Head 01 Hot Head (25 page)

Outside Ferdinando’s, Dante made sure Nicole was bundled and wrapped a lumpy knitted scarf around his own lean throat. He stuffed his hands in his

pockets and squinted into the sky like he was embarrassed. “Uhh. I’d like to run by the bank. I got an appointment for now-ish. Financial planner.”

Griff wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “The what? On a Friday?” He was so surprised that he forgot to keep walking.

Dante didn’t notice and headed up the sidewalk saying something about having a solid plan and a round number in his head.

I’ll be damned. He listened to me.

Nicole finaly toddled back and put her hand in Griff’s and tugged; otherwise, he might have stood there stunned until sundown.

“Bank,” offered Nicole with an eye rol just visible above the colar of her purple coat. She knew she was talking to the big dumb monster, so she spoke

slowly and carefuly. “He wantsa go.”

Dante finaly realized he was solo and paused to look back, the wind pushing the raven tangle around the clean planes of his face. His white smile gleamed.

He opened his hands as if to ask “What’s your deal?” while Nicole dragged the big monster back upstream to her uncle.

Griff finaly said something when they’d nearly caught up. “You listened.”

“I always listen, G.” And with that, Dante took Nicole’s other hand and the three of them went to the bank—off to see the Wizard.

DANTE’S bank in Brooklyn Heights turned out to be a palace, literaly: tiled wals, vaulted ceilings, marble floor. The entire main floor was an echoing slice of Renaissance Italy.

“Wow,” Griff managed. “I think your bank is doing better than mine.”

Dante laughed. “Yeah, no. It’s a copy of some house in Florence. Italians, huh? Some family built it as a replica like a hundred years ago.” His eyes scanned

the desks for someone.

Down at their knees, Nicole was carefuly stepping only on the cream tiles to make her way inside. The room had the muffled reverb of a church.

“Mr. Anastagio?” A man’s voice bounced off the wals and ceilings, making several people turn.

Dante and Griff turned to see a stiff-looking man in his forties raising a hand at him from a low desk halfway across the cavernous room.

“This shouldn’t take but a sec.” Dante checked silently with Griff to make sure he felt okay being left in Nicole’s hands.

Griff nodded. “I think she may wanna case the joint.”

“Thanks.” He squatted to Nicole’s height. “Be nice to Monster.”

Griff let Nicole tug him around the room, one cream tile at a time.

Ten minutes turned into thirty, and Nicole had gotten her fil of the imposing space. When she announced her legs were tired, they found a seat and plunked

down. Dante was stil talking to the suit.

Was something wrong?
Griff shifted his weight, itchy and restless to find out what the hel was taking so damn long, but there was no way he was going to butt in.

Griff looked over at Nicole sitting on the other side of the bench next to a half-empty juice box.

The kid seemed joly enough; she was making up elaborate histories about the characters in the two deposit lines, sharing her diagnoses with Monster.
Weird
.

She scanned the room for another doomed soul in need of a story.

“Sorry, honey. Are you bored?”

Nicole cocked her head in confusion. “Why’m I bored?”

“Al this grownup stuff. He didn’t think it would take this long.”

“You bored?” Nicole looked very serious, crossing her arms like an oncologist who was worried Griff had cancer.

“Uh, no. I’m not. I like doing stuff with you and your uncle.”

“Is he bored?” She swung around to check Dante for cancer.

At that moment her uncle was sitting twenty feet away in front of the glossy desk, brow knitted and nodding while the starched loan officer said something

emphatic and held up a piece of paper. He had unconsciously finger-combed his curls into tousled spikes, which meant he was trying to keep his shit together and failing.

Griff strained to eavesdrop, but weirdly enough the echoing space actualy made that impossible. Al conversations were masked in reflected mutters across

the room.

Again Griff had the weird fantasy that they were a couple and they were going to the bank together, that he could sit next to Dante the way a husband would

while the banker offered options. He could take Dante’s hand so he didn’t yank his hair out. He hated seeing Dante stuck alone over there in his worst nightmare: calmly listening to someone who could take away his house.

