Like most adults over 30, I had completely forgotten just how embarrassing my parents could be. Unlike most adults over 30, my parents had spent the past few weeks gleefully cooking up ways to give me the Full Teenage Experience before tonight’s wedding. I had never attended my own senior prom, nor had a number of people in my little friend-group. In addition to the stretch limo and tuxedos and boutonnieres, my parents had volunteered to help us make this as authentic as possible. They were ecstatic that they’d get to enjoy this milestone, especially now that their sons have been out of the house long enough for them to feel nostalgic. It had also been long enough since my coming-out that my mother had come to terms with my sexuality, which was important considering my ‘prom’ date was male.

So I agreed to get ready in my childhood home. My father gave me The Sex Talk and handed me two condoms and three packets of lube, ‘because you can never have too much lube.’ No, I had no idea where he’d gotten them. Either he’d bought an entire package, in which case I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just given me the whole thing. Or they were free samples from something no parents should be purchasing, because my mom and dad were virgins who had discovered my brothers and me in a cabbage patch.

Once that awkwardness was complete, I began pacing the room pants-less. My mother was giving my tux a last-minute alteration herself, muttering the familiar lament that one of my legs was skinnier than the other and my butt was rounder than the pants allowed.

“So, Andrew Moore told me that his son’s insisting that you make a scene at his wedding, because you refused to go to the wedding with this other boy,” my father said, despite the fact that I was in the middle of a completely adorable story about the kitty. Greg’s father, Andrew Moore, and my father were childhood buddies that had reconnected when Greg and I became friends several years ago. And the two men gossiped far too much for my peace of mind. “I think you need to explain that to me. Because it seems to have gotten lost in translation.”

“Boy?” I asked, and he shrugged — if I was eighteen again in tonight’s little game, then anyone I dated would be a boy, not a man. And that’s ignoring the fact that my dad had been at both Greg and Julian Moore’s weddings, and had therefore witnessed me moon pathetically over John. “I didn’t refuse to go with him. We both already had dates to the wedding. And my date’s a real date.”

“Do you like this Specter kid more than John, then?” he asked pointedly.

“Daaaaad,” I whined. “It doesn’t matter. John broke up with me months ago.”

“And yet he’s the father of your kitten,” he said, deadpan. “Do you intend to have kittens with Specter?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Let’s get serious for a minute, Tom. What’s the deal with you and John?” he asked. “This whole cat thing isn’t standard ‘just friends’ ex-boyfriend behavior. Even for you.”

“The deal is that our relationship —or whatever it was— was mostly friendship or companionship anyway. He needed help and the kitten’s adorable and it’s nice to spend my nights off curled up with her and Frankie.” I managed to stop before saying the obvious: Now I can pathetically moon over my ex-boyfriend in person and enjoy many awkward moments.

“But you’re just friends.”

“Yes.”

“And Specter?”

“Is more. Well, could be more. This is our first date. He’s smart and accomplished and good-looking and a genuinely nice guy.”

“Are you selling me or yourself?” he asked far too knowingly. “Well, either way, I’m looking forward to finding out what the SEAL can do with chewing gum and a paperclip.”

“And if it’s PG, I’ll totally tell you,” I said with a wink.

“Knock knock!” said a voice I’d heard far too little in real life.

“Quinn!” I raced over to the man in my doorway and gave him a huge hug. Quinn was Julian Moore’s best friend, and he and I had become friends ever since last fall, when he’d helped us scheme to get Julian and Xander together. “Where’d you come from?”

“L.A.” he said. Because he was hilarious. “Your mom let us in. The guys are downstairs, but Annabelle and I agreed to come up to help you get dressed. And it looks like you need it. Where are your pants?”

“My mother stole them. Annabelle! Let me see your dress!” I grabbed the hand of the beautiful woman standing next to Quinn and pulled her into the room. Julian’s cousin twirled in a circle for my benefit. She wore a beautiful, sparkly emerald gown that matched her Moore-green eyes and showed off every luscious curve without being at all slutty. “Oh my lord, Max’s eyes must have bugged out of his head when he saw you!”

“I almost wore the same dress I’d worn to Greg’s wedding, but all prom dresses were on sale and I saw this…” she shrugged. Like our tuxes, it was too fancy for this particular wedding, but perfect for a prom.

