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Ryland Grace was by no means an organized person.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true.
Despite his inherent clumsiness and constant self-deprecations, he is actually a skilled and competent scientist, and what is inarguably the most important characteristic of that title is the ability to carry tasks out systematically—to make observations, ask questions, form hypotheses, experiment, analyze, conclude, and report. Always in that order in the most objective manner possible. No exceptions.
And maybe because experimental research was something he loved, he was quite excellent at that. Whenever he worked in their laboratory, he carried with him a certain meticulousness, adaptability, and structure.
But, unfortunately, the moment he steps out of their university’s science building, it’s as if that entire side of his personality had decided to clock out too!
For starters, he was terrible at managing his coursework. The reason why he had gotten terribly sick during their final weeks a couple of months ago was because he was convinced that he didn’t need a plan. He didn’t need to carefully ration his time and energy between coursework and studying for exams. And, really, who could blame him? Planning was boring! Apart from that, the all-encompassing, horrifying sense of academic failure chasing you down as if you were an escaped convict was more than enough to keep you running, anyway!
(Of course, it’s obvious how that went down.)
(And do we even have to mention the state of his bedroom?)
The bottom line is that Ryland Grace was not organized, and he was most certainly not a planner.
But for Rocky Ortiz, he was willing to try.
“Grace…?”
Grace stared intently at the two packs of balloons sitting on each of his hand. One pack was filled with lime balloons, the other with teal green. To an ordinary person, this was simple: they were both green balloons, and it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference if they bought either of them. But to him, it was life or death.
“…Helloooooo? Earth to Ryland Grace?”
Rocky had yet to explicitly mention it, but Grace was fairly certain that his favorite color was green. The evidence was overwhelming, really. Almost everything Rocky owned was in that color, in different tones and shades. His clothes, his mugs, his notebooks, his sheets, his plants—well, plants are technically supposed to be green, but he definitely loved having plenty of those around their apartment.
Now that the both of them hung around each other more often, his affinity for green had increasingly become more apparent to Grace. And, he wasn’t going to lie, he found it absolutely endearing.
Okay, sure, the subject of favorite colors is probably only an interesting point of conversation for preschoolers. But, for some reason, noticing this about Rocky had made the universe feel strangely brighter. Suddenly, the trees around their campus brought him a sense of solace after a tiring day of classes. Suddenly, the grass on the ground seemed softer. Hell, even the go signal in stoplights were–
“GRACE!”
Grace nearly tripped over his own feet, barely catching himself from his shock at the sudden scream. He turned around to face its annoying source. “What the hell, Olesya?!”
Olesya was riding the back of their shopping cart while holding a bottle of vodka by the neck. “Oh, thank goodness you are still with us!” She exaggerated, putting a hand to her chest as she exhales… all while somehow still keeping herself balanced on the cart. How is this woman not afraid of anything!? “We thought we lost you!”
Eva was standing beside her. And though she was often not the expressive type, Grace could tell that she had also been impatiently-and-maybe-concerningly watching him stare at the pieces of rubber for just as long.
Olesya complained. “You stand there for five minutes now!”
“That is not true,” Grace argued.
“He’s correct,” Eva affirmed, glancing at her watch. “It has actually been six minutes.”
“First of all, thank you for the save, Eva. Much appreciated,” Grace sarcastically remarked. “And second, I’m making an important decision here.”
“Chuvak, they are both green! Just get both so we get out of here faster!” Olesya attempted to snatch the balloons from his hands.
Grace moved away from her hands fast enough, “That… is excessive, and I need to pick the correct shade!”
He couldn’t just pick any type of green. He had to pick the exact, correct type of green that fully encapsulated who Rocky was as a person.
“You think about this too much,” Olesya said. “Honestly, I knew this was not normal birthday party the moment you made shared spreadsheet!”
Eva slowly turned to look at him with disbelief. “You…” she points at him, “…made the spreadsheet?”
“Oh, come on, guys. Is it really that difficult to believe?
“Err, yes?” Olesya snorted. “Spreadsheet is color-coded and organized, and you don’t do that even for class notes!”
Grace put his hands up. “Well, if wanting to throw the best birthday party for my best buddy is a crime, then lock me up!”
“They are balloons, Grace!” Olesya practically leaped off of the shopping cart, vodka bottle still in hand, just to yell at him closer. Seriously, how has she not dropped that thing? “And I say that Rocky would love whatever party you throw for him because–”
“Nuh uh, there’s a correct choice here.” Grace interrupted, looking at the balloons
Olesya let out a long, frustrated grunt. “Ughhh, I’m bored of this already.” She pouted while turning to Eva. “Love, tell him how unreasonable he is being.”
Eva face palmed. She was already used to Grace and Olesya’s ‘sibling arguments.’ But what concerned her nowadays was that they never seemed to choose a time and place.
