Head 01 Hot Head (31 page)

“No!” Griff hadn’t meant to cut him off. The word just came out.

“Not right now.” Dante smoothed over the blunt rejection. “You know? Let’s see how it goes.”

“There are several options. Either of you could be paired with another model, of course. Or if you’d prefer to work together again, we could see about

crossing some boundaries.”

Dante shook his head. “Yeah. No. I think we crossed plenty of boundaries the past few. Griff’s been real patient with me, but I think we’re gonna hold off.”

“Fair enough.” Alek looked them both over like prize buls at auction. “You two are an exceptional asset to the website. Genuine heroes.”

“Nah.” Dante blinked and pointed at Griff. “He’s a hero. I’m a disaster.”

“Yeah, other way round, D.” Griff huffed in embarrassment, puling on his jeans.

Alek was checking the footage on the cameras, his face thoughtful. “Even so, heroes need disasters, don’t they? And vice versa. You’re something of a hero

yourself, Mr. Anastagio.”

“Hardly.” Dante was shutting down as he had after his first scene for the site. His face grew hard and guarded like he regretted everything and knew he’d

made a mistake he couldn’t take back. His eyes flicked up at Griff anxiously.

Each man chewed on his own guilt and disgust.

That was the worst for Griff, Dante’s shame afterwards, when he felt like a worthless piece of meat. He shifted his weight uncomfortably.

Dante was already stomping into his sneakers and stuffing the gear into the duffel, ready to split. “This big bastard saves me every damn day. You don’t

know.”

Alek swiveled in his chair and considered Griff. “And I imagine you’ve had some disastrous moments in your young life, Mr. Muir.” He cocked his shaved

head and measured Griff, picking at the seams of his grief and his loyalty and his hopeless desire.

He knows.

Sadness ghosted over Alek’s brow, clouded his blue eyes. “It’s impossible to be your own hero, yes?”

In that moment, Griff realized that Alek knew exactly what he was trying to hide, that he had seen the desire and pain arcing between them like lightning. He

saw Griff’s raw heart.

“Huh, yeah.” Griff knew what he was trying to say but had zero interest in having it said in front of Dante.

The man in question stood waiting for Griff, itching to go and take a scalding shower to wash this day off.

Alek pressed. “You are both fortunate to have a friend that is wiling and able to perform the odd rescue. And many people
would
cal this an odd rescue.”

Alek laughed.

They didn’t.

Time to go.

By the door, Dante was vibrating with anxiety and determined to beat up on himself. He laughed without pleasure. “Nah. I’m shit creek and he’s the paddle.”

Alek smiled at them both with gentle affection. “Or maybe you’re smoke and he’s fire?”

Dante’s chuckle died. “Huh. May be.”

Before anyone said anything else, Griff crammed his foot into the other shoe and shrugged into his shirt.

By the time he reached the door, Dante was already picking his way back through the maze of boxes outside it toward the elevator.

Griff paused and turned back to say goodbye, knowing he’d see sympathy in Alek’s face.

Alek waved goodbye, and there it was. He knew and Griff knew he knew. Regret plucked the ringing, stinging air between them.

Thank you for keeping my secret.

Alek nodded and pursed his lips. They understood each other.

Griff saluted without smiling and headed through the dimness toward Dante and the sound of the elevator grinding its way upstairs to fetch them home.

ON HALLOWEEN, Griff was a day into his seventy-two hours off from the firehouse, and he was working the front door at the Bone. As the night went on, the

crowd got crazier and younger. On top of the costumes, there was a bachelor party going on—great for business, great for tips, loud as hel.

At about eleven, he heard some chick screaming up the block. A bunch of guys were scuffling on the corner. At first he thought the bachelor party had

started breaking up and heading into Manhattan for lap-dances. Then he realized these men were fighting and shouting in a tight ring about fifty yards off. A car alarm went off as someone slammed against it. Breaking glass.

