by Cass Lennox
But Naomi Rosenberg had spoken to Brock’s mom about him.
That meant . . . well, it could mean a lot of things. They could’ve discussed the wedding. Their sons. Brock wondered if his mom had told Naomi he hadn’t spoken to his parents since starting university. He’d simply changed numbers and never called the house anymore. Definitely bad-son activity, cutting off contact like that. Maybe Naomi did know about it and was only being nice to him because he was dating her son.
Orrr he could remember what his mom was actually like and how his family had always operated: keep it in the family. So no, his mom wouldn’t have mentioned to outsiders that her son hadn’t spoken to her or her husband in five years.
She might not have mentioned him at all. In which case, his parents probably weren’t aware he was in town.
Yet.
And that was something Brock could count on. Naomi had probably said he’d be there, but even if she hadn’t, at some point someone would see him, recognize him, and mention it to one of his parents. Small-town grapevines were ridiculous and real. The Stubbses would hear he was around, and they’d hear he was gay and dating Toby Rosenberg and staying here—like he would willingly go back to their place—and they’d be angry, and they’d come around to this bright, warm house, and oh God he absolutely could not let them near the Rosenbergs—especially Gi—and shit his dad meeting Gi . . .
Blood roared in his ears. He had to stop that at all costs. No way was he letting his dad anywhere near Gigi.
But what could he do? Look at him—he was standing in the middle of someone else’s hallway like a silent, crazy statue. He could barely make a decision about staying or going, moving to the rec room with his boyfriend or hiding in the bathroom until he could think clearly again. Someone would eventually notice that—
“Hello.”
Oh. There was a little girl looking up at him with a confused expression on her face.
Brock blinked. How long had she been there? “Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
She was tiny, barely coming up to Brock’s waist, and had the same grey eyes as Gigi. A cousin, maybe?
“Um,” he replied.
“Because you’re just standing there.”
“I’m thinking.”
Her head tilted. “About what?”
Being afraid. Yeah, totally share your batshit feelings with a little girl. She’s, what, six? “Stuff. What’s your name?”
She grinned. “Rosie. I’m five.” She held up her hand, fingers outstretched. “What’s your name?”
“Brock.” What the hell. “I’m twenty-four.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re so old.”
A laugh burst out of him.
“You had a sad face just now so I thought you forgot how to walk.”
That surprised another laugh out of him. “I think you’re right.”
She grinned. “My mom says that to me a lot. Maybe you should stop thinking, and then you won’t have the sad face and you can remember how to walk again.”
That made a weird kind of sense. He took a big, dramatic step and feigned shock. “Oh hey, I remembered!”
She giggled, which sent a rush of delight through him.
“There you are!”
He looked up. Gigi stood at the door of the rec room, wine in one hand and other hand on hip.
Rosie spun around and ran at him. “Hiii, Toby!”
Gigi grinned and bent down to give her a one-armed hug, then she was distracted by something in the rec room and disappeared inside. Gigi gazed after her with an affectionate smile, and Brock gazed at him, struck by a realization.
Gigi looked kind of . . . good with a kid.
It was weird. Brock had written off having kids, especially after the stuff he’d gone through with his family, and he’d never seen either himself or Gi as a parent at all—considering some of the very adult and sometimes loosely irresponsible stuff they got up to in clubs and late at night, definitely not. But one hug with a small person and Brock could really see Gigi as a dad.
It was a nice picture.
And Brock thought he might fit into a picture like that one. Not right now, no way, but . . . suddenly written off had turned to maybe.
“You okay?” Gigi asked.
Brock mentally shook himself. “Yeah.” To his surprise, he was. Whether it had been the injection of silliness for a little girl or something else, he did feel better. Calmer.
And just done with worrying. Like, so what if his parents were going to find out he was there? They didn’t know right this very moment. So he could chill out and enjoy being here tonight and deal with whatever was gonna happen tomorrow.
If anything did happen. After all, he wouldn’t put it past his parents to be so pissed off with him they refused to contact him in return. A guy could dream, right?
