Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (34 page)

“What do you think, Michael?”

I gave Jones a wild look. For a startling moment, I thought he could somehow see the craving in my face.

“I don’t know.”

My default answer was getting less impressive every day.

“Do you not think boundary issues affect your situation?”

“Uh. I don’t know.” I sounded like an idiot. Wincing, I looked down at the handout again. The words had transformed into meaningless symbols. “To be honest, I’m really not in a good mood right now and really want to get wasted.”

“Amen to that,” Drew muttered. A couple of people laughed, but not Jones.

“What’s happening, Michael?” he asked.

“Can I just—” I stood and put the paper on my chair. “Look, I’m sorry, I just need some air.”

Jones didn’t stop me when I hurried from the room, but I heard him ordering someone to give me some space. I appreciated it, but space wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a drink and 4mg of Xanax. I wanted to put a stop to the incessant merry-go-round of regretful thoughts in my brain.

Speed-walking through the common area and past the office, I shoved open the back door and stepped out onto the courtyard. The wind hit me like a sledgehammer in the chest, but everything slowed down and reset, my anxiety dialing back now that I could suck in breaths without worrying about trying to appear calm.

After several moments, I hunkered down and forced myself to reflect.

Had I freaked out because I needed to drink? No. But I wanted to drink because I’d freaked out. And I’d freaked out because my future with Nunzio looked bleak. And while stuck in the confines of the center, I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

February

B
EFORE
LEAVING
the center, I exchanged contact information with Jones. He offered to be my unofficial sponsor, and that didn’t sound like a terrible idea, especially since he continued to show interest in Raymond. It would be nice for him to have more support.

I returned to a house that looked cleaner than it had in months, and a room that Raymond had emptied of all pills and alcohol.

I walked from room to room and tried to figure out why things were so different. The biggest alterations were the absence of our mother’s porcelain saints and Jesus pictures, and the cleared out master bedroom. Raymond had removed the bed, and he’d lugged up workout equipment from the basement.

I’d avoided the room for the past year because it had reminded me too much of my mother, and then because it was where my father had died. Now the same heaviness didn’t swallow me up when I stepped over the threshold. It felt new.

“Nunzio helped me,” Raymond said. He stood in the middle of the room, looking around. “I told him it was driving me crazy, feeling like this room was off-limits, and it was spooking me nonstop, so we made some changes. You’re not pissed, are you?”

“No. Of course not.” I hadn’t even remembered that we had so much equipment downstairs. I’d been paying hundreds of dollars a year for a gym membership for no reason. “The house looks great, Ray. You’re turning out to be pretty useful.”

Raymond sat on the weight bench. “I know, right? Who’d have thought? Maybe soon I’ll get a real girlfriend and everything.”

“Or a boyfriend.”

“Shut up with that! Damn.” He flushed and became fascinated with a screw in the side of the bench. “You’re annoying.”

“What’s the big deal? You apparently watched me and Nunzio dry hump for
fifty hours
—”

“First off—it wasn’t that dry. Second—I did not watch.”

“And you went on a date with David….”

“Yo, if the dude wanted to buy me Italian food, who am I to say no?”

“Also,” I said, enjoying this more than I had any right to, “now that I think about it, you used to follow Nunzio around quite a bit.”

“Because he was like my brother!”

I laughed, the sound too loud in the quiet house, and only cracked up more when his ears turned bright red.

“I’m sorry, I’ll stop.”

“Uh-huh.” Raymond scowled. “I should have made your sorry ass walk from Queens Village.”

I tried to stop grinning and failed. “I swear, I’ll stop.”

Raymond swept his hand over the leather bench. “I feel funny not telling him you’re home.”

My smile wilted. “Don’t. Besides, it’s Friday night. He’s probably out partying.”

“True, but still. He was really worried about you. I don’t know what the deal is between you two, but you’re both getting on my nerves. I’m tired of running between y’all like a fucking messenger service.”

“You won’t have to anymore. I’m going to go see him myself in the morning.”

“Good. Your drama is stressing me out.”

“Oh, pobrecito.” I turned away from the transformed room. “Come downstairs and I’ll teach you how to make a damn pot of rice.”