…And that she, unfortunately, always happened to be their babysitter.
“Come on, Eva,” Grace turned to her desperately. “You’re a history major. I’m sure you can understand my dilemma here.”
Olesya, master of never minding her own business, snorts again, “Don’t drag academia into this argument.”
“No,” Eva sighs in resignation. “He’s correct. Color matters historically. Symbolism matters, atmosphere matters, entire eras were defined by aesthetics.” She adds, “And colors used for dyes, pigments, and such were deliberate statements of power and status and psyche, of course.”
“What?!” Olesya dramatically fake cried on Eva’s shoulder. “Noooooooo! Don’t take his sideeee!”
Eva quietly grinned at Olesya’s touch. “Okay, let’s do this fast.”
Eva inspected the two colors with the seriousness that Grace has only ever seen her wear when she’s reading important documents. She slowly lifted each of the balloons, tilting them in her hand as if to see how they looked at different angles under the grocery store’s lights.
Olesya is still resting her head on Eva’s shoulder, fake snoring as she mouthed to Grace, Booooring!
Grace gives her the middle finger.
Finally, Eva lifted the lime green balloons higher. “This one.”
Grace blinked. “Really?”
Eva nodded. “Teal is a great color, but it’s too sophisticated and subdued for a college party. Lime green, on the other hand, is warmer and more energetic.”
A grin unconsciously tugs the corners of his mouth, almost immediately. He softly said, “…Like Rocky.”
Olesya slowly turned to look at Eva.
Eva meets her gaze.
The two of them exchanged a single look.
And without saying a word, they realized.
…Of course!
Grace likes him!
How could they have not seen this sooner?!
Grace was still standing there, grinning at absolutely nothing, entirely unaware that he’d just exposed himself in the middle of the grocery store party aisle.
Meanwhile, Olesya’s expression transformed from unadulterated annoyance into delight. That’s why he’s been in knots about this whole thing! She wordlessly grabbed another pack of lime green balloons from the shelf and shoves them into the cart.
Grace blinked at her. “What’s that for?”
“Backup balloons,” Olesya smirked. “Is college drinking party. And you might freak out if other balloons pop, which they definitely will.”
Grace pauses briefly, slowly recognizing the moment for what it was.
Olesya was surrendering!
He exclaimed, “Ha, I won!”
Olesya suddenly looked horribly offended. “Absolutely not what just happened!”
“Well, you both gave into something I wanted,” Grace teased. “And that never happens.”
“Whatever, we only did that so we get out of here sooner.” Olesya rolled her eyes dismissively. “Anyway, what else do we need from dumb color-coded spreadsheet of yours?”
Grace ignored her comment and looked down at the cart.
Okay, they had already gotten decorations.
(Of course, there were metallic star banners and silver fringe curtains).
They had already gotten paper cups and alcohol.
(Olesya personally picked out the alcohol because that was non-negotiable).
They just got balloons.
And they were going to get ice on the way out.
…
Aha, there was only one more item on the list missing!
(Or set of items, rather).
“We just need to get some stuff for the cake,” Grace announced, pushing the shopping cart away from the party aisle.
Eva nodded. “Alright, that’s easy. We can grab the boxed mix from–”
“Oh, no. I’m baking it– Well, Carl and Yáo are assisting me but, you know?”
A pause.
And then, Olesya slowly asked, “…From scratch?”
“Yes.” Grace replied.
Another pause.
Olesya continued, “Okay, let me get this straight. You will bake cake…?”
“Yes.” Grace nodded.
“With actual ingredients…?”
“Yes.”
“With your own hands?”
“Well, that is generally how baking works, doesn’t it?” Grace said flatly.
Eva blinked at him. “But you hate working in the kitchen.”
“I can learn,” Grace shrugged.
“You eat instant noodles raw.”
“They have a nice crunch!” Grace held his hands up in defense. “And they save time from cooking and doing the dishes. And, come on, what does that have to do with baking?”
Eva and Olesya exchanged another knowing look.
This man was down horrendous.
Eva, probably for the hundredth time that day, sighed again. “…Alright, what do we need for the cake?”
While Eva and Olesya were busy putting decorations up around the apartment, Grace, Carl, and Yáo were in the kitchen, baking up a concoction.
(Or, as Grace had dubbed it, a con-cake-tion).
(Why, yes! He is aware of how funny he is. Thank you).
Grace had figured that it couldn’t be that difficult. Baking was a science, after all. If you thought about it hard enough, baking was essentially chemistry dressed up as a comforting hobby. For instance, there was precision hidden beneath making the batter, much like mixing a solution in the laboratory. Stir a solution too aggressively or for too long and you could alter crystallization, destabilize compounds, or introduce unwanted reactions. Batter behaved in a similar manner. The longer you mix the cake batter, the more you force the gluten strands to stretch and bind, making it less tender and delicate and more so stubbornly chewy. Almost like bread. And that’s not to mention the unsightly air pockets. And so on.
