Love Is Proud Page 7

  Ridley and Sawyer came over, still yacking it up. “Sawyer’s father was a cop,” Ridley told Rocco. “Lost in the line of duty.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rocco said.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you don’t have to know what that feels like, when it comes to Ridley.”

  “Me, too.”

  “How you holding up?” Sawyer took his partner’s hand, worry and love in his eyes.

  “Okay.” Bart smiled at him. “I’m still pretty social phobic,” he explained.

  “These informal meet and greets can be hell.” Rocco knew. “Tomorrow, the actual ceremony, all we’ll have to do is clap and listen to boring speeches.”

  “Rocco.” Ridley reached out, maybe for a gentle scolding smack. He stopped short of touching Rocco at all. The ease they felt around one another in private was gone when out in public, where they had to remember not to show it.

  “Hey. It’ ain’t like I’m not grateful and honored and all that, and especially proud of you.” Rocco took Ridley’s hand. “It’s okay,” he said, when Ridley tried to pull away. “I told Bart. We can’t go public, though,” Rocco said to Sawyer, as he let go of the man he loved. “The world isn’t perfect yet. Work rules.” He shrugged. “Have you finished schmoozing. Rid?”

  “I guess. There are so many interesting people here.”

  “Ridley’s a people person.” Rocco rolled his eyes. “I like dogs.”

  “I hear that,” Bart said. “This one could chat up a stranger for hours. Lucky for me.”

  “How did you meet?” Ridley asked.

  “Angel wings and bullets.” Bart stroked Sawyer’s cheek. “Divine intervention, maybe.”

  “That’s how I tell it,” Sawyer said, and then the two shared a kiss. “I think we’re ready to head up to our room—twenty-third floor—just enough elevator time to tell the tale start to finish, if you guys feel like hanging out and sharing something hideously priced out of the mini bar?”

  * * * *

  “Wow. That’s a story,” Ridley said as they entered Sawyer and Bart’s room.

  “All true. Make yourself at home. Or should I say comfortable? Kiss him,” Sawyer suggested. “Right in front of people.”

  “Perv.” Rocco said it with a smile. Then he did kiss Ridley. There was something so liberating about it, he did it again. “I’m getting wood.” He wasn’t joking.

  “Me, too.” Sawyer raked his hand through his reddish hair.

  “And I don’t want to quit.” Rocco knew he was getting carried away. He was yanking at Ridley’s stupid rainbow tie, and maybe he wasn’t going to stop there. But then a piercing musical note rang out from the bathroom, and all four men turned toward it.

  “The feeling I feel is no different than yours. The heart doesn’t see. Love it doesn’t need eyes. Holy fuck!” The singer emerged, as startled by his audience as they were to see him. “Sorry.” The scruffy, pudgy teen pulled out his earbuds. “I didn’t know anyone was in here. I’m done. I’ll get out.”

  He was tiny, even shorter than Rocco, and never looked up from the floor.

  “Relax.” Naturally, Ridley had to engage. “You have a powerful voice.”

  “Thanks.” He looked at Ridley, but just for a second.

  “I didn’t recognize the song. And I know popular music.” Ridley had a couple years on the cleaner—maybe more than a few—but he did know every tune on popular radio.

  “It’s not a hit—yet. I wrote it…the lyrics. Kick wrote the music.”

  “Kick?” Ridley asked.

  “My boyfriend. He works in the kitchen. Husband to be, actually, in another few weeks.”

  “Congratulations.” Sawyer got in on it. “You’re young.”

  “When you know it’s love, why wait? Who knows how much time any of us have? Besides, Kick and I have been in love since he was a little boy and I wasn’t. I’m Adam.”

  “Nice to meet you, Adam.” Ridley shook his hand.

  “It makes the point, don’t you think? The parents get it, even if they don’t get me. My dad still calls me by my given name—Eve. Sometimes I answer. Point is, Kick and I are finally where we’re supposed to be, so the time is right. Trust me. We even have the license.”

  “Good deal,” Sawyer said.

  “I better get back to work. Sorry for the life story and for not clearing out in time, or did you all ditch the cocktail hour early?”

