Head 01 Hot Head (20 page)

Griff was shaky enough to register the hurt, watching his father rustling around a garden that would never bloom. As if his anger and grief were too wild to

keep trapped, Griff felt his terrible confession gathering on the tip of his dry tongue.

- Rustle - Crickle - Fustle -

Mr. Muir had the bag of bulbs open and was peering inside to fish around as if he might find a Cracker Jack prize inside.

Saying anything about the porn was the worst thing Griff could do, and God, he wanted to. Hel, his dad would beat the hel out of anyone just for saying the

word “masturbation” under his roof. That his worthless son had done the unspeakable with that asshole Dante would only make it worse.

Griff knew how much his old man resented the Anastagios, their loud energy and warmth and laughter. It was an irrational loathing Mr. Muir couldn’t admit

to, even though he’d been content to abandon his teenaged son into their care. They were just everything he was not.

Griff tried to imagine the rage and the relief his father would feel at finaly being able to disown his only kid and haunt this house alone.

Squeeeeeeeeee
. Inside the kitchen, the kettle wailed on the stove. Griff managed to swalow his anger al the way back down.

“Oatmeal’s on.” Griff was halfway to the door already. “You should eat. Can I make you a bowl, Pop?”

His dad shook his gray head. “Nah. Your mother wil make me something before I go.”

Griff blinked and slid his eyes away quickly.
Pfft
. Any HotHeaded, homosexual confessions snuffed right out.

Whatever his dad was doing inside his own head was worse than any punishment Griff could inflict. He tugged the door open and got his ass inside before his

dad went on or explained any further about his mom or his marriage or any other morbid topics.

He thought about what Dante would say if he’d witnessed that in the back yard.

Time to go, genius
.

He could almost imagine Dante’s clean profile watching in comic horror from the window, Dante yanking the door open and teling him to leave the fucking

oatmeal and run for the exit.

Griff would pick up a paper today and start looking for an apartment nearby. That or put his head in an oven. Having no family at al and living like a monk

would be better than this.

Keep back at least two hundred feet.

Griff turned off the stove but left the water to cool on its own. He headed to the front door to pick up his jacket. He wished he could go hang at Dante’s, but after yesterday that seemed iffy, even dangerous. He didn’t have to be at the Stone Bone til six. He decided to walk over to Ferdinando’s for an early lunch by himself. If they weren’t open, he’d wait on the bench out front. He could buy a paper on the way to check the classifieds under “last-minute escapes.”

IN THE morning, when Griff got to the station and went to shower, Tommy was in there getting dressed by himself. Griff was weirdly glad that the paramedic’s

pants were already on, even if the front yawned in an open Y, showing his fuzzy bely. At a foot shorter, he had to literaly look up to have a conversation.

“Hey, Griff.” Tommy nodded at him and put his foot on the bench so he could tie his running shoes.

“Dobsky.” Griff made sure he smiled back and kept his face steady. “You just getting off?”

“Hardly.” Tommy laughed and switched feet.

Griff realized how that had sounded.
Shit.
“For the day, I mean.”

“For sure.” Tommy was just playing along like always. Dirty jokes were a regular deal. He grunted and finished with his shoes. His feet were as stubby and

square as the rest of him. He squatted in front of his locker. At the base of his spine, a little patch of sandy fluff peeked over his waistband.

He’s like a bear cub.
Griff realized he was watching Tommy’s body and raised his eyes quickly.
Jeez! Get a grip, asshole!
He didn’t feel any attraction for the stocky paramedic, but because of what he’d seen, he felt a kind of protective sympathy; they faced the same dragon.

At least Tommy didn’t seem to notice the attention.

Oh God.

Maybe Tommy had noticed; what if he thought Griff was giving him the once over, you know, like
that
.

Did Tommy check out guys here in the house? Had he ever looked at Dante like that? Hard not to, Griff imagined. Al of this was so dangerous.
Say
something normal!

The silence stretched. Griff couldn’t tel if it was awkward or not.

Tommy stood to button the bowling shirt over his hard, furry chest. His skin was flushed from the shower. He was real short, but he sure was solid, arms

sturdy as a stevedore. “Boring morning. Some fat chick had a coronary on the train, and we spent most of it down in the Carrol station. You do anything this

week?”

How to answer that.
Uh yeah, Anastagio and I just spooged all over each other online for a Russian out in Sheepshead Bay. How ’bout you? Get

ass-raped in any alleys?
He couldn’t control the funny expression on his face.

Tommy tipped his head, looking at him strangely. “Griff?”

“Yeah. I went to the Anastagios for dinner.” Griff sat down on the bench and puled his hoodie over his head, then smoothed his bright hair back down.

Then he noticed the healing scrape on Tommy’s corded forearm and the faint brick-burn on his scruffy face. Griff gulped and blushed, eyes on his locker like

a laser scope.

How many times had Tommy come in with scuffs and bruises that they al assumed he’d gotten on the job? How many times had Tommy lied to his wife,

using the job as a cover?

For a crazy second, Griff wanted to confide in him. Not everything about Dante and the porn and al, but just to ask Tommy what to do about these crazy

feelings he had about another guy. To talk to someone who was hiding the same thing, who knew what he was living with here in the station, out in the neighborhood. He wanted to know how he was supposed to hide and survive. Tommy would get it, get him, right?

Tommy went to peer into a mirror over the sink and combed his damp sandy hair.

Griff thought about the rough aley sex he’d witnessed a couple weeks back. He could almost see the calm, happy glow that Tommy had carried away with

him. He wondered if Tommy had a boyfriend, if that Arab guy meant something to him or if it had just been a random fuck. Maybe Tommy didn’t want to have

feelings for the guy. Maybe he didn’t even know his name. He was married and had kids. Jeez. Maybe Tommy wouldn’t understand at al.