Please give him whatever he needs.

Then, as if Dante could feel their gaze, he turned and looked straight at Griff and smiled so that his whole face lit up. He pointed at his watch and held up a hand.
Five minutes
. Black eyes on Griff’s, he gave a slow, sweet blink—
thank you
—and looked back at the loan officer.

Griff snapped back to where he was sitting and realized he had the same lit-up smile on his blushing face. Also that his little doctor had slid closer to explain something to her big monster.

“Nuh-uh. He’s not bored.” Nicole gave her diagnosis of her other patient. “He just misses you.” She patted his massive shoulder with her tiny hand—
pat-

pat—
before scooting back to her side of the bench. The doctor went back to making the grownups more interesting under the smal octagonal skylights.

Griff swalowed around a lump in his throat, looking at the tiled floor. She meant Dante was having fun goofing off with them. For some stupid reason, his

eyes burned and he felt lightheaded.

Don’t cry, asshole.

Griff sucked in a ragged breath and let it out and puled the sadness back into himself before it got loose. How was he going to explain that one? He glanced

at Nicole. He probably wouldn’t have to; she’d explain it for him.

Suddenly, with perfect clarity, Griff could imagine what their son would be like. His and Dante’s. He’d have Dante’s humor and looks, Griff’s height and

heart, and no fear of anything in the fucking world. He’d be strong and thoughtful and sily and kind—the kind of kid that other parents were jealous of, a boy to win things and climb mountains. Griff could imagine his smal, sturdy, smiling face exactly, as if their son were sitting next to him, and Nicole was chatting with him instead of herself. Griff almost gasped at the sweet vision of a family he’d never be alowed to have.

And then he was looking at Dante’s shoes. He looked up to find Dante standing in front of him, looking a little gray. Their imaginary son evaporated into

cobwebs beside him. “You okay?”

“Sorry, gang.” Dante’s voice was hoarse. “He was in a grumpy mood.”

Griff asked a silent question of Dante’s eyes.

Dante shook his head. It had gone badly.

“You need an olive,” Nicole announced. The doctor was back in, it seemed. “Mama says olives—”

“—can cure anything.” Dante and Griff spoke together and then laughed.

“Yeah, bug.” Dante nodded at her. “She learned that from Nonna. I think you may be right.”

They stil had just enough time to swing by Sahadi to pick out a couple kinds of olives before taking Nicole back to her parents; by now they probably

needed a diagnosis from their daughter too.

As the three of them headed back up Clinton toward Atlantic Avenue and the store, Griff inclined his head toward Dante and spoke under his breath.

“Whatever it is, we’l cover it.”

“I don’t think you’re gonna—what it’s gonna take, I mean. I don’t think you can.”

Griff’s heart squeezed, and the words popped out of him louder than he’d intended. “Shut up.”

“That’s rude!” Nicole was trying to figure out how she’d gotten stuck babysitting these two chuckleheads.

“Sorry. You’re right.” Then Griff mumbled again to Dante. “Dante Anastagio, I am going to help you if I have to break every bone in your body. Please.”

Dante looked queasy, glanced down at the kid. “You’re gonna end up hating me. God.”

More likely you’re gonna hate me.
Griff pushed him so he stumbled. “Stop it.”

Dante didn’t laugh. “I’m such a scumbag.”

What had the bank said?

Nicole had paused to pretend interest in a window ful of orchids. How did a kid know to do that? Living with her wacky mom, probably.

Griff stepped a few more feet away, then stared right into his best friend’s worried eyes. “D, I don’t care what it is; I don’t care what I have to do. You

decide. Okay? I promise you. We wil get the ful amount to them, on time.”

Please stay with me. Our son was sitting this close, this close to me.

“Okay.” Dante looked exhausted. His eyes seemed sunken and his earlier glow gone. “Griff, you’re letting me drag you through the slime.”

