Emerson nodded slowly as he shut his eyes. With his vision shut, his hearing heightened. He could hear Ash and Kit joking around, making jabs at the other as they hit the pool cues with a resounding snap against the pool balls. Cameron had clicked the television on and an interesting show was playing that seemed to involve a mission to eat a cookie. Felix was trying to stop Sebastian from messing with his hair, but it seemed Sebastian wasn’t listening.

Frankie was mumbling soft “yes, this works” and “no, gross” as he opened makeup palettes. Soon, Frankie let Emerson know he was going to start. He could fill the soft makeup brush sliding across his eyelids, spreading the eyeshadow against his skin. He could feel Frankie’s soft fingers rubbing some kind of cream into his face. He felt the slight sticky lip gloss that was painted across his slightly parted lips. And, with Frankie’s directions, he opened his eyes and watched the mascara brush darken his eyelashes.

“There, done!” Frankie’s comment caused everyone to look over. Emerson felt as if he was under a microscope as he felt their gazes.

“Woah, Emmy,” Ash whistled lowly as he leaned against the pool table.

Kit pushed him lightly, annoyance in his eyes. “You do look really good, Emmy.”

Sebastian smiled brightly. “Oh, Frankie, you did such a beautiful job. Emmy you look gorgeous, like usual.”

Emerson’s face felt hot as he heard the compliments. Compliments he has never heard before when he wore makeup.

Felix sat up, his eyes drooping with sleep. “Wow, you do look great.” A slight smile found its way on his face as the elder slowly woke up.

Cameron stared at Emerson, quite speechless before Sebastian pinched his leg. This was not noticed by Emerson as he held the gaze of the elder. “Ah,” Camer glanced at Sebastian, cutting the tense gaze between him and Emmy, before looking at Emerson and Frankie. “Yeah, Emmy you look beautiful. Frankie, show him.”

Frankie laughed softly as he picked up a small mirror, turning it to face Emerson. Emerson’s face fell in shock as he took in his appearance. He has worn makeup before, but it was always eyeshadow and moisturizer, so it wasn’t anything crazy. However, Frankie had colored his eyes a beautiful smokey red that faded past the end of his eyelid, almost like an eyeliner wing would do, however Frankie hadn’t done eyeliner on him. The mascara caused Emerson’s eyes to look darker and bigger as the mascara even caught some of his lighter eyelashes. But Emerson’s favourite part was his lips. The lip gloss painted the inner part of his lips a rosy pink and faded to a soft pink, almost shiny white gloss on the outer parts of his lips. Somehow, it made his lips plump and this intrigued Emerson to learn how to do his lips like this every day.

“Wow,” Emerson exhaled the word as he kept staring at himself, taking in every detail. “This is amazing.” He looked at Frankie who was using a smaller mirror to finish his own makeup.

“Oh, thank you!” Frankie smiled at him before finishing the other eye’s eyeliner. “I’ve always loved doing makeup. But I prefer dancing more.” Frankie’s voice was slightly muffled as he tried not to move his face too much. Eyeliner was tricky and he did not want to mess up.

“There, done!” Frankie smiled as he set his mirror down and faced Emerson, making cute model-like faces as he showed his makeup.

“Finally!” Ash exclaimed. “I think I aged a whole century waiting for you.” He joked as he made his way to the door.

“Let’s go! Downtown, fun town!” Kit laughed as he slightly danced his way towards the door, following Ash.

Frankie rolled his eyes, smiling at Emerson. “Boys will be boys. Let’s go. I am sure Kit will take tons of photos.”

At the mention of photos, Kit stopped. “Oh! I almost forgot my camera.” He ran back to his bag and pulled out a thick black camera and slipped the lanyard around his neck. “Okay, models, let's go take some hot photos for the social media fans.” He smirked and struck a pose as he looked at Frankie and Emerson.

Emerson smiled softly as Frankie rolled his eyes, chuckling lightly.

Soon enough, the group made their way down the stairs and to the van, which was parked in the garage. Sebastian was driving with Felix in the front passenger seat, Ash and Kit took the two middle seats and Emerson sat in between Cameron and Frankie in the back row. The ride to downtown was full of Ash and Kit singing different songs loudly, sometimes in perfect harmony, but most of the time out of key and in funny voices as they joked with each other. Emerson smiled at the two younger males’ antics, sometimes humming along to the songs he knew. For once, he wasn’t full of anxiety of having to be aware of those around him. He felt safe and secure with these six men.

After half an hour of listening to music and singing, Sebastian finally parked in a pay-to-park parking lot somewhere in the middle of downtown. They were close to a small canal that ran through the middle of downtown. There were small gondolas that you could pay the gondolier for a ride up and down the canal. There were a few tall buildings which held stores, museums, art galleries, banks, offices, and theatres.

The guys stepped out of the van and began making their way towards the main strip of stores open alongside the canal street.

“So, what first?” Sebastian asked as everyone walked in a close circle.

“I wanna get my hair done.” Frankie pulled a strand of pink hair into his view as he looked at it.

Emerson couldn’t help as the question slipped out of his mouth, “What color would you do?”

Frankie let go of the strand and met his gaze. “I might go silver. I think I would look sexy.” He smirked, winking before laughing lightly as Ash pushed his shoulder a bit.

“You loony.” Ash rolled his eyes.

Frankie shrugged, still smirking. Emerson nodded. “I think silver would look nice. I am thinking of going back to my natural hair color.”

“Oh,” Cameron spoke from the other side of Emerson. “What color is your natural hair color?”

“A light brown I think.” Emerson shrugged, not really sure what his hair would be now if he had never dyed it. “I don’t really know, but I know I want to just go back to brown.”

“Well, how about me and you go get our hair done and then we can meet up with you guys later. It might be a few hours.” Frankie smiled at Emerson before looking towards Sebastian and Felix. The group had stopped a small bridge crossing over the canal to the other side of the shopping strip. He hooked his arm with Emerson’s as he awaited the elders’ confirmation.

“That’s fine. We can meet here in four hours.” Sebastian stated as everyone nodded once. Frankie quickly took Emerson away from the group, heading towards his favourite hair salon.