out of his way to sway side to side. Both of them, however, had bright orange flyers in their hands.

"Have you tried Bob's Pharmacy?" Arcadia called over her shoulder before coming to a complete stop in front of the familiar small shop that had been there for decades. Emrys had been there more times than he could count... Picking up his Abuela's medicine, getting the ice cream Bob sold on hot summer days, picking up a pack of cigarettes for his mom when he was a kid... Even if he was underaged, it didn't really matter in a small town like Asper Hollows. Everyone knew one another and everyone knew that when a little kid of a known smoker headed into the store asking for a pack to just hand it over.

Emrys stopped behind her and picked up his board in one hand before peeking inside. Bob, an older man that was losing his head a little more as each day passed, was sitting at the counter. His eyes squinted at a receipt and his fingers adjusting his thin metal glasses. Emrys had always been very fond of Bob and vice versa...

"I'll ask" Emrys offered. "But you stay out here... No offense but you suck at talking to people" Emrys scoffed with a small hint of laughter behind his voice. Arcadia... She tried... But when her job was to be friendly and pass out flyers to people she hated she was a lost cause. Emrys was convinced the only reason she had the job was that she was good at skateboarding and could get around fast. And Emrys was positive that the reason they moved him off of decorating duty and onto flyer duty was that Scooter thought it was a terrible idea for Arcadia to socialize with people unsupervised...

"Fuck off, Lopez" Arcadia scoffed before roughly shoving him toward the door. Emrys couldn't help laughing a little as he headed inside and up toward the familiar older man.

"Good afternoon, Bob" Emrys grinned. The old man's face lit up as soon as he spotted the familiar white smile heading his way.

"Afternoon, Emrys" Bob chuckled. "Did your grandmother need her prescription refilled already? I swear it was only last week you came in..." Bob mumbled as he moved to check his calendar.