It was the first time I’d spent an entire evening with my brother without getting annoyed or aggravated, and I listened with rapt interest when he talked about his new job. I wasn’t sure if it had been my father passing or my own downward spiral that had triggered Raymond’s change, but I was proud of him.

When I went to bed in my room for the first time in a month, I felt optimistic, but it didn’t last.

My thoughts turned to Nunzio and all the things I wanted to say. Trying to figure out the right words kept me up for more than half the night, and I got out of bed before sunrise.

I couldn’t wait anymore. I needed to know where we stood.

I
T
WAS
six o’clock on a Saturday, which meant the likelihood of Nunzio being awake was nil. I tapped a light rhythm on his door and waited. Several seconds went by without a hint of noise inside the apartment.

I wondered if someone else was inside with him—wrapped up in those long, strong arms and crushed against his chest. If so, I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t even want to know. Or worse, maybe he wasn’t home. Maybe he was dating someone and he was sleeping at their house, a rare occurrence that usually meant it was going in a direction that was uncommon for Nunzio.

I knocked again, louder this time, and clenched my teeth until I heard the rustle of footsteps on the other side of the door. There was a slight pause before the locks unbolted, and then, for the first time in weeks, Nunzio was in front of me, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs.

My heart swelled at the sight of him, but I stopped myself from striding forward and yanking him into an embrace. I stopped myself from saying anything at all. I just took in his sleepy, tousled form, the heavy-lidded eyes and the slight purse of his mouth, the line between his brows, and wondered if he would ask me to leave.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were out?” he asked, not moving from the center of the door.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

Nunzio’s eyes raked over my body before settling on my face. His inscrutable expression didn’t shift.

“Look, if you’re not alone—”

“I am.”

“Okay….” Relief flooded me, but it didn’t wash away my uncertainty. “Did you get the message I left you?”

“Yeah. I did.”

I almost asked why he’d never called me, but I bit down on the question. He didn’t owe me answers. He’d stood by me without inserting himself. Watching out for Raymond, asking about me, and helping to take care of the house. I was the one who needed to explain.

“I know you’re pissed at me,” I said after a beat of tense silence. “And I deserve it. I was a dick to you and made dick moves.”

Nunzio’s mouth twitched.

“But if you would just talk to me—if you’d give me a chance—”

“Mikey, it’s too early to be having this conversation. I went to bed less than two hours ago. Can we do this later?”

The jumbled apology clogged in my throat, and I took an automatic step back. He grabbed the front of my coat.

“You can come in, but we can talk later if you want to wait.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Some of the tension melted from my body, and I followed him inside. He detoured to his bedroom, and there was an immediate sound of bedsprings creaking. I didn’t go in, and he didn’t invite me, so I slunk to the living room and sat on the couch with a head full of questions and doubts.

He’d only gotten in a couple of hours ago? Where had he been? Partying with friends? Or had he been fucking someone else? Him being alone this morning didn’t mean he’d been celibate for the past month.

I told myself to sleep while he slept, and to rest my racing thoughts so I wasn’t high-strung and on edge when he woke, but it was a lost cause. I paced his apartment as the sun came up and felt like an intruder because it had been so long.

The sun barely managed to stream through the heavy curtains to illuminate the tidy living room and kitchen, but I still looked for clues to what he had been up to for the past couple of months.

I found none.

After an hour, I dropped onto the couch and shut my eyes. With willpower alone, I managed to doze for a few minutes and woke up a while later to the same stillness and quiet. Unable to stop myself any longer, I crossed the distance to his bedroom and moved silently toward his bed.

I had intended to merely wake him, but I wound up toeing off my shoes and slipping into the bed beside him. We weren’t touching, but he was near enough for me to absorb the warmth of his body and to inhale his scent. I let the comfort of his closeness lure me into a doze.

When I awoke for the second time, it could not have been more than an hour later. Nunzio had rolled onto his stomach beside me. A single ray of sunlight had broken through the curtains and streamed down to his lean back like a beacon.