The screams had come from a chubby girl across the street, dressed as a bumblebee, who was staring at something on the ground at their feet. Griff couldn’t

see it what it was, but she had taken a step into the street. Her face was a mask of horror, but she wasn’t running away.

The fuck were they doing?

Griff walked toward the noise slowly. His gut felt strange; this wasn’t a fight over beer money. The rest of them were yeling and kicking at the sidewalk. Was it a dog?
Sick bastards.

Under the streetlight, one of the assholes stopped kicking, unzipped his pants, and puled out his dick. Griff closed his fists and broke into a jog, thundering toward them. “Hey!”

The men didn’t hear him. Their car was next to them in the street, and the engine was running. The doors were open. They were shouting and cursing at the

concrete.

And then Zipperboy started pissing on the ground, just let it rip right there on Van Brunt like he was at a fucking urinal. But he wasn’t pissing on pavement.

The stream was hitting cloth.

A moan. A wet cough.

“Fucking faggot piece of shit….”

Jesus Christ
. It was a smal person curled down there, some kid getting kicked to death and being pissed on.

“Hey! Needledick!” Griff barked as he jogged toward them like an angry giant. Zipperboy looked up, startled, and stopped laughing when he clocked Griff’s

size. Tucking his dick back in his jeans, he said something to the rest of the geniuses. One of them spat on the kid.

They piled into their idling car fast and took off, puling away from the curb with their limbs half in and slamming the doors when they had gotten halfway up

the block. One last shout and a beer bottle thrown at the body as they took off. “
Fag
!”

The bottle smashed against the concrete. People were peering cautiously out of windows and doors.

“Somebody cal the cops!” Griff crouched over the prone body curled in a fetal bal. The victim was a teenager, or a short man. There was piss and blood

everywhere, and he was afraid to rol the body over. At least the rib cage was moving a little; it wasn’t a murder yet.

The chubby bumblebee’s voice said from across the street, “I caled 911.” Her footsteps approached. Other people were coming out into the street.

Vultures.

“Good.” Griff knew he had to make sure the airway wasn’t blocked. The victim didn’t seem to be breathing regular, or if he was, he wasn’t getting much air.

The guy’s hair was matted with gore. Shalow panting barely whistled through his bloody mouth.

Griff leaned down to make sure he heard the sound. The dread in his stomach tightened.

“Is he… dead?” She was standing beside Griff, her sturdy legs shifting as she wrestled with rubbernecking fascination and disgust. “I don’t think you better

touch him til the paramedics get here.”

“I’m a firefighter. He could….” Griff came around the other side so he didn’t have to move anything to check the airways for breath, and then he realized.

It was Tommy. Dobsky.

Tommy’s face was mottled and split, nose broken. His left arm hung at a strange angle. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. Those bastards had

pounded the shit out of him. He could die. He’d saved Dante.

“It was al so fast. Not like on TV at al.” The chubby bee-woman said to no one.

Fag!

Griff ignored her and checked the basics: pulse was erratic and breathing was difficult. Broken ribs too, probably.

“Where’s the goddamn ambulance?” Griff growled at the clouds.

Someone knew about Tommy being gay. Had someone seen something and spiled the beans? Had someone seen him with Alek the other night? Had fucking
Alek
said something to the wrong people?!
Oh God.

A crowd of kneecaps gathered around Griff and Tommy on the ground.

“Back off!” Griff’s voice was louder than he’d intended.

Sirens.

Fag!

With sudden certainty, Griff knew what had happened: Tommy had told someone the truth, spiled his beans al over someone other than Griff, and they’d

taken it… badly, to say the least. He’d flirted with the wrong guy or confessed to the wrong cousin or gotten caught in the wrong bar. Trick or treat gone wrong.

He had paid the price. He just kept paying al over the sidewalk.

“Griffin?” Jimmy had walked up from the bar, and his feet slowed as he saw the dark puddle soaking into the pavement and Griff’s jeans. “Jesus. Jee-sus!

