Chapter 11
GRIFF was bouncing at the Stone Bone almost a week later when he saw Tommy again, looking like a patient this time.
Griff had come straight to the bar from the hospital, where he’d helped Dante check out. Dante had spent three days under observation with a concussion and stitches; he’d woken up that first night, but they were stil holding him because of sweling. Griff had visited regularly with magazines and junk food, more for himself than Dante. He couldn’t figure out anything to say that didn’t sound crazy, so he kept quiet.
Dante seemed to appreciate the silence and the company. Today, he’d gotten to go home.
Tonight, Griff was on the Bone door until two, and then he had laundry to do. He wanted to run by the store and pick up some stuff to put in Dante’s fridge.
He was praying for a slow Thursday night so he could cut out early, so he could get up in time to—
“Muir, ’s’me.” Tommy was already plastered when he showed up at the door by himself, and Griff had to look twice to figure out who it was. Then his stomach did a somersault.
Thomas Dobsky Jr. was in terrible shape. His raw eyes were unfocused and his clothes looked slept in. There was a cut over his left brow, deeper than a scrape and a little gummy, like it had been reopened in a repeat fight. One of the buttons on the fly of his blue jeans was open. Jeez. Had he just had more aley sex close to home?
Mauled bear cub.
Griff squashed the thought and leaned over the little paramedic. “Tommy, you don’t look so great.” Tommy leaned against the doorjamb, his body heat in Griff’s space. His breath was warm and whiskey-soaked. “I gotta be home in a half hour. M’wife says.” His wagged a drunken finger and his knee nudged Griff, by accident or not.
Griff stepped back. “You oughtta do that. Get some sleep before your shift.”
“Fuck. You.” Tommy pushed right past him and into the crowd, headed for the bar.
Great.
On a Thursday night, the Bone was slow and steady. An early crowd of young suits beering it up before they headed home to Cobble Hil and Carrol Gardens. A couple other city workers had come in: three off-duty cops and Watson from their firehouse. Tommy was the only situation that needed attention, but Griff couldn’t leave his post to deal with it. Plus, he needed to go check on Dante tonight.
For the next hour Griff tried to keep an eye on Tommy, who hadn’t made a single move to head home. The stubby bastard lurched from table to table, toasting strangers and butting into conversations. Twice the bartender looked ready to signal Griff for a toss-out, but the request never came.
At about nine, Griff scanned the room for the little paramedic and couldn’t find him. Oh jeez. Niggling doubt chewed at him. Surely Tommy wasn’t dumb enough to….
Griff signaled the manager to take his place for a sec. “Need a piss.”
He was heading back to the john when he spotted Tommy wedged into the smal booth near the back, nursing a dark pint and nodding to someone seated next to him. Then he recognized the shaved head and the suit.
It was Alek.
He was teling a story, smiling and gesturing with his long fingers; Tommy’s smile was a little boozy, and his eyes looked interested in more than talk.
Holy Mother of Shit on a Stick.
Griff prayed that neither of them would be dumb enough to start something in the Stone Bone. Alek wasn’t going to say anything, right? Or was he trying to scout Tommy for the HotHead website? Jesus!
Worse: what if they were hooking up? If Tommy wanted to rough-fuck random guys in Manhattan, that was one thing—but here?
Nah. Alek wouldn’t do anything to mess with him or with Dante. Hel, Griff had met Alek about where he was standing now. The Russian knew how to play it cool. And Tommy wasn’t going to get his meat where he got his bread, right?
If Griff hadn’t known things about each of these guys, he wouldn’t have given them a second glance.
As it was, he counted to three. The two of them were awful goddamned cozy. He checked to see if anyone might have noticed. In here maybe they were just two dudes shooting the shit, having a beer. No big. Yeah.
He made his move, pushing through the mob to get back to their booth. He only had a few minutes to do damage control before he had to get back to the door. He slid into the vinyl seat opposite them.
“Big Griff!” Tommy was drunker and friendlier now. His mouth looked soft and happy. He crowed, “Hey, man, siddown!” as if Griff hadn’t already.
“Mr. Muir.” Alek smiled and nodded helo. “I did not see you when I arrived. Thomas and I were just chatting about the fire service.”
“Oh?” Griff stared at Alek and shook his head sharply. The hell are you hunting in here, greaseball? He knew exactly.
“Only chatting.” Alek shook his head in response to the unasked question and let his blue gaze fal.
Tommy settled back in the booth, arms wide enough that one was behind Alek. Nothing weird if you weren’t looking. “I was teling Mister.…”
“Vaklanov.” Alek spoke quietly in his burred accent. “Alek Vaklanov.”
Tommy grunted. “Yeah, that. ’S’teling him about the firehouse. Greatest fucking job, shit money. But we’re like brothers, right?” He looked at Griff like an injured dog. “Everybody’s got your back ala time.”
Alek stood up, but he was only headed to the bar, shifting his weight under Griff’s glare. “Drinks?”
“I’m working.” Griff growled a chalenge at him. Don’t fucking push me.
Alek leaned over to say something to Tommy, who was staring wet-lipped at the scarred table in front of him. Tommy nodded and wiped his nose roughly.
Alek straightened and started heading for the bar.
As soon as he was halfway gone, Griff tapped the wooden table to get Tommy’s attention. “Hey, Dobsky! I thought you were supposed to be headed home.”
“I am home.” Tommy turned drunkenly to watch Alek’s ass