Fuck.
Like throwing a switch, they weren’t a family anymore.
Click!
They were just two dipshits babysitting for a needy in-law. Dante was just some hothead losing his house. Griff’s impossible feelings and their imaginary son were just that.

I’ll do anything. Just ask me.

Griff sighed and looked at Nicole. She was doing classic smal-child eavesdropping, keeping her eyes straight forward and her ears wide open—a vacuum

cleaner for garbled gossip. If they weren’t careful, the whole Anastagio brood would know Dante was in deep shit and Griff was involved.

Dante went to take Nicole’s hand again. “C’mon bug. Let’s go find some olives for your dad.”

TWO days later, Griff was washing the engine, stuck on overtime so the lieutenant could head to the hospital to greet his new baby.

It was late and he needed sleep, but after two hours of trying to keep his eyes closed, he had come downstairs and helped refil the oxygen tanks, then sent

the probie up to grab some Zs.

He’d been unable to close his eyes anywhere in the station for fear of who might find him and start confessing something awful. He had managed to steer

clear of Tommy since the run-in at the bar, and he prayed he could split before the little paramedic showed up for his tour.

Dante barged right past him into the firehouse, jogging toward the stairs leading up to the bunk room.

“Hey.” Griff dropped the rag in the bucket and gave a mock salute.

“Why are you stil working?” Dante looked like he’d run a block, his hair windblown and his eyes coal-bright. “You weren’t answering your phone.”

“Sorry. We were out on a cal. Gas leak.” Griff shrugged and wiped his hands on his sweatshirt. “I covered a couple extra hours for Siluski. Wife finaly went

into labor.”

Dante nodded and leaned against the truck. “It’s about the HotHead deal. I been thinking about how to close the gap with the bank.”

Griff looked around at the racks of turnout gear and the door upstairs, paranoid.

“Extended activities!” His coal-dark eyes were bright with triumph.

“Dante! C’mon….” Griff tugged him around the rig and glanced at the dark street. Empty. Last thing they needed was anyone wandering in here and overhearing. The guys were al upstairs sacked out or watching ESPN. “I don’t think the house is the place—”

Dante shook his head to dismiss the idea. “Don’t sweat it. C’mere.”

Griff let Dante lead him past the lockers and the rack of turnout gear toward the front and the street; they stepped out of the lights into the shadows outside the driveway entrance. He didn’t smoke, but this was the house’s unofficial smoking lounge. Cigarette butts littered the gutter where the other guys had flicked them. At least no one could sneak up on them.

Griff raised an eyebrow. “Okay. What?”

“Extended activities. The extra on-camera options. I realized something.” Dante’s eyes were shadowed like he hadn’t slept in a few days.

“Jesus, Dante.” Griff rubbed one eye roughly. He could feel a headache forming. “Maybe we can talk later—”

“No. Look, the mutual tug paid extra.” Dante mimed jerking and squirting without looking embarrassed, which only made Griff more embarrassed. “And the

stuff you did at the end bumped our fee even—”

“I know, man. Sorry about—”

“—more. Bulshit, sorry! Blowing your jazz on me got us a three hundred dolar bonus. Didja know that?” Dante roled his eyes and waved away the worry.

“Dude, if I could get a fee every time you squirted on me, I’d camp under your bed and have you doing it three times a day.”

Help me, Jesus
.

Griff’s eyes honest-to-God bugged at that. He turned both ways to make sure the block was empty, then craned around to check the door leading upstairs to

the kitchen and bunkroom. Al clear. He tried not to think about Dante volunteering to be his cum-rag.

He has to know what he’s doing to me, right?

“Do you realize that if I’d have just licked a little cream off my hands for Alek I could have gotten another five hundred dolars? I didn’t fuckin’ know! Five hundred dolars, G, just to taste your jazz for like a second!”

Griff choked, covered the choke with a cough, and choked again. He ran a slow hand over his heated face, trying to wipe the thought away before he fainted