“I’m glad you had an excuse to get it, because it was made for you!”

“Speaking of made for you, how many elves are working on your pants and when will they be done.”

“Just one elf, and I’m finished! Here you go, Wangja Tommy” my mother bustled in and kneeled, holding my pants out.

“Thanks, Eomma [Mom].” Without thinking, I steadied a hand on her shoulder and stepped into them. At Quinn’s snicker, I took the pants from her and pulled them up myself. My father took that moment to snap some pictures of us. As I finished dressing, my mother fussed over my clothing and then handed Annabelle a large makeup brush, so that we could pose as my father took the requisite getting-ready-for-prom pictures. Once that was settled, my dad asked us to count to twenty and he raced down the stairs with his camera.

“So… are the guys excited? Are you excited? Oh god, they think we’re totally weird, don’t they?” I could feel myself blushing.

“Yes,” Quinn said. “To all of the above. Come on, relax, these aren’t real dates.”

“Mine’s a real date,” I said. “I think. Why, what did he say?”

“Oh wait, he passed me a note in Home Ec!” He pretended to search his pockets.

“Spec’s too busy being gruff and shy to say anything, which is a good sign,” Annabelle soothed. “Now, calm down. This is going to be fun! Buzzard looks like he wants to eat Quinn for dinner.”

Quinn sighed. “I knoooooow. And I’ll probably put out if he stops being creepy about it. But we’ll have fun standing by the dance floor making fun of everyone. And Max looks at Annabelle like he’s the last puppy in the litter, hoping she’ll adopt him.”

“I thought you’ve been dating for a while?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, casually. And he’s just being really nice. He’s a nice guy. That’s all it is.”

“Just a nice guy? Oh, come on. I bet the sex is hot,” Quinn said, a little too interested in hearing just how good Max was in bed. Julian’s boss was straight, but I had a feeling that Quinn had a bit of a crush. However, he quickly disabused me of that notion. “Buzzard is all manhandle-y and solid. With all that testosterone and raw power, I’d think they all are.”

“It’s like having sex with a gargoyle. I mean, unlike a gargoyle, he can move. But he’s, like, too hard. And serious.” She shrugged and then slitted her eyes at our skeptical expressions. “Don’t be like that. It really is casual. He doesn’t sleep over.”

I knew for a fact that Max tended to tuck her in and then return in the morning to take her to brunch and visit farmer’s markets and go shopping. Maybe he had PTSD-induced nightmares that he didn’t want to subject her to. Or maybe he just wanted company on his jaunts. Specter and Buzzard may be gay, but Buzzard didn’t seem like the farmer’s market type unless the farmer’s market was centered around an ultimate fighting cage match, and I suspected Specter spent all his free time with gadgets and his cat, Tesla.

“They’ll be down any moment now!” my dad said super loudly and Annabelle giggled.

“I think that’s our cue,” Quinn stage-whispered and gave me a little push between the shoulder blades.

We made an entrance, slowly gliding down the stairs, our dates at the bottom each holding a clear plastic box with flowers. My father took so many pictures that I was glad my brothers and I had chipped in together to get him a new DSLR camera for his birthday, or else he’d have run out of film.

My mother then presented us with six boutonnieres. The men looked at the flowers, then each other, then the flowers again.

“We, uh… we did tell you we were bringing these, right?” Max asked. “I mean, what kind of prom date would forget a corsage?”

“The kind that’s me,” Buzzard supplied. “But he insisted, so we got them.”

“Of course you did! You’re gentlemen!” my mom said. “No, Tommy didn’t know what you were wearing, and he wouldn’t give me your number and I didn’t know how to reach your mother so that we could make sure you coordinated…”

“We’re wearing tuxedos!” I whined in exasperation. “How could we clash?”

“Umm, my mother isn’t…” Spectre said awkwardly.

“Oh!” she said, hand raised to her mouth. She bustled over and began to straighten his tie and jacket. “Oh, I am so sorry.”

“Mom, she’s not dead. She lives in Minnesota.”

“Montana,” my date corrected.

“A cold, square M-state in the Midwest.” I waved that off because, really, what was the difference? Other than hundreds of miles. “And he’s an adult. He can dress himself.”