Given that chemistry was essentially Grace’s bread and butter (and, perhaps more importantly, this cake was going to be for Rocky), this should be a no-brainer.
And it was!
…Almost, at least.
The apartment kitchen itself was a disaster. Every surface was dusted with flour, as if winter break had come too early. The floor, the countertops, the cabinets. Everything. Numerous cracked eggshells and butter wrappers were scattered across the workspace. Frosting was smudged in places that it definitely shouldn’t be, waiting to stick to unfortunate victims.
But despite the destruction surrounding them, the cake itself was… actually looking pretty good.
At least to everybody else.
Carl looked at the two layers sitting on the cooling rack in awe. “I can’t decide if I’m impressed or afraid of you,” he said to Grace.
Grace doesn’t hear this. He was crouched slightly to analyze the layers at eye-level, his attention not taking any distractions. He was about as meticulous as this process as he was in the laboratory. “They’re uneven.”
Yáo looked over from where he was doing the dishes. “Ovens aren’t one-hundred percent perfect. It happens,” he tried to assure him.
A systematic error.
Grace grunted. He stands up to see if the unevenness was noticeable from afar. And he might be insane for saying this, but it definitely was. At least to him.
He rests both of his hands on the table and exhales in defeat.
“Hey,” Carl said, patting him lightly on the back. “It’s alright, man. We’ll be covering it up with the frosting, anyway. It won’t be that obvious later.”
Grace slowly looked up, the light coming back to his eyes.
Carl was right!
“Oh, you genius,” Grace said. He could almost pull him into a hug right now—or maybe later when they weren’t covered in ingredients.
Carl grins as he clapped his hands. “Alright, let’s get to work.”
Grace does the same. “Let’s get to work.”
And so, they do.
After hours of scraping, debating, and re-scraping frosting, the apartment kitchen had finally gone quiet.
Now, all three men were crouching to inspect every detail of the cake. Of course, they knew that it didn’t have the elegance that store-bought cakes had. But for a first attempt at baking, it may as well have been a damn masterpiece.
Chocolate frosting, which they had colored into a dark navy blue, covered the cake layers in soft, uneven spirals. Meanwhile, green buttercream bordered the bottom part of the cake.
(What border design was it, you may ask? The three of them wouldn’t know. They had simply stolen the first result on Pinterest and mimicked it to the best of their abilities. And yes, they did that without following any instructions. But they’d done a fairly good job, they’d say).
(Anyway, they digress).
Tiny stars and dots were scattered across the cake. On the sides, the top, the border, and so on. They had also added a bit of edible glitter because Yáo suggested that it looked like space dust. He was right, of course. Grace had almost wanted to hug him, too.
Then lastly, Grace wrote a birthday greeting on the top part of the cake, each letter carefully designed to look like a constellation. The greeting itself was a simple, “Happy Birthday, Rocky!”. Nothing too insane.
And, for the final touch, Grade drew a rock-shaped, legged ‘alien’ beside Rocky’s name. It wasn’t the ‘little green man’ that people typically assumed aliens would look like. But the design was more like him, which mattered more, at least to Grace, at the end of the day.
After a moment, Grace stood up and let out a long, satisfied exhale. “Gentlemen,” he said seriously. “You might want to sit down for this.”
Carl and Yáo immediately steadied, preparing themselves for whatever instruction Grace was going to give. He had probably seen some detail in the cake that needed revision, they assumed.
But then, Grace announced,
“We’re fathers.”
Yáo blinked once.
Carl, on the other hand, completely lost it, laughter breaking out of him all at once.
Grace couldn’t help himself from grinning too, as straight as he wanted to come off. “No, seriously! We made this together. That makes us its parents.”
Yáo, who was still taking his words seriously it seemed, said, “…But you did most of the labor.”
This statement makes Grace absolutely lose it, too. “Okay, maybe,” he tried to say, but the words kept breaking apart with laughter. “But you guys held my hands through it like the wonderful fathers you are.”
The kitchen dissolved into exhausted laughter. It was the kind of laughter that came after doing something for what felt like forever and finally making a huge breakthrough.
After they’ve recovered, Carl leaned against the counter. “Okay,” he said, “I have a serious question, though.”
Grace looked at him. “Yeah?”
“Clearly, you thought hard about what this party is going to look like, so,” he nodded towards the cake. “Why space?”
Yáo glanced up, too. He was also curious.
Grace’s expression shifted almost immediately. He wasn’t embarrassed, exactly, but the idea was based on a fond memory that he hadn’t recounted out loud before.
