Andy pressed his hands against the granite. The muscles of his back bunched and softened. A drop of water followed his spine to the impossible glossy curve of his high, square ass onto his hamstring, side of the knee, calf, ankle. Andy’s legs flexed as his weight shifted. At the base of his spine, those insane dimples shifted.
Ruben swallowed.
Fast. Just go fast.
He took the shower head and tested the water with his hand. Twenty seconds tops. He directed the pelting spray at soapy skin, keeping his hands to himself. Whatever soap didn’t come off could stay there tonight.
“Ungh.” Andy grunted and rolled his head forward. “Good.”
“You’re drunk, boss.”
Almost there.
Andy nodded. “M’sorry.” His mouth was open and water sheeted off his lips onto the floor.
Ruben’s trousers were soaked and warm water skimmed down his legs underneath.
“So fucking good.” Andy twisted to let the spray pound him.
Ruben was working toward a boner but couldn’t stop himself. The combo of the Sears-dad face and moans of guttural pleasure did something funny to his insides.
All kinds of wrong.
“Let’s get the shampoo out and we’re done. Close your eyes.”
Andy turned to face Ruben with his lids shut, his mouth loose, and his head tipped forward.
Trust.
His dick was half-stiff, which might have meant anything.
Ruben passed the spray over Andy’s skull, and suds clopped to the stone floor. His hair splashed dark and flattened against his brow.
The hot water bounced between them, and Andy’s balance was none too steady. Ruben didn’t dare look down for fear he’d learn something irrevocable.
“Keep ’em closed.” Ruben’s wet pants did little to hide his thick erection, right under Andy’s unseeing eyes. “Almost there. Almost.”
Without thinking, Ruben reached down and scrubbed Andy’s scalp, working the lather out of the thick, glossy hair. He felt the warp of the cowlick and smiled. He chased his fingers with the hot water, not caring when it sheeted off Andy’s jaw onto his own trousers.
The sight of Andy pliant and naked, bent over Ruben’s wet suit and hidden erection, was doing terrible things to his self-control. Time to go, but he couldn’t make himself stop. His hands in Andy’s hair got rougher than necessary.
Andy made no complaint, allowing himself to be manhandled. Straightening, Andy rested his hands on Ruben’s shoulders, balancing himself. He faced Ruben but his eyes stayed shut and his mouth fell open. Water dripped from his open lips.
Nudge. Something firm bumped Ruben’s quad through the wet wool and he stepped back, turned away. That had to be Andy’s wood.
Abort! Abort!
Ruben fumbled and turned Andy’s naked body away. For a moment, his hand gripped the hard curve of Andy’s hip where it rose up to his perfect butt. “I think we’re done.”
“Okay.” Andy’s voice seemed quiet and unfazed behind him.
Ruben avoided looking at his boss and turned off the shower, then moved out into the bathroom to snatch at one of the big bath sheets.
Was Andy annoyed? Horny? Disgusted? Relieved? Queasy? Anyone’s guess.
Ruben tossed the towel at him without letting himself look up.
Tricky, tricky.
“We good?”
“Ungh. Better. Thanks.”
Ruben nodded without looking at his boss. “Fine.” His hand, the one that had cupped Andy’s muscular hip, still burned.
“Sorry about falling. Suit.”
Ruben shook his head. “Nuh.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could just detect the flicker of the towel scrubbing Andy’s perfect skin. His wet suit felt chilly now, but fuck if he was gonna strip down here. He was already humiliated and terrified of his savage impulses. “I’m gonna…. Dry clothes.”
“So fuckin’ sorry, man.” Andy wrapped the towel around himself and walked toward Ruben, the lump of his trapped erection square and center. He blinked.
Before he could close the distance, Ruben raised a hand and made his escape. “Night.”
“Oh. G’night.”
Ruben dripped his way through the bedroom and down the library stairs and into his quarters, shutting the door with a determined click. He peeled off the soaked clothes and draped them in the bathroom. The shirt stuck to his skin, so he had to peel slowly and when he was naked, his goosebumped skin felt clammy and dead. Only his dick hadn’t gotten the message, stiff and hot inside his wet briefs.
He looked down at the hand. He flexed his fingers twice but he couldn’t get rid of the memory of Andy’s pale muscle still imprinted on his palm. To his horror, he caught himself raising the hand to his nose and inhaling as if the fresh bread scent would linger, as if it had mingled with his own musk, as if he hoped it had. The skin there seemed unnaturally warm, tattooed by the contact, maybe because he was paying attention to it. He leaned closer and the graze of his stubbled mouth on his own palm only made him imagine… things.