“Not really. Julian dressed him.” Buzzard snickered and we all gave him a look, because I recognized that flair now, and their ties and vests definitely coordinated with ours. So he muttered, “Us. He dressed us. Otherwise we’d have worn our usual black ties and gone without these stupid vests.”

“Julian has good taste. Give me your mother’s email address and I’ll send her pictures,” she insisted.

“I’ll send you links to the album and you can share it with your mothers, since they probably have been missing prom pictures too,” I told them, hoping my mother would accept the compromise since we were grown men.

“You can send them to our moms, too, Mrs. Powers,” Quinn offered and my mother beamed with happiness.

We posed some more as we pinned on the security dudes’ boutonnieres, and then they opened their packages. I held out my lapel and Specter felt around the back of his for a pin until Buzzard told Quinn, “It goes on your wrist!”

“You bought our dates wrist corsages?” Specter growled.

“What’s the difference? They’re the flowers you chose. The lady said our dates needed corsages, so I got corsages.”

“They’re men! She thought you were straight. You see, this is why you’re not allowed to prepare our equipment before a job…” Specter growled.

My father shook with suppressed laughter as he tried to capture this moment, and my mother came in to save the day. “Those flowers were the perfect choice. Here, use the pins from the extra ones.”

“Or we could trade, and you could wear this corsage,” Buzzard offered, shocking the hell out of me. “I’m sure one of those goes great with Quinn’s tux.”

Of course, one did, and my mother blushed and thanked him and then my father thanked him and I whispered to my date, “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

We posed some more outside. I rolled my eyes, but enjoyed the game and it looked like everyone else was enjoying themselves, as well. Even the limo driver grinned at us as though we were the best entertainment he’d had all week.

Buzzard stood talking to my mother while the rest of us climbed inside the party limo. Whatever he was saying made her tear up, and she hugged him. Max whispered to Annabelle, “He didn’t have an ideal home life growing up. This is way more fun for him then he’ll ever admit.”

Once we settled inside the limo, Quinn hit a button and colored lights filled the interior. Buzzard pulled him in for a thoroughly filthy kiss. When he pulled back, Quinn said, “I can’t believe you’re wearing a gun to a wedding.”

“Our tuxes were tailored for work. If we didn’t wear a holster, the lines would be all off,” Specter explained, as if going armed to a Moore wedding was completely rational.

Annabelle gaped at Max. “You’re armed too?”

“No, I used tissue paper in the holster because I’m not insane,” he explained and looked at his friends in fond exasperation. “You went armed to Julian’s wedding too, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Buzzard said while my date shrugged in agreement.

“Are they loaded?” Quinn asked. “Can I touch it?”

“It’s silly to carry a gun if it’s not loaded,” Buzzard said.

“What’s with your obsession with touching guns?” Max asked. When Quinn toured their headquarters with Julian, he’d asked to play with their guns. Max, misunderstanding, let him feel up his bicep because apparently men called their arms ‘guns.’ Then Quinn called him Xander’s house goblin. Whatever sense that conversation made was lost in the retelling.

“I told you,” Quinn growled at Max, “I spend so much time programming their physics that it would be helpful to play with the real thing.”

“They’re not toys.”

“I know they’re not toys.”

“Then stop asking to play with them.”

“Maybe you can give me a demonstration.”

“I’ll give you a demonstration,” Buzzard offered, interrupting their oddly flirtatious banter.

“Ooo! When? I’m leaving Monday night!” Then the two began talking animatedly about automatic rifles and RPGs.

“It’s a shame your brother couldn’t join us,” Max said to Annabelle, and she sighed. From the stories Julian tells, his cousin was a lot of fun, but I hadn’t seen him since Julian’s wedding.

“He would have, but his boyfriend is a serious lawyer who does serious things very seriously.”

Max kissed her tenderly and I wanted to awwwww. Instead, I turned to Specter and asked, “So your gun is loaded?”

“Yes,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

“Is there a safety?”

“Of course there’s a safety. I wouldn’t go to a Moore family wedding carrying a gun that didn’t have a safety,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. “And yes, the safety’s on.”

“Good.” That settled, I stretched up and kissed him. He slipped me a little tongue — Specter was a very skilled kisser.

It was… nice.