“You gonna come in here and talk to us?” Gigi’s tone was casual, but there was a hard core to it, the same one that had reared its head during dinner.
The thing was, Brock knew his boyfriend just wanted this weekend to go well. They’d promised, hadn’t they? So Brock smiled and gestured. “Lead on.”
Gigi turned and Brock followed him into the rec room, which was wide and held three large sofas, a huge TV, several shelves of books and DVDs, and was cluttered with family photographs. Brock stopped to take in pictures of Sophie and Gigi as kids—skating on Maney Lake in winter, cheeks red from the cold; on a beach somewhere with ice cream, squinting at the camera; in a family portrait at Easter, baskets of chocolate eggs held up proudly.
“Oh my God, don’t look at those!” Gigi grabbed his hand and tugged him over to the sofas. Brock was shoved into a space between Grandma and the armrest of the sofa, which Gigi perched on, and found himself staring at Sophie and Alan, who sat on the floor with glasses in hand. The rest of the sofas were occupied with adults chatting, and kids occasionally streaked past in a blur of legs and laughter.
“So, Brock,” Sophie said, tilting her glass at Gigi, “how much are Mom and Dad paying you to date this loser?”
Gigi made an exasperated noise, and Brock automatically touched his leg to soothe him before saying, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Gigi turned on him. “Don’t encourage her!”
Sophie leaned forward. “Totally encourage me. I have all the juicy growing-up stories.” She grinned as Gigi groaned. “So spill. I wanna hear Toronto stories!”
“Uh . . .” Brock wouldn’t know where to start. Gigi practising his routine—no, her routine—was always funny. The drag shows were good. Some of their nights out with friends, drag and otherwise, had been pretty wild—maybe too wild to retell with kids around.
But the fun Gigi stories Brock tended to think of were the dumb shit that happened when they were cooking together or having sex or doing something with friends. Gigi would say or do something hilarious and Brock would laugh, or Brock would do something dumb and Gigi would make it funny so they both laughed. A lot of that stuff was personal, though.
Like how Gigi had handled Brock’s scars. He had a whole bunch of them on his back, sides, and arms, but they’d healed really well and weren’t that noticeable anymore. Gigi hadn’t even picked up on them until a few weeks into their relationship, and when he had, he’d totally taken them in stride. He’d been really chill about it, and they’d ended up laughing over something again. Then having sex.
Brock had forgotten that.
Problem though: that wasn’t the kind of story Brock thought he could tell these people.
And would they want to hear about their life together anyway? This family seemed cool with him and Gigi, but Brock doubted that extended to hearing sex stories about them. Even the sweet ones.
“You want funny Toronto stories?” Gigi cut in. “There was this asshole heckler I got during my drag act . . .”
And just like that, Brock was relieved from having to say anything.
Next to him, Grandma made a huffing noise and stood up. Brock
watched her walk to one of the shelves.
Gigi stood up, handed his wineglass to Brock, and began reenacting the heckler story, swanning around as LaMore tearing the heckler to shreds. Sophie, Alan, and the cousins on the sofas laughed, rapt as they watched Gigi.
He really was an amazing performer. Even without the wig, face, padding, shoes, or dress, Gigi could channel his queen. Brock was so lost in him he didn’t notice Grandma had returned until she’d sat next to him and tapped his arm.
Brock turned to her and saw she had a photo album on her lap. She smiled at him, held one finger to her lips, and opened it.
A birth certificate for Toby James Rosenberg and a picture of what had to be newborn Toby stared back at Brock from the first page.
Oh. My. God. Brock wanted to pull the album over to him, curl up in a corner, and leaf through the entire thing for the rest of the evening.
Instead, he turned the page to see more pictures. A younger, tired Naomi holding a tiny Toby and a very small Sophie grinning at her little brother, the entire family with Naomi on the hospital bed. A lump rose in Brock’s throat.