Grace and Rocky had gone grocery shopping one evening because they needed to get ingredients for ramen.
(Which ended up being insanely delicious that Grace, admittedly, still fantasized about it to this day. Although, that was true for anything that Rocky prepared, if he were to be honest).
(But that wasn’t what this was about).
The trip itself had been remarkably unremarkable in the way their time together often was nowadays. They had fallen into that rare kind of intimacy where conversation no longer needed direction. They could talk for hours about everything and nothing at the same time, and it would still be the most important conversation to Grace, anyway.
But when they were walking on the way back to the apartment, the plastic grocery bags swinging lightly from their wrists with every step, Grace heard the footsteps beside him come to a stop.
Grace immediately stopped on his tracks too, halfway through forming a sentence to ask Rocky what was wrong. But then, he noticed that Rocky was looking up at the sky.
He does this too. And he realized that Rocky wasn’t just looking up at the sky. He was looking at the stars.
Grace didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first. The sky was unevenly lit, as it had been for the longest time. A person might look up and say that the stars were disappearing, but this wasn’t scientifically accurate. At least not fully. It was more so that the stars were being drowned out, and, as usual, humans were to blame for that. But this has been true for the longest time.
But then, Rocky started talking. He didn’t start with anything technical, no mention of engineering or spacecraft or anything grounded in what he studied. Instead, he talked about how strange it was that the sky used to be full of stars. How people used to navigate by them. How he often got lost in the questions in his head when he was a kid, eager to know if there was anything out there in the universe. How those thoughts hummed him to sleep every night.
Yet now, most people couldn’t even see them.
Rocky talked about how easy it was for humans to take things away without really noticing. Not out of malice, necessarily, but out of convenience and out of this constant need to control. And in doing so, something that had used to be vast and extraordinary had to be weakened. He didn’t say any of this accusingly, but there was a definite sadness seeping through his words, anyway.
He had paused after that, as if he were checking whether his thoughts had stopped there.
But they didn’t.
Because this idea of saving the stars, when he had finally approached it, wasn’t as abstract or distant as it initially seemed, after all. They could reduce excess light in areas where it didn’t need to be. They could design systems that allowed darkness to exist again, maybe. They had the knowledge and technology for it. They only needed the right people.
And maybe then, the stars could return to the places where they had been lost, per se.
And maybe then, another child in another part of the world could look up to them and find the same sense of solace that he had felt years ago.
Eventually, they started walking again. But just before they entered their apartment building, Rocky looked up one more time as if he were waiting for some sign from the universe that matters could change.
Of course, it didn’t come.
Grace didn’t know what to make of the conversation at the time. He had listened attentively to every word, as he always did with Rocky. He had felt the need to fix the situation because he understood the weight of sadness that Rocky had felt on his shoulders that night. And he wanted to do everything he could to perhaps take that away. Yet he couldn’t quite figure out how, at least not through the means that were accessible to him at this point in time.
But a few days ago, when Grace was up at 2 o’clock in the morning and intricately planning every detail of this party, he had an epiphany.
Neither Grace nor Rocky could save the stars. At least not yet. But Grace could bring the stars closer to him.
“Awwww!”
Grace blinked, abruptly snapping out of his thoughts. He’d drifted far deeper into that memory than he had meant to that he didn’t even get to answer the question!
And he hadn’t noticed that Olesya was standing in the kitchen now, too.
“Congratulations on the newborn child!” Olesya exclaimed, leaning towards the cake. “It already has plenty personality inherited from you three. Yáo’s handsome sense of structure. Carl’s easygoing wit. And Grace’s…” She pretends to trail off in thought. “…Well, is definitely not straight.”
“Ha-ha,” Grace fake laughed, his eyes tipping toward the ceiling.
Eva also stepped into the kitchen. “That is actually not that bad,” she grinned softly, nodding towards the cake. “Great job.”
But before the three of them could express their ‘thank yous’ (This was a huge moment. Eva Stratt was not easy to impress.), she glanced at her watch. “…But unfortunately, we have to move. Rocky gets home in an hour.”
Grace looked up at the wall clock.
Oh, shit.
Rocky was going to be home in an hour!
…And their kitchen was still a disaster!
With that, everybody in the apartment shifted into motion.
After roughly fifty minutes of Eva directing everybody through the cleanup and everybody being too terrified of her to complain, the apartment did not look like an accident at a bakery anymore.
Silver curtains were hung up on the walls of their apartment as strips of green crepe paper and star banners circled the ceiling fan. Balloons were scattered across the now flour-less floor, most of them clustering together in the corners of the room as some aimlessly drifted away. But that added to the charm, they supposed. The various bottles of alcohol and stacks of paper cups crowded the kitchen counter. And at the center of it all sat the birthday cake. Their ridiculous little space child.