I couldn’t stop drinking him in and wanted so badly to touch him that my body ached for it. The comforter was caught at the small of his back and exposing enough flesh to make my hands twitch. The golden streak of sunlight highlighted a splash of freckles across his shoulders and a faded scar on the back of his neck from a badly aimed Roman candle on a Fourth of July nearly twenty years ago. I remembered the day like it was yesterday, and the way I’d clung to him after, apologetic and teary-eyed for accidentally hurting my best friend.

Our lives had been intertwined for so long that I’d begun to take for granted just how much I needed him. I’d never acknowledged the quiet relief I’d felt each time he refused to settle down in a steady relationship, or the times I had absently compared myself to his lovers to see if they measured up.

Now I could think back, without denial, and identify how frequently I’d gravitated to him for comfort or affection. Like the weekend before school started when I’d stood over his sleeping form and had stopped pretending I didn’t want him even if I’d still been ignoring how deep my feelings ran.

But I was done fighting it.

If he didn’t want me, he would tell me, but for now I couldn’t deny my body’s need to be close.

I stretched out alongside him, and pressed a palm to his back, sliding it up in one glide. He stirred, inhaling deeper, and rolled onto his side facing the window. I closed my fingers around his shoulder and shook lightly, but he had already fallen back asleep, his breathing deep and rhythmic.

I slid beneath the comforter and aligned the full length of my front with his hard back. My body was already reacting to the feel of him, dick semihard in my sweatpants, but I only wanted to be next to him, to refamiliarize myself with this gorgeous man who was my best friend, my family, and sometime lover. I matched my breathing to his, the knots and tangles of my nerves evening out.

My fingers glided through the silky darkness of his hair, moving it away from his neck. I looked at the scar again, the evidence of another time when I’d been too careless with him, and kissed it. The combination of his taste and the feel of his warm skin unfurled desire within me, and I plastered myself to him.

I dragged the rough flat of my tongue over his neck and sealed my lips around the mark. I sucked a bruise into it with enough pressure to elicit a soft moan from Nunzio. Again he stirred, but this time the curve of his ass ground back on my cock with perfect precision. I grasped his hip and slid my hand around to fan out my fingers over his abdomen, guiding him back with gentle motions. He began rocking, still asleep but falling into the rhythm.

I dragged my teeth along the new mark and bit lightly.

The sound it drew out of him was louder, huskier, and followed by a softly moaned, “Mikey….”

My heart hammered my ribcage. I stopped holding back.

I kissed down, attached my mouth to the junction between his neck and shoulder, and sucked. I rocked harder and slid my hand down and between his muscular thighs. His dick was like an iron rod in my hand. I pumped it through the thin material, and he awoke with a groan mingled with a confused exhalation that sounded a lot like my name.

Nunzio twisted his arm back to clutch a handful of my hair, wrenching my mouth away from his shoulder. I panted, feeling caught and desperate. When he turned his face toward me, I attacked his mouth without waiting to see if he wanted it. For a flicker of a moment he didn’t respond, enough of a pause for me to notice the tension in his body, but then his hand clenched in my hair and his tongue slicked against mine. Hot, wet, sloppy—I was a man starved and begging for more through breathless gasps and wordless pleas.

He pulled away only long enough to roll over, pinning me to the bed with his full weight and tonguing me so thoroughly I short-circuited. My brain filled with white noise. I was a clean slate filled with a base desire to be touched, kissed, and fucked by Nunzio.

I arched into him, letting him feel how hard I was, how much I wanted him, but his mouth ripped away again. I knew he was still angry with me; I could feel it in the violent grip of his hands and see it in the glitter of his vivid blue eyes when they opened.

Even if he later told me we couldn’t be together, I wanted him one last time.

Nunzio sat up on his knees and dragged me with him, hand twisting in my collar. I nearly choked when he pulled, almost ripping it, before tossing my shirt to the side. I hadn’t fully recovered when he yanked me in for another searing kiss. His hand at the back of my neck gripped hard, as did the one sliding down my baggy sweatpants to squeeze one of my asscheeks. He clutched it, dragging the blunt edge of his fingernails along the soft flesh, and then swatted it hard enough for me to flinch.