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It clicked. They were gone. With the way Rocky spoke about them, I knew they must have passed.
“What happened?” I asked. Two simple words with the strength to bring down a solid brick wall.
“I lost them.” Rocky’s voice was choked with emotion. The quiet that followed felt heavy and dark. “I lost them,” he said again, his voice steadier this time. “A plane crash. They were flying into New York. It was for the opening of my store. A bookstore.”
“Oh Rocky. I’m so… Jesus.” I couldn’t get many words out past the lump in my throat.
“I loved books. Something else my parents instilled in me. My brother got the love for video games; I ended up losing myself in stacks and stacks of books. It was my dream to open up a bookstore, and I had. I did it. Called it Hudson Pages. Took months of planning and prepping.” Rocky breathed in deep, his chest rising and shaking. “I closed it a week after their funeral. I couldn’t stand it. It all reminded me of them. Even just the smell of books would make me nauseous.”
I leaned on my arm, looking down at Rocky, who had his eyes glued to the ceiling. I could see a shine in them that came from unshed tears.
“When did this happen?”
“Eleven years ago. Eleven years and three months.” The tears spilled over, silently trailing down Rocky’s face. Something about the quietness behind his sadness resonated with me. Like striking a gong, I could feel his pain down to my bones. I had to look away, because my tears wouldn’t be as silent. I swallowed, hoping a cough could disguise the sound that escaped my throat.
“They would have really liked you.”
The cough morphed into something louder. I managed to hold the rest back, looking into Rocky’s eyes and finding strength in them. He had managed his way out of the storm, and he came through shining bright. I never would have known such an intense tragedy haunted him. There was always an air of mystery around him, but never would I have guessed he’d lived through the sudden loss of both parents. And at a time when everything looked so positive, he had the rug snatched from under him and then set on fire.
“They knew I was gay, and they always supported me. Even back then, in the nineties, when the attitude toward gay people wasn’t exactly kind. They had my back. They met my first boyfriend. Arty. He was a great guy, had the same kind of energy as you, actually. My mom called him ‘her little lovebug’ in that musical Southern accent of hers. Him and my brother would play video games all the time, and my dad learned how to make a killer pancake from him.”
Part of me wondered if he had lost Arty, too, with the way he was speaking about him. I couldn’t imagine any more tragedy following one man, but something in his distant gaze and the way he spoke started making me think. I stayed away from asking any potentially hurtful questions, though. I stuck with something a little safer: “And you and your brother? Does he live close by?”
Rocky’s entire demeanor shifted. If there had been a dark cloud hovering over this conversation, it seemed to have just cracked open, as if the sky had split in half and spilled out a fury of lightning and thunder. His jaw set into a stern sculpture of what it once was, only a few lines of muscle twitching underneath his skin. If I had to guess, I’d say he was biting his cheek.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” He said it suddenly, getting up from the bed.
Confusion hit me. I sat up in the bed, wondering if I’d said something I shouldn’t have. I didn’t think asking about his brother would have such a big reaction? Maybe they were the type of siblings who always fought about one thing or another. The relationship could be a messy one. Why else would he clam up like that? He had plenty of silent moments before, but this was different. He was clearly affected by the question, in a way I wasn’t expecting at all.
I cracked my knuckles, sitting there, still naked and still confused. Rocky walked in about five minutes later, his expression still skewed toward discomfort but the thunderous storm no longer lighting up his eyes. He seemed almost apologetic.
He stretched an arm over and behind his head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. Want to crash here tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said, managing to avoid sounding like an overexcited Chihuahua yapping for a fresh bowl of human food. I looked around, wondering if this room also worked as a guest bedroom.
“Come on,” he said, leaning down and picking me up. I laughed out of surprise, never having been scooped up like this. My feet dangled in the air as he carried me out the door and into the hallway. Both of us were still completely naked, and Rocky smelled like man and sex and cherries and heaven. I drank in his scent as I fit my head into the crook of his neck.