“Catch you later.” Tommy clapped him on the shoulder and pushed through the door, headed home. The handprint stayed hot for a few seconds.

Griff grunted and was glad he’d held his tongue. That could have been a fucking disaster. If Griff did say anything, he couldn’t take it back. Once he’d

poured himself out, that shit wouldn’t go back in the bottle. Heluva risk to take. Could he trust Tommy that much? Could he trust anyone that much? Wel, yeah.

Dante.

Wel, maybe that was the real solution. Maybe if Griff didn’t confess his feelings for his friend
to
his friend. Maybe he could just float the idea that he might like dudes, yes,
like
-like. But what if that changed things between them? What if Dante laughed and winked and offered to get him a discount on a HotHead membership? What if Dante felt weird around him after that?

He felt trapped.

Right. The thing to do was to try and get over Dante. He needed to find another guy and get used to the gay thing and move on. Fairytales were bulshit.

Happy endings were for suckers. People didn’t love each other forever.

Maybe what he needed was a hot jock to hump in an aley so he could stop fixating. Yeah. This wasn’t love; this was lust, pure and simple. It wasn’t Dante

making him feel these things; Dante was just seductive and they were together al the time.

There were other Italian guys in the world. Hel, they grew wild on the vine right here in his neighborhood. He needed to get the hel over this demented crush

and find someone else who was enough like Dante that maybe his heart, his head, and his cock wouldn’t notice.

Uh-huh. Good one.

Griff skinned out of his jeans, stowing them in his locker and putting on his flip-flops. He showered mechanicaly, not touching himself below the belt more

than absolutely necessary.

Ever since he’d started watching the Monte clip at HotHead, his treacherous penis had developed a hair trigger around the firehouse—totaly embarrassing.

Dante’s porn-formance had made the bunker gear into an impossible fetish for Griff: the boots, the suspenders, even his own turnout pants. These last two weeks, riding back to the house sooty from a fire, he’d crack a fat in his underwear just from the weight of the clothes against his skin, remembering Dante’s dirty talk for the HotHead members. He knew every second of it by heart at this point.

Two stals down, another shower came on with a hiss. Another of the guys showing up for their tour.

Just to be safe, Griff rinsed off in freezing water.
God, that’s cold
. He stayed under it til his bals shriveled to the size of lima beans and his dick was a rubbery stub.

He reached out of the stal for his threadbare towel. He scraped it roughly over his goose-bumped skin and scalp, then knotted it tight around his hips. When

he got back to his locker, he dug out fresh boxer-briefs and a thermal shirt. The cold water had made his nipples into tight pale pebbles. He tugged the towel loose and ran it over his fiery head and pits again. He put one wide foot up on the bench and then the other, bending over to rub his legs down.

Thunk
. The locker room door opened. Griff flinched involuntarily. Behind him, someone gave a low wolf-whistle.

“Ass!” The familiar voice was husky and joking.

“Uh, hi.” Griff spun and held the towel over his front.

Dante stood there chuckling at the modesty. “It’s okay, G. I had a bod like yours, I’d never get dressed.”

Griff roled his eyes. “You hardly stay dressed now.”

Dante sat down on the bench beside Griff’s underwear. His sweet muskiness filed the grungy room. “You gonna lift today? I need to stay pumped for Alek if

—”

Griff shook his head and grimaced to shut Dante up.
Not here.
He jerked his head at the tiled arch. In the other room, the shower switched off with a
clank
.

Dante nodded. Griff yanked his underwear over his junk and stepped into his pants before they had an audience.

“’S’up, hairbags.” Briggs came out drying his beergut with a bleach-stained towel. “You guys gonna lift later? My wife’s busting my bals.”

Ugh. Briggs.

If ever Griff needed proof that he didn’t find most guys attractive…. He jammed his feet into boots.

Dante looked at Griffin to answer for both of them.

Griff eyed the door; he didn’t want to watch Dante undress up close right now. “Yeah. No. I gotta”—
get the hell away from my best friend
—“take it easy on my shoulder. Slept funny.”

“Ha ha. More like jerked off funny. Repetitive stress.” Dante winked at Briggs and puled open his own locker.

Jesus. If either of them knew the full story….

Briggs snorted and made a show of drying his bals.
Moron
. He plucked a razor out of his locker and shook it at them. “You know Anastagio, you oughtta

try out for basebal again come spring. We could realy use you.”

After 9/11, Dante had played on the FDNY basebal team for three years, until his renovations started taking up his time and his attention. Dante played it to

the hilt, smiling sheepishly with the big dog eyes and tucking his hair behind his ear with an “aw-shucks”
sexiness that kept his fans creaming in their thongs. He played the way he did everything, as if his life depended on it: diving for impossible catches, pitching like lightning, cracking bals into the stands so he could amble around the diamond in his own sweet-ass time. His speed and agility and grace were heart-stopping.

Normaly Griff hated basebal; it al seemed like math and sitting around. Ugh. He was built for hockey and footbal, where his mass could do the most

damage. He didn’t want to spend an entire game sitting around watching other guys sit around. What was the point?

Give him ice and a puck or a set of pads and pigskin, he’d play til his ears bled and his eyelashes froze. It made sense to hit other guys, to fight over

something, push toward a goal. No. Basebal was Dante’s game; his long, tight build was perfect for it; he had a kiler arm. “From whacking off so much,” he

always said.

Stil, as much as Griff hated the game, he never missed a chance to see Dante in that uniform for anything. Hel, the straightest guys in the department teased

Anastagio about his tight ass in those pants. Girls (and a few brave guys) lined up to thank him and ask for pictures. These days, Dante stil tried to go to a couple games a year.