  “Sorta, kinda,” Ridley said.

  “Cool. It’s your fault, then.” Adam smiled. “Sorta, kinda. Either way, your toilet’s now spic and span.”

  Ridley pointed toward Sawyer. “His toilet. His room.”

  “What’s the pairings?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I assume you’re all here for the Pride Heroes thing. Ipso facto—I’m bringing that back, by the way—you’re all probably gay.”

  “Probably,” Sawyer said. “I’m with him.” He put his arm around Bart.

  “So you two…?” Adam elbowed Rocco playfully.

  “Next door.” Ridley nodded at the wall behind Sawyer and Bart’s bed.

  “That wasn’t the question.” The kid’s smirk grew. “You a couple?”

  “Do we look like a couple?” Rocco asked.

  Adam shrugged. “Not really, but neither do Kick and me. He’s tall and athletic, nerdy and smart, and I look like…you. So, I tend to keep an open mind.”

  “Good thing to do,” Ridley said.

  Adam turned to Bart. “Which one of you is boxers and which one is boxer briefs?” He slugged him in the shoulder. “Nah. Just kidding. You both have lousy aim when it comes to a hamper, either way. No wonder people think gays suck at sports. How long you been together?”

  “Since last Christmas,” Sawyer said.

  “How come you’re not married? We can do that now, you know.”

  “Ask him.”

  Bart chewed on his lip, but offered no response.

  “Apparently, size matters.” Sawyer gave one instead. “Mine’s way bigger, and he’s got issues with that.”

  “Sawyer…” Bart looked like he wanted to crawl under the bed.

  “My bank account,” Sawyer clarified. “And he needs to get over it.”

  “Really, dude. Love is love, black or white, male and male, female and female, rich and broke…” Adam turned back to Rocco then, all inhibitions gone. “So, since you two allegedly aren’t doing it, I guess I can’t ask why you’re not hitched.”

  “Guess not.” Rocco had certainly thought about marriage. Maybe someday.

  “I’ll know you’re lying about not hooking up, though, when I hit your room next and find two different styles of undies on top of each other, right?”

  Rocco tried to think. Had he left his underwear tangled up with Ridley’s?

  “Caught you wondering.” Adam nudged him in the ribs again.

  “You’re a smart ass.”

  “I do get carried away. Sorry, sir.” Adam cast his gaze downward.

  “Don’t be.” Rocco brought it back to him. “I tip extra for that.”

  “Phew. Cool. And congratulations, for serious. The world needs more heroes, like all of you.”

  “These three,” Bart said. “Not so much me.”

  “You know what? Some people are heroes every day, just by virtue of walking out a door. Kick, he’s got all kinds of anxieties. He’s been through his share of shit. Excuse me, stuff. But he gets up and goes to work and rides the subway and lives. Kick…he’s my hero.”

  “Wow.” Sawyer waited for Adam to collect his cleaning supplies and head out the door before he spoke. “He read you like a book, Barty.”

  Bart answered with a gentle kiss.

  “You were my hero before I knew your name, and continue to be every day.”

  “Aww.” Ridley snuggled into Rocco, taken by the other pair’s sweetness. “It’s hard to believe we first met when I was younger than Adam.”

  “Time sure flies,” Sawyer said.

  “To be that young again…�
�� Rocco shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine ever being thirty something back when I was that age.”

  Sawyer agreed. “I hear that.”

  “None of us are old.” Ridley groaned when he bent down to re-tie his shoe. “Shut up.”

  * * * *

  “Bart and Sawyer are so nice.”

  “And sexy.” Rocco immediately got Ridley out of his tie and then his shirt, the moment they re-entered the room they shared, supposedly as workmates only.

  “Another redhead. He turn you on?”

  “Only you do. Sawyer’s nowhere near as gingery as you.” Rocco was at Ridley’s zipper. The red hair down there—front and back—was still his favorite. He was on his knees already, about to take Ridley’s cock.

  “Holy fuck!”

  “I haven’t touched you yet. And what’s with the voice?”