Grandma quietly murmured the names of grandparents and relatives as they turned the pages. Brock watched Toby—and it was hard to connect this adorable baby with the man currently miming throwing boob pads at a heckler—grow from a wrinkly faced newborn into a toddler in the space of several pages.
So many pictures. It was kind of scary how many there were. Not that Brock was complaining, because this was honestly worth the entire drama of getting here, but he couldn’t remember his parents ever taking casual, multiple pics of him like this. Was it normal for families to document their kids this much?
They reached Toby at five years old, and it was crazy to see the similarities to adult Toby. Gigi. Facial expressions and obvious signs of personality: Toby covered in crayon, Toby playing dress-up with his sister, Toby hugging his dad fiercely. Brock got those same fierce hugs now.
A loud gasp announced the photo album’s discovery. “What the hell is going on here?”
Brock looked up in time to see Sophie, Alan, and one of the cousins—Ed?—tackle Gigi to the ground. Gigi reached towards Brock and Grandma, fingers clawing at the carpet and eyes wide. “Don’t you dare look at those pictures, Brock, so help me—”
“Oh hush, Toby.” Grandma waved him away. “Your young man loves these pictures.”
“I really do.”
Gigi choked and struggled against his relatives.
Sophie was on his back and cursed when he tried to roll over. “Goddamn— Toby, just let it happen.”
“Nooo.”
“She did it to me too. Believe me, it’s better not to fight it.”
Alan, who was sitting on Gigi’s legs, gave a thumbs-up. “Ten out of ten, would secretly look through adorable baby pics with Grandma again.”
Ed chortled, and they high-fived.
Around them, the other Rosenbergs were laughing like this was the funniest shit they’d ever seen. Generally Brock tried not to do anything that prompted Gigi into angry-diva mode—and seeing old pictures of him definitely edged that territory—but it was hilarious to watch his wrath being foiled by his sister and entourage.
Brock turned back to the album and ignored Gigi’s grunts and swearing. By the time Gigi got free, Brock had almost made it to the end of the album, which was around the start of high school. Gigi reached for the album, but Brock put down the wineglass so he could grab Gigi’s hands and stare up at him.
Gigi was red and panting slightly, hair askew and shirt crushed. “You don’t want to look at those.”
Brock knew he hated reminders of his high school days, especially visual ones, but Brock thought teenage Toby was adorable. He’d thought that at the time too. So he smiled. “They’re awesome, Gi.”
Gigi frowned. “I wasn’t at my best back then. That wasn’t me.”
Grandma pshawed. “Toby, don’t be ridiculous. You were so handsome. So much like your dad at that age too.”
Brock glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. He was holding his boyfriend’s hands in front of Brock’s family . . . but no one seemed to care? Everyone was either smiling or distracted by something else.
“Brock.”
Brock stared back up at him. Man, he really didn’t want people looking at those pics. Awww. Brock couldn’t do this to him. “We can stop if you want, but I’m really enjoying the album.” He pulled Gigi closer, twining their fingers together and trying not to glance around to see people’s reactions. “Besides,” he said in a low voice, “I liked you back then too, remember?”
Gigi made a strange face, something between happiness and disbelief. “Yeah, well.” His voice was slightly shaky. “Your taste always was a little weird.”
He gave a deep sigh, then swept up the glass of wine and perched on the arm of the sofa again. This time he leaned against Brock’s shoulders so he could look down at the album. Brock tried not to move away from the contact—this is fine, family is okay—but he did flinch slightly.
Gigi didn’t seem to notice. “You can keep looking, but just this one album.” He pointed at Grandma. “You hear that, Grandma? No showing him the others when I’m not around.”
She wagged her finger at him. “Don’t tell me what to do, young man.” Then she winked and pointed out a picture of young Gigi dressed up as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz for Halloween.
Brock took a deep breath. Okay. We’re okay. “Nice costume.”
“I wanted to go as Dorothy, but I knew better.” Gigi took a big gulp of wine.