Eva stood near the living room with her arms crossed, critically looking around the apartment for any necessary last-minute alterations. “Okay,” she announced to everybody. “Final announcements.”
Everybody shifted. It was a conditioned response at that point.
“Yáo, make sure that everything in the kitchen is ready,” Eva started. “Carl, be ready to turn off the lights once you hear the footsteps.”
Eva had probably said more, but Grace was too stuck in his thoughts to hear it.
Every detail he’d spent the last few days obsessing over suddenly looked painfully visible to him now that the clock was ticking. The decorations suddenly felt excessive. The banners hanging from the ceiling fan suddenly seemed too bright. The cake, which seemed warm and thoughtful an hour ago, had started to look uneven again in a way he could not stop noticing.
Grace could feel these thoughts spread into a nervous ache in his chest. Was he going to throw up?
Okay, okay.
He needed to calm down.
Why had he planned this party again?
His eyes drifted back toward the cake. From afar, he could still see the silver glitter shimmering under the warm lights of their apartment.
The space dust.
That’s right.
Grace planned this party because he couldn’t stop thinking about how Rocky had looked under the night sky. He remembered the fragments of light softly caressing the edges of Rocky’s face. It was a breathtaking sight. Grace couldn’t deny that. He had almost felt jealous that the lights could touch him in a way that he couldn’t. Perhaps if he were braver, he would have kissed him then and there.
Yet the memory felt strange to hold onto now because the beauty of it was tied to something tragic. The light touching Rocky’s face hadn’t been sent down by the cosmos. It was the reflection of street-lamps, apartment windows, grocery store signs, the very sources of his grief. And Grace had remembered thinking how unfair that was. Rocky loved the universe in this deeply sincere, aching way. He deserved more than the cheap lights of a city that had stolen the sky from him.
Of course, neither the starches in the edible glitter nor the metallic foil stars hanging from their ceiling could replace the real thing. But maybe it could help Rocky feel close to them for a while.
And suddenly, the ache in his chest wasn’t there anymore.
“Grace.”
He blinked.
Olesya was now sitting beside him on the living room floor, staring at him with narrowed eyes while he remained halfway lost in thought. How long has she been there?!
“Do you not know how to tap people on the shoulder?”
“I can!” Olesya does just that. Definitely more forceful than it needed to be. “See?”
Grace grins despite himself.
“Anyway, you clearly have a lot on mind seeing that you have not moved for ten minutes.”
“I’m not–” Grace attempted to protest.
Olesya raised a brow.
Grace realized that it was ridiculous to lie.
Olesya continued. “But I want you to know you did good.” And for once, there was no trace of sarcasm in her words at all. There was only sincerity—a kind, assuring sincerity. “Apartment looks great, cake looks great, stupid lime balloons do complement everything better.”
Grace jokingly tipped his eyes to the ceiling.
Olesya grinned back at him. “You did good, Grace,” she nudged him lightly. “Rocky is going to love it.”
Grace faintly grinned back. It was slightly startling. He wasn’t used to this side of her. But as much as they unabashedly argued about trivial matters, he knew in himself that they cared about each other. He knew that, despite everything, they wouldn’t let each other spiral alone in the corner even if they framed it like an insult right after.
“Anyway,” Olesya patted him on the shoulder, already standing up. “Maybe you can repay us for hard work by finally getting laid tonight, yeah?”
Whoomp, there it is.
“Everyone.”
The entire apartment stills, immediately turning to Carl, who was whisper-shouting by the door.
“…He’s here.”
Suddenly, everybody shifted into a panicked motion again.
Carl turned off the lights and rushed to hide behind the couch, where everybody had already positioned themselves. They could all hear the footsteps approaching the door, gradually getting louder. Meanwhile, Grace could feel his heartbeat pick up again in a way that annoyed him immediately. You’ve talked yourself through this already! Stop!
The footsteps then stopped.
There was a brief silence, and then the rattling of keys as they were being lifted up to the lock.
Grace realized that he was holding his breath. And that there was somebody rubbing circles on his back. It was probably Carl. He didn’t have the mental strength right now to think about it.
And then the door handle turned with a click.
And then it opened.
Rocky stepped inside with his backpack hanging off one shoulder, head tilted downward slightly as he tried to put the keys back in his pocket without dropping them. The apartment beyond him stayed dark except for the light coming in from the hallway.
For a second, he didn’t notice anything. He had merely walked towards the light switch as he normally did whenever he got home.
But then, the lights snapped on.
“SURPRISE!”
The apartment instantly erupted into noise and movement, everybody jumping up from behind the couch. Definitely not in a coordinated manner. But, hey, it did the job.
Rocky’s entire body nearly jumped back as his brain tried to catch up to what he was seeing. “What–? What on Earth–?!” Rocky stuttered, but it immediately dissolved into surprised laughter. “What is all this?”
