Work Text:
James Hathaway stood, still, gazing at the display, head and shoulders above the rest of the customers in the shop.
The place was bright, crowded, and full of the shiny, sparkly and fluffy. It was also full of the noisy, the shrieking, the incomprehensible – girls: girls roaming around in the screaming, gesturing, laughing packs; the quieter girls in pairs, fondling sparkled goods, cowed and quiet next to the wild noisy herd creatures.
JLS pumped out of the shop radio now, having followed the revolting Justine Beiber.
Why did he have to come on a Saturday morning, he asked himself.
But the answer was simple: at work in the week, playing squash with Lewis later and to come shopping for this after Mass on a Sunday would feel wrong, or more wrong maybe?
White? Pink? Purple? With glitter? Or not?
He grew aware that a lot of the giggling and shrieking was directed at him. Not homophobia, not ridicule. No. He realised, smiling to himself, that lots of pink faced preteen and teenage girls were looking at him through fluttered eyelashes.
He decided not to change the habit of the past three years and selected one white glittery and one plain purple eye shadow and went to pay, preening past the little girls, before flouncing out of Claire’s Accessories to go next door to Costa Coffee to get a latte.