Cachondo.
Without questioning the impulse, he opened his mouth and licked his lifeline, a wide hot swipe of tongue over the memory of Andy’s skin, but all he tasted was salt.
He shivered. The spit on his palm cooled. His clothes had gone cold and his mouth dry.
He climbed out of his soaked briefs and took his own shower, hot enough to scald his skin, but not enough to make his hand forget.
CHAPTER NINE
NO ONE
should apologize for what they have to do.
To keep a lid on his inappropriate thoughts, Ruben started spot-testing the security systems and stopped sleeping. Four days after the Jaded excursion, Ruben woke up just after midnight.
More dreams, more questions, and a stiffy that wouldn’t stop. He needed to get away, get his shit together. He just needed some oxygen, some distance, some perspective. The Iris felt like living in a casino. He couldn’t keep track of the days because normal hours and regular habits went to shit. No clocks, free glitz, and hot-and-cold-running con jobs.
He called Peach and left a message, which didn’t help much because he couldn’t come clean about his feelings for Andy. He wanted to go
home
, but couldn’t figure out where the hell that might be.
Truth was, he felt at home in this ridiculous building even though he had no claim on its space. But Charles’s place was right uptown and empty.
Ruben glanced at the clock.
12:17
.
Andy was still asleep because his London conference call wouldn’t start for three hours. Ruben told himself he’d be back before anyone knew he was gone. If he was gonna go, he didn’t have much time.
Okay, but now.
Without showering again, he yanked on a pair of jeans he hadn’t worn in weeks and a baseball cap and made sure his keys were in his pocket. “Hungry-angry-lonely-tired,” he whispered to himself over and over like a mantra. “Hungry-angry-lonely-tired.”
He reached Ninety-Fourth Street before he started to hail a cab and discovered he’d left his wallet in the penthouse.
No matter.
He’d be back before he needed it.
His phone rang as he walked up Park. “Peach.” He said her name as an anxious greeting.
Bad.
Everything he needed to share stuck in his throat.
“Oh kiddo,” she muttered as she woke. “Talk to me.”
He did, about everything but Andy, who was the only thing.
Neither of them mentioned the time, but she sounded grumpy and tired. “You’re alone too much, Ruben.”
“I’m never alone.”
Annoyance made her sound older. “Up in that high-rise. Couch. Committing suicide on the installment plan. You’re living in a cage, kiddo, and that’s a problem for people like us. Isolation.”
“I’m not. I’m going out with friends right now, actually. Dinner with my brother.”
“Dinner. Now?” Rustle on the other end. “Maybe you need a sponsor up there. Could be, who knows?”
Ruben frowned, guilty. “I woke you up, didn’t I?” The deserted streets made him feel like whispering.
“I’m too old to sleep.” A wheezy cough. “Ruben, be straight with me. Is this a backslide? Are you drinking?”
“No! Peach, no. It’s not booze or dope, it’s—”
Andy.
“I’m not in trouble.” A fucking lie.
“Are you trying to shit me, old as I am? Gimme some credit. Paranoid. Secretive. Outta control. It ain’t the load that weighs us down, it’s the way we carry it. Talk to me, kiddo.”
“I’m lonely, is all. I don’t need a new sponsor. I swear. I wish I knew how to pray.”
“Ruben, trying to pray
is
praying.” She sighed. “Breathe. Howzat Fourth Step coming?
He stopped at a red light as if the empty street were rush hour. “Listen, I’m almost there. Can I call you tomorrow?” As soon as he said it, he knew he wouldn’t.
“Okay. Okay. Eat. Sleep. Work your Steps.” Her voice pulled away from the phone to cough. “Ruben, I love you, God loves you, and there’s fuck-all you can do about it. Okay?” She hung up.
Time bomb.
Not much fuse left. How long before he blew?
The light changed and he flinched.
When Ruben crossed the street to his brother’s apartment, the door and the staircase felt comically small. As he unlocked the door, he expected to find it empty but smelled mushrooms as soon as he went inside.
Shit.
Charles was cooking eggs for Daria in his boxers and an undershirt. His sweaty hair and cat-cream smile made it pretty clear what he’d been doing for the past hour or two.