Ed, Sophie, and Alan grinned at them from the floor. Brock wasn’t sure what was so funny until Grandma finished showing them the album. Gigi left the room for more wine, and Sophie took the opportunity to perch on the sofa arm.
“You two are cute, you know.” Sophie had a knowing smile on her face.
Brock shifted, not sure what to say to that. “Uh-huh?”
“I was totally expecting him to lose his shit when the photos came out, but he didn’t. Much.” She lightly touched Brock’s shoulder. “He let you finish seeing them. True love, Brock, true love.”
Somehow he doubted that, given recent events. “Did you let Alan see yours?”
“Once Ed stopped wrestling me, no, of course not.” She made a face. “He still got through most of the album though. Grandma’s sneaky.”
Grandma rolled her eyes and huffed.
Alan raised his glass. “I love you, sweetie. Even with braces and zits.”
She covered her face with one hand. “Oh my God.”
This family was nuts. No one in Brock’s family would sneak photo albums or drink wine on the floor or be amused by drag stories. He barely knew his distant relatives, so he thought this was maybe the first time he’d ever seen this many related people in one room. How did Gigi and Sophie cope with them all?
Granted, there weren’t so many people in his family that they’d take up all the sofa space in the living room. He had a few cousins who lived in Saskatchewan, and out of all of Brock’s grandparents, only one grandmother survived, and he wasn’t sure she even had photos of him. When the family was together, she’d sit down in the best chair with a Screwdriver and a cigarette to cackle throatily through the conversation. Brock liked his grandmother, but she wasn’t anything like Gigi’s.
He realized with a jolt that he hadn’t spoken with his grandmother in years. He had no idea how she was doing.
Gigi returned and demanded his spot back. Sophie returned to the floor, and Brock forced himself not to care when Gigi rested against him again.
“So, lover, when am I going to see your baby pics?” Gigi asked.
Oh God. Even Brock could see the implications. I just embarrassed myself, so I expect the same thing back. Also: when am I meeting your family? He had to ask here? In front of all these people?
At a loss, Brock shrugged and went for a neutral answer. “I don’t know.”
Gigi’s eyes narrowed, but when he spoke, hi
s voice was teasing. “Are they that bad?”
See? He always knew what to say. “Yeah.”
“Worse than me at two hundred pounds with zits and a bad haircut? I doubt it, boyfriend.”
Ohhh shit. There was that steely note in his voice again. He hadn’t been teasing, then. Brock watched him sip his wine, acutely aware of how easy it would be to make him happy: Yeah, I’ll show you pictures of me as a kid. Yes, I want you to meet my parents. Yes, I’m glad to be here.
Experience had taught Brock that easy wasn’t ever good or even that easy. Not in the end.
Shit, he was going to have to talk about his family, wasn’t he?
The room suddenly seemed way too warm. Like, really stuffy. And the Rosenbergs were being really loud. The smells of food and wine and people were way too thick and sour, and Brock felt his stomach twist again.
“I need some air.” He lurched to his feet.
Gigi said something in warning, but Brock ignored him and headed for the front door. He paused there, not wanting to go anywhere he could potentially be seen, though he doubted the neighbours would recognize him at this time of night. Maybe he could walk out and duck around the side of the house?
“Babe.”
Brock turned around.
Gigi stepped over their bags, which still sat in the entrance, and joined him next to the door. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” Brock winced. That was nearly always the wrong thing to say. “I mean . . .” Jesus, he sucked at this. Talking about shit. Especially family shit.
Gigi crossed his arms, wine tucked into one elbow, and waited.
Brock grasped for something. “I like your family.” There, that was something, and it was even true. “And all the pictures they have. I mean, they have a lot, like a disturbing amount, but when you think about it, it’s actually awesome they have so many. And I’m really glad your grandma showed me you as a kid because I loved seeing that.”
“Your point?”
“My family doesn’t do that. Any of it.” Brock hoped Gi would read between the lines. He was usually good at doing that—great, in fact, as sometimes he read stuff between lines that didn’t exist, and pissed Brock off in the process.
