I don’t know how long I sat there watching him. Long enough that my pulse returned to a semi-normal level. The outline of his body, hard and intense, contrasted beautifully against the city.
Then he called out, “You gonna hide back there, or come help me drink this beer?”
Feeling embarrassed, I stood up and approached. Even though I was nowhere near the edge, I clung to the railing as if a gust of wind might suddenly sweep me to my death.
I stopped next to him. The edge was five feet away, which wasfartoo close for my comfort. “You’re not mad I followed you?”
“Oh, I am,” he said while staring out at the skyline. “Go on. Ask it.”
“Ask what?”
“The question you came here to ask.” He turned, his intense gaze colliding with mine.
“I shouldn’t have disturbed you. I’ll leave you alone.”
“No,” he said before I could walk away. He bit off every word through gritted teeth. “Ask. It.”
I swallowed hard. Now I felt twice as embarrassed.
“Why do you run off like this after every show?” I asked. “Do you always come to the roof?”
Riot didn’t answer at first. He patted the ground next to him, and I sat cross-legged. He held out the beer to me. It was cold and crisp and biting.
“What do you know about me?” he asked.
“Not much. I just met you.”
“You didn’t internet-stalk me? Or look at my Wikipedia page?”
“I might have glanced at it. But that was mostly because I was curious how old you are.”
“Do you know about my brother?”
“No,” I replied.
He nodded, took the beer back, and gazed out at the distant city. “His name was Teddy. He was a year older than me. Irish twins.”
“Teddy?” I tried not to laugh. “I don’t want to offend you, but as far as names go? Teddy is the polar opposite of Riot.”
He chuckled softly. “No kidding. We used to joke about how Teddy was the son they put all their hopes and dreams into, while I was the afterthought. With a name like Riot, they thought I was going to be a little demon.”
“It sounds like it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that you became a rock star.”
“Yeah.” There was enough moonlight out that I could see him smile. “Teddy loved getting into places where he wasn’t allowed. It was his favorite hobby anytime we went out. It started with employee break rooms at grocery stores, but eventually he fell in love with roofs. Whenever we were in a new building, he was constantly looking up. Searching for a way onto the roof. One time, after prom, we took our dates out to eat at Chili’s. This was back before I was a cool guitar player.”
“Obviously.”
“So there’s eight of us sitting at a table at Chili’s, trying to work up the nerve to try to order alcohol. Teddy disappears. His date doesn’t know where he went, and he’s not answering his phone. Eventually we paid the bill and left, and when we walked out to our car…”
“He was on the roof?”
“He was on the roof!” Riot gestured with the beer bottle. “Shivering up there in his tuxedo, waving and grinning like he’d accomplished the impossible. His date never talked to him again, but Teddy didn’t care. Climbing roofs was his thing. A fun little quirk. I asked him about it one day, and he explained thathe always got a really unique perspective from a roof. That the world looked different up there, and made all his problems seem small.”
“That’s great advice,” I said, sweeping my gaze out across the city. “Teddy sounds like a good brother.”
“Yeah,” Riot said softly. “He was.”
Was.