  “Wasn’t me,” Ridley said.

  Loud groans followed, and then a steady beat against the wall.

  “Damn. I thought we were speedy. They’re already fucking.”

  “Get on it before they finish.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. It’s hot…imagining them…while we…” Ridley got up on the bed, offering his ass, working it with two fingers.

  “If you say so.” Rocco stumbled getting out of his undershorts.

  “You know I hate it when you leave your socks on.”

  “You want it fast or you want my socks off?”

  Ridley spit on his hand and primed his hole. “Fast.”

  They matched their rhythm to that from the other room. “I wonder who’s bottoming,” Ridley mused after a while.

  “Ask them.”

  “Who’s taking whose dick?”

  Rocco laughed against Ridley’s side. “Rid! I was kidding.”

  “You first,” a voice answered from the next room.

  “Rocco’s behind me,” Ridley said. “I’m taking him, if you know what I—”

  “Shh. They get it.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Don’t tell anyone,” Ridley added.

  “Just between the four of us. This is Sawyer, by the way. Son of a…And I’m riding Bart’s—” There were sounds after that, but no more words. Rocco was pretty sure at least one of them came. He was ready soon after, and warned Ridley it was imminent.

  “I’m ready, too. This is fun.”

  “Next time, come over,” Sawyer said.

  That was all it took. Rocco’s cock, and then his whole body, spasmed with orgasm. “We might take you up on that before we leave.”

  * * * *

  The lighthearted fun of the night before was shattered the next morning. “There are protestors outside,” Ridley said from the bed, as Rocco entered from the bathroom in nothing but a towel.

  “Fuckers.”

  “It kind of hurts that, even at something like this, there’s a portion of the population—heck, our government—that thinks it’s still okay to treat us like second class citizens, or worse yet, God’s abomination.”

  “Any trouble yet?” Rocco bent down to kiss the top of Ridley’s head.

  “Not that I know of. I ran into Adam in the hallway when I went out to see if I could hear into anyone else’s room.”

  “Perv.”

  “I was just a little worried. I couldn’t even hear your shower running, so maybe it’s just between walls. Anyways, Adam’s taking on second shifts, as many as possible. He and Kick want to get married on the beach. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Totally.” Rocco sounded sarcastic even when not trying to. “Really.”

  “They’re saving up to drive down to Florida. They’re almost there, Adam says…just gas and incidentals. They’ll sleep in Kick’s van. Anyway, Kick’s a nervous kind of guy, so, Adam said he had to call and warn him before he drives up and sees what’s happening out there.”

  “Maybe we should head down and see if we can…keep things in order?”

  “Maybe. Though I hate the thought of you putting on clothes.”

  * * * *

  There was a group of about twenty people outside with signs showing various slogans, all pretty much claiming God wanted all gays dead. “What’s the difference between a Christian radical and one from another religion?”

  “This a joke?” Ridley asked.

  “Not even close.”

  “Excuse me. I’d like to get in.” A tall, spindly teenager with a guitar slung across his back was surrounded by the group as he tried to gain entrance to the hotel.

  “You reap what you sow, young man. Celebrating sin is as bad as committing it.”

  The kid offered no response, but rather just worked to pass.

  “Let him through,” Rocco huffed.

  “That’s Kick, Roc, It’s got to be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Detective work,” Ridley explained. “He’s got a soccer ball pendant on a chain around his neck, and he’s carrying a guitar. Adam said he wrote music.”

  Another woman came around the side of the building. She was humming, as she practically skipped. “Hey, Kick.” She greeted the other one, smiling with her entire face, mouth open wide, squinty eyes, and deep lines in dark mocha skin at the corners of both. “You’re here early.”

  “Adam’s working, so…” Kick was still a good ten feet from the hotel’s side door. The picketers had made a human wall between him and it.

  “Maybe we should go around to the front,” Kick’s friend suggested.

  “We have discipled up there, too,” one of the protesters said.

  “You can’t block the entrance,” Rocco told him.

  “Who are you, the police?” he who spouted the farm metaphor asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “One of the faggots being honored?”