Dead?”

Griff shook his head. “It’s one of the guys from the house. Tom Dobsky.”

Fag!

The sirens were getting closer. Tommy’s breath rattled low in his chest. A thick drool of blood ran from his nose to his ear; it could have come from either.

“I gotta go with him.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Fucking Christ. The cops are on their way. Ambulance.”

“This young lady is gonna need to make a statement.” Griff turned to the celphone bumblebee. “You good to stay?”

The chubby girl nodded, squinting at him. Her hair was a halo of tight brown curls. She was crying.

Griff looked at the onlookers. “The rest of you should fuck right off.”

A caped old man took a picture of the streaked pavement with his Blackberry. More vultures gathered, murmuring and speculating. One girl wearing horns

and high heels had a French buldog on a leash that was trying to sniff the puddle.

Fag!

Griffin glared at the ring of costumed idiots and gritted his teeth. “Jimmy, get these assholes away from him before I kil somebody.”

Jimmy grunted and herded the onlookers back with his tattooed arms.

The trucks were coming. He could hear them a couple blocks up Van Brunt. Griff lowered his face to talk to Tommy. “Hang on, buddy.”

The chubby bee-girl sat down on the curb, tears streaking her face. “They were kiling him. They were kiling him.”

Tommy was so stil on the pavement. He was gonna die right here with Griff watching. Griff guarded the body like a rabid dog, kneeling in the blood and piss

and praying for a miracle.

By the time the sirens reached them, the Haloween crowd had grown to about forty people and Tommy’s breathing was so shalow that Griff was worried

his broken ribs had punctured both lungs.

Behind him, Griff vaguely heard the cops talking to the chubby witness. EMS swooped in past him and took charge. “Griff?”

Fag!

“He’s not… uh, God. It’s one of ours.” Griff nodded at the baby-faced paramedic. “That’s Dobsky down there. Tommy.”

“Jesus.” The baby-face was aghast.
If only he knew.

“Eight guys jumped him. Maybe nine. I can identify.”

Jimmy walked up to them and clapped Griff on the shoulder. “I gotta get back on the door. Cops are gonna need a statement from you.”

Griff nodded.

None of this should’ve happened. If I’d let him tell me the other night…. If I’d confided in him myself…. If either of us had told the fucking truth.

The EMTs roled Tommy onto a board and lifted him onto a gurney. Jimmy was walking away.

Griff started toward the back of the ambulance. As he reached the cops and the chubby girl, he stopped and hugged her.

She hugged him back. “Thanks.” Her voice was muffled in his shirt.

Griff nodded, like she could hear his head moving, and let her go. One of the cops said something about a statement, but he ignored it.

“Ask me at the hospital.” Before anyone could object, Griff climbed into the ambulance and sat, daring them to order him out. “I go with him.”

This is my fault. I knew he needed help but I was a coward.
The guilt in Griff was like acid, slippery and toxic.

Fag!

The emergency crew took one look at Griff’s size and rage and gave in. The baby-faced paramedic said, “Let’s hit it.”

Tommy wasn’t moving. Behind the oxygen mask, his face was a pulped mess, and he stank.

I’m a goddamn coward. Shoulda been me getting pissed on.

GRIFF was sitting in the waiting room when Dante showed up.

Griff was braced against the wal next to a trashcan waiting for some kind of information. The knees of his pants were stiff with Tommy’s blood and the urine

of that evil motherfucker. He wanted to put his fist through a wal—no, through that pissing kid. Griff wanted to reach down that bastard’s throat, grab his asshole, and pul him inside out like a shirt.

Dante got there about forty-five minutes after Tommy had been admitted.

“They told me at the Bone.” Dante’s voice was quiet. He just knew one of their company had been assaulted. He didn’t know why. Only Tommy and Griff

and the pricks who’d done it knew the truth.