Everybody was either laughing, trying to explain what was happening, or both. Olesya was shouting ‘happy birthday, nerd!’ at the exact same time that Eva was trying to tell everybody to stop screaming over each other.
Rocky’s eyes widened slowly as he took it all in. “All of you planned this party for me?”
“Well, we helped,” Olesya corrected, already side-eyeing Grace. “But your horribly persistent roommate here did heavy lifting.”
Grace’s heart was still pounding. He may as well have been just as startled as Rocky was. This moment that he had been bracing himself for days was finally unfolding in front of him, and no amount of mental preparation could have ever softened the fall. “I– I was not–”
“He made a spreadsheet,” Eva said, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.
“Are we never going to let go of the spreadsheet? Grace protested, trying to distract himself from the pain in his chest.
“We were at grocery store for two hours,” Olesya immediately argued. “And twenty minutes of that was Grace picking balloons and decorations!”
Rocky’s attention immediately shifted. He looked around the apartment, registering the stars hanging on the ceiling, the lime green balloons, the curtains. And then, finally, the cake.
“…Wait,” Rocky said, an almost childlike wonder spreading across his face. “Party is… space-themed?”
“That was also his doing,” Yáo said, pointing at Grace. “And he never bothered to tell us why.”
The room kept moving around them. Everybody was laughing at another joke that somebody made, probably at Grace’s expense.
(Again).
But Grace barely registered any of it anymore. Every bit of his attention was directed at Rocky, who had gone completely still right in front of the cake. Grace watched him from across the room as he tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing as he traced every detail. His gaze moved across the bordered base of the cake. And then to the uneven frosting and the clusters of ‘stars’ scattered across the surface. And then to the greeting, which was obviously in Grace’s handwriting. And then the stupid, tiny rock alien.
And as if something had clicked in his mind, Rocky’s eyes landed on him.
Grace could feel the heat crawl up at the back of his neck almost instantly, his heart still anxiously thumping against his rib cage in the way that it always did whenever he was around Rocky.
But there was something different.
Grace doesn’t know if it was merely his brain deceiving him. But he could swear that Rocky’s expression had delicately shifted the moment their eyes found each other. There was a deep and aching sort of affection in his glance as if he had let his guard down for once. And then his lips, oh, his lips had parted slightly, as if he had also wanted Grace then and there as much as Grace had wanted him.
Grace exhaled.
With a look like that, he might as well drop dead in the middle of this room.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Olesya interjected, barely able to contain her excitement. Of course, she was already holding a bottle of vodka by the neck. “We party!”
It didn’t take long for the party to be in full swing.
Their initial guest list primarily consisted of friends from Rocky and Olesya’s engineering classes. But then other people from other colleges that nobody in their friend group had even heard of before suddenly spawned.
Word of the party got around fast, it seemed.
Apart from that, loud music and shouting conversations thumped through the walls so heavily that the entire apartment was shaking, almost.
There were people doing karaoke in the living room. Most of them were off-key. Or barely singing the lyrics correctly. Or both, mostly. Except for Eva, of course.
There was also a large crowd playing Flip Cup in the kitchen, which was, of course, not-so-strictly facilitated by Olesya. But there were also a few people who merely wanted to converse and had mostly decided to stay out of the chaos.
Grace had stood in the corner for the most part, quietly drinking out of his paper cup and talking only when he was spoken to. But even then, he wasn’t necessarily ‘there’ himself.
For the most part, his eyes lingered wherever Rocky was without even realizing it. And he was pretty sure that other guests in the party had fallen under that trance, too. When Rocky told a story, everybody leaned in a bit closer as if his words had their own gravitational force. When he made even so much as an off-hand joke, everybody erupted into laughter. And when he listened, he looked at you with such attention that it made you feel that every sentence mattered, even the ones that weren’t fully realized.
Grace was by no means a poet, but perhaps the most compelling way that he could put it was that Rocky was the sun. He lit up the room. He made you feel warm. And he had a strong, gravitational force that pulled people in. Grace, on the other hand, was merely another planet, constantly revolving around him but never getting quite close enough.
Okay, dumbass.
That’s enough alcohol for you tonight.
Grace digresses. He was not built to be the center of that kind of noise—the party, particularly. It wasn’t his kind of crowd.
Thus, after about an hour of standing awkwardly in the corner, he drifted away without announcing it and he found himself sitting on the floor of his bedroom, his back leaning against the mattress. Time passed in uneven stretches, moments of quiet thought interrupted by louder bursts from outside. He stared at nothing in particular, checking his phone aimlessly from time to time.
All of a sudden, Grace heard thumping on his door.
He had considered ignoring it. The person on the other side was probably drunk enough to forget why they came here in the first place. Or maybe that person thought it was the bathroom, and he definitely didn’t want to deal with that.