“There he is.” Charles pointed at him, grinning, like they’d made an appointment for midnight breakfast.
Ruben hesitated in the narrow kitchen doorway under a white plastic disc with a tiny red light. The salvaged carbon monoxide detector looked to be in perfect working order.
Charles followed his eyes. “Home improvement. Breathing easy now. Thanks for that, bro.”
“Carlos?” Daria’s hesitant voice floated down the hall. “Did you leave?”
“It’s my brother.” Charles jabbed lazily at the omelet pan.
“Didn’t know you’d be here.” Ruben glanced toward the dim living room, wishing he had somewhere else to go. “Sorry, man.”
“Nah. Y’hungry?” He held up the spatula.
Ruben shook his head. He hadn’t thought past getting here and sitting with himself. One shitty thing about this New York adventure, he didn’t have any place where he was alone.
Daria stepped out wearing one of Charles’s gigantic sweatshirts and a pair of girly pajama bottoms. She crossed her arms defensively over her big breasts. “Hey.”
Ruben nodded bashfully. “I’m so sorry.”
She smiled then and he knew it was okay. “We never come here because my place is so much nicer, but we went to a concert at the Ninety-Second Street Y and didn’t want to go back to Queens.”
Ruben nodded. His knuckles sweated. The thirst for a stiff drink, three fingers of anything that burned, grabbed his throat, and shook.
At the end of meetings, the chair always asked the group if anyone had a “burning desire.” Meaning: was anyone in imminent danger of drinking as soon as they walked outside? If someone hadn’t had a chance to share or be heard, that moment gave them a last chance to speak up. For the first time in his life, Ruben fully understood those words.
Burning desire.
Charles and Daria being here was a blessing. Fuck knows what he would’ve done on his own. Shame made him blush in the hot hallway. “I just needed a break. Get away for a bit. Clear my head.”
Daria nodded, patting Charles as he stirred the pan. “Air.”
“Exactly.”
Charles raised an eyebrow. “I thought that place had a deck and pool and all.”
“It’s a fortress. Surveillance and shit. You don’t know.”
Daria shrugged. “Sometimes you don’t want anything between you and the sky.”
Ruben nodded. He liked this girl. He hoped Charles treated her right.
Daria said, “When my parents moved here from Puerto Rico, everyone used to sit out in their windows all day long.”
“
Fffnt
. Puerto Ricans,” Charles said as if that explained everything.
“Hush.” She punched his arm. “In San Juan no building was higher than two stories and they came to New York and suddenly everything was this stone tower with a view.” She laughed and so they all did.
Ruben had a flash of his mom in the backyard picking tomatoes. Immigrants came to the States to get away from that other life they’d had, but most often they brought it with them, carried the past around forever. He did the same. And how much of Andy’s razzle-dazzle was him trying to shake off the suburbs?
Ruben crossed his arms and squeezed himself. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping and I thought it’d be good to get out, go to a meeting.” A lie, but an honorable one.
“But you’re not drinking.” Charles frowned.
“No.”
Daria shook her head. “Carlos.”
Ruben smiled at her. “He’s right. I gotta be vigilant. ‘There’s no shortcut,’ is what AA says. The elevator is broken; take the fucking Steps.”
Humiliation didn’t hang easily on him. The only time he’d felt real shame in his life had been right after the divorce, during his first meetings. AA kicked the stuffing out of you at first and forced you to salvage what you could from the rubble of your life. Even dropping out of boot, he’d thought only of the baby they’d lost, not the military oath of service he’d broken so casually.
Charles plated her eggs and stole a bite. “The check clears. He had a break-in but nothing happened, right?”
Daria side-eyed him and studied Ruben. “You gotta feeling. About that place.”
He nodded. “I can’t even explain it. I feel like all the pieces are there, but I don’t know how to put them together. I’m too slow.”
Charles shook a fork at him. “You searched the place? I dunno. Maybe answers. Maybe bugs. Paper trail.”
Daria squinted at him kindly, mothering him. “Maybe you’ve been alone too much. Working too much. You need to meet people. Get around people who live right.”
“I’d love that.” Ruben meant it. “But Andy’s got me living there. Bauer, I mean.”
“He’s gotta pool. He likes you. You should have a barbecue. Y’know? When you go back. Invite the whole building over for a cookout up here. Meet the neighbors.”
“I don’t think these are that kinda neighbors.”