  A couple more people showed up who wanted to enter. It must have been time for a shift change, Rocco figured. “Let them in.”

  “Sin cannot be ignored.” The leader said it, then the others repeated it as a chant, forcing Rocco to roll his eyes.

  “Oh, screw you.” A burly guy all in white—probably a cook—was getting in no matter what. He charged the line of people, like a bull who saw red. They charged back, not at him, but at the smallest of the group, going after the petite friendly African American woman in a rainbow hoodie. She was down on the ground. Kick ran into the scuffle to help her as Rocco and Ridley each grabbed one of the protestors in a choke hold.

  “Now that’s assault. You’re all under arrest.”

  * * * *

  “They fucking broke Amy’s arm,” Kick said, down in the kitchen, relaying details to Adam.

  “Everyone else is okay,” Rocco said. “They may have done worse, had you not stepped in between them.”

  “Morons. She’s not even gay. She just likes rainbows.” Whereas Adam eventually looked the others in the eye, Kick never would.

  “You okay…really?” Ridley asked him.

  “Yeah. I should just get to work…if you’re done asking questions.”

  “Why don’t you relax another minute or two? Tell me about your music. How long have you been playing?”

  “Since I was little.” He smiled then, finally. “This was my dad’s.” Kick kept the guitar by his side at all times, as if it were a service pet. “He died when I was little.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. I had to teach myself, but I’m not bad.”

  “You’re great,” Adam told him. “Kick works two other jobs and he’s going to college.”

  “I take a class.”

  “One at time…you’ll get there.”

  “What about your mom?” Ridley asked. Family meant a lot to Ridley, he wanted everyone else to have the same support system.

  “She’s…she tries.”

  “His mom loves him.” Adam seemed to be Kick’s mouthpiece. “But she’s got trouble…drugs…”

  Rocco felt a knot in his gut. He’d been there as a child himself.

  “Same ones that killed my da
d.” Kick hugged the neck of the guitar. “They’re not bad people. Neither one, but it got them.”

  “Kick and his brothers and sisters practically raised themselves. They all finished high school and got into college. Every one of them clean and on the honor roll.”

  “Stop,” Kick complained.

  “I’m proud as shit of you, Boo. Gonna tell anyone who’ll listen.”

  Rocco smiled. It was a rare occurrence, but he did it.

  “I started a Go Fund Me,” Adam said. “Took our Florida money. Amy’s going to be out a while. She’s got kids,” he told Rocco. “They need it more than us.”

  “Of course.” Kick took his boyfriend’s hand. “We’ll get there someday.”

  “Give us the information.” Rocco handed over his phone. “We’d both like to donate.”

  * * * *

  Ridley was helping Rocco with his bowtie, back in their room, several hours later, when a knock came on the door. “It’s Sawyer Ettinger.”

  Rocco let him in.

  “I…uh…wanted to talk to you about what happened outside this morning.”

  “It seems more like you can’t look at me because of what happened last night.” Rocco glanced toward Bart. He averted his eyes as well.

  “We’re pretty straight laced,” Sawyer said with a bit of a smirk. “That was pretty risqué for us and kind of fun.”

  “Yeah it was,” Ridley said.

  “Anyway.” Sawyer looked at him finally. “I got wind of the whole thing and I want to help. I have money, so…”

  “Sawyer.”

  He turned to Bart. “Was that crass? I do. And I like to share it with people who need it.”

  “That’s very generous. The woman who was hurt, she has four kids. Odd thing is, she’s not even gay. I guess her choice of attire set one of them off. Those kids…Adam and his boyfriend…they didn’t give her sexuality a second thought. The two ponied up their trip money to help her out, just because it was the right thing to do.”

  “That’s what makes a hero, really.” Ridley took Rocco’s hand. “Sometimes it’s just doing the right thing when other people don’t.”

  “You’re so smart.” Rocco had to kiss him. “You know what we should do…?”

  * * * *

  The four of them entered the banquet hall for the ceremony forty minutes later. The affair was black tie, but two of them wore street clothes. Right after Ridley had helped Rocco put on his tie, he’d actually taken it off of him.