But then the knocking became insistent.
And Grace knew that rhythm like the back of his hand.
Without his mind even telling him to, he got up and opened the door as fast as he can. And as he had expected (or wanted, if he were to be more honest), Rocky was standing outside of the door.
And he was definitely drunk.
Well, not fully drunk in the collapsing sense, but clearly past the point of complete steadiness. His face was slightly flushed. His hair was a bit more disheveled than usual. “Oh,” Rocky said warmly, as if he hadn’t expected that Grace would actually appear behind the door. “There you are.”
…There you are?
Has he been looking for him?
Grace could feel his chest start up again, the ache intensifying almost immediately. “Here I am,” he managed, trying to seem cool. “Hi.”
…What the hell was that?
You’ve been yearning for this man the entire night and that was all you could come up with?!
But then, Rocky paused, as if he hadn’t expected to get this far either. “…Hi,” he finally said before stepping inside. “I– I come in.”
Grace noticed that he moved a little slower than usual. He wasn’t necessarily stumbling, but it was apparent that his body had to consciously think about coordinating itself. He shut the door and the room settled again into a muffled silence, as it was before. Rocky looked around briefly before lowering himself onto the floor beside the bed, where Grace had been situated moments ago. Grace sat down beside him a second later, resting his back lightly against the mattress.
Neither of them said anything for a while. Rocky stretched his legs out slightly in front of him as he let out a long exhale, as if arriving here had taken all his physical strength. And, hey, who could blame him? Alcohol does that.
But after a while, Grace finally turned to look at him. And even under the light coming from the desk lamp, Rocky was still unfairly handsome.
Fuck, he couldn’t get himself together. “…So, twenty-two,” he tried to start, cutting through the silence between them. “How does it feel?”
Rocky looked back at him, and his eyes were somehow still filled with the affection they carried hours ago, when he was first looking at the cake. “…Strange,” he admitted. “It is like I’m supposed to feel different, but I am mostly only conscious of the fact that I am supposed to feel different.”
Grace hummed. “That seems right.”
Rocky laughed softly. “But it is strange. There’s an uncomfortable difference between becoming older and becoming accomplished. And I realized tonight that I am afraid that I might be only doing one of those things successfully.”
Grace’s attention fully snapped. He wasn’t sure if he just wasn’t observant enough. But, to him, Rocky had always seemed like the kind of person who moved through life with more certainty than everybody else around him. He talked to strangers easily. He marched to the beat of his own drum. He always said what was on his mind. He was never afraid to try new things. And even tonight, Grace had spent most of the party watching people naturally gravitate towards him.
…And yet.
Rocky continues. “There are still many, many things that I want, but I’m becoming increasingly aware of how long it is actually going to take for me to get them. And the worst part is that everybody seems to think that we’re young and we have all the time in the world.” Rocky lingers on that thought for a second, as if he were turning it again and again in his head.
“Maybe that is objectively true, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. The things that I want feel much larger than life itself. And I am afraid that I won’t live long enough to reach them, or to see if they’re any good at all.” He paused again.
And then finally, Rocky exhaled. “The time we do have… It’s not enough.”
Grace looked at him, and suddenly, a realization swept through him, rushing to his head until he felt almost lightheaded with it.
Grace already knew that he had fallen for Rocky. Of course, he had tried to deny it at first as he did with any complicated, terrifyingly all-consuming feelings. But then, once Grace had accepted it, he realized that it was simple.
Rocky was the sun.
And who doesn’t like a bright, warm day?
But sitting here with him and listening to him unravel to reveal his every dread, his every worst fear, Grace realized that his reasons were far simpler, far more intimate than he initially thought.
Grace didn’t just like how Rocky made him feel. He loved him because, despite everything, he was just as human as he was. Rocky carried all this uncertainty inside himself and still chose to care deeply, anyway. Rocky was brave. And that, in turn, made Grace want to be brave, too.
But before Grace could structure his thoughts in any meaningful manner, anything that could help ease the apprehension weighing on his mind, Rocky began to talk again. “…But I went looking for you because this party helped me make sense of something,” he said.
“Yeah? …What is it?” Grace said, the words coming out heavier than he had expected.
Grace wasn’t sure if his brain was deceiving him once more, but Rocky’s eyes were quietly traveling over his face as if they were memorizing his every detail. “If time truly is not enough,” he said. “…Then I think I have to stop being afraid of the things that I want most.”
Then, it was as if time itself had stilled around them, the noise from the party outside completely dissipating. And for a moment, a moment so rapid that Grace wasn’t even sure if it happened at all, Rocky’s eyes had landed on his lips. And, it was such a small gesture, but Rocky let out a deep, heavy breath as his stare lingered. Grace badly, badly wanted to know what was running through his head.
Was this real?
Was this real?
Was this real?
Was Rocky nervous about this, too?
Did Rocky want this as much as he did, too?
And then, his eyes traveled back up to meet Grace’s. And suddenly, it was as if the distance between them was disappearing in increments. They were close enough that Grace could almost see every strand of his hair, his stubble, and every detail of his face. And then they were close enough that he could see the tattoo on his shoulder, hiding behind his collar but definitely there. And then they were close enough that he could feel the warmth of his breath.
And then…
…Rocky suddenly stopped short of him, before abruptly leaning back.
He retched.
“Oh, shit– shit– hold on,” Grace said, immediately recognizing what was happening.
Rocky had already leaned forward, one hand clumsily reaching out as Grace grabbed the trash can from underneath his desk, shoving it into position just in time. Rocky bent over it immediately, his shoulders tightening as he threw up into the trash can, breathing hard between spasms. Grace stayed close behind him, one hand carefully gathering Rocky’s hair, the other steadying the trash can.
“It’s okay,” Grace said gently. “I’m right here. Let it out.”
Rocky stayed on the bed, barely shifting anymore except for the rise and fall of his breathing. The worst of it had passed, and now, it was just exhaustion settling in the both them.
Grace walked back into the bedroom with a small glass of water and a clean towel.
He essentially had to fight for the towel because there were people probably—okay, fine, we’re all adults here—definitely going down on each other in the bathroom. Were their noises going to, unfortunately, reverberate in Grace’s head tomorrow morning as he’s scrubbing the bathroom floors clean?
Well, he didn’t want to think about that right now.
“Hey,” Grace quietly greeted, shutting the door behind him.
Rocky merely grunted in response.
Grace positioned himself on the edge of the bed, carefully helping Rocky sit up just enough for him to be able to drink. Rocky complied without protest, leaning into the movement more than actively performing it himself, as he held the glass for him.
When he finished drinking, Grace set the glass aside and reached for the damp towel. Grace shifted closer, one knee on the bed for balance, and gently wiped the corner of his mouth along his lower lip, where it had dried slightly. His movements were gentle without really meaning to be, instinctively careful in the same way they had also been while holding Rocky’s hair back earlier.
And that had been strangely intimate, too.
Helping somebody throw up into a trash can definitely didn’t fall into the conventional definition of intimacy, Grace supposed. And even less so was rinsing towels or steadying a person upright so that they wouldn’t fall sideways off the bed.
But he thought of it in that way, anyway.
Every second of it.
Because perhaps intimacy wasn’t always supposed to be graceful. Perhaps, sometimes, it looked like this instead, holding somebody together quietly while they unraveled.
Grace couldn’t help but ask himself,
Had Rocky felt the same way towards him before?
Unconsciously, Grace’s thumb traced softly against the corner of Rocky’s mouth as he adjusted the towel. Rocky had stayed completely still beneath the touch, his mouth curving into a faint grin.
“There, you’re looking better already.”
Rocky slowly looked up at him through tired, heavy-lidded eyes. And then, with what little strength he had left that night, he rolled them.
Grace grinned despite himself.
“Well, I think I’ll sleep down here,” Grace said, glancing at the floor. “You should take the bed.”
Rocky immediately frowned. “No.”
“It’s fine,” Grace reassured him. “I don’t think it’ll be that cold, and they say that floor time therapy is also good for adults, too, anyway–”
“Grace.”
“What?”
And with the most serious expression, Rocky said, “Sleep with me.”
Grace paused for a second, his chest once again being unhelpful as he tried not to overthink those words. This man said whatever he wanted, didn’t he?
Grace looked at him for another second before exhaling quietly. “Okay.” And then, as quietly as he could, he stood up, turned off the desk lamp, and slid into the empty side of the bed.
At first, Grace laid stiffly on his side, keeping a respectable amount of distance. He was suddenly hyperaware of everything. The rise and fall of his chest, the almost electrifying static between the two of them, the fact that this was happening at all.
But then, Rocky’s hand, almost absentmindedly, quietly moved across the sheets until his fingers touched Grace’s. For what felt like forever, they lingered. And then, finally, they weaved their hands together. They fitted naturally, as if they’d done it a hundred times before.
Grace wasn’t sure if it was because he was far too exhausted, too. Or if it was because what had almost happened on the floor had been so intense that it softened the fall for anything that could possibly come after. But his fingers instinctively tightened around Rocky’s in return.
Outside the room, the party still carried on in distant fragments. But it all felt impossibly far away at that moment. Grace’s bedroom had settled into its own, smaller world entirely.
Grace stared quietly into the dark for a while, thumb brushing absentmindedly against Rocky’s hand. And then, eventually, he let himself drift off too.
And although neither of them was awake to see it, the stars were, in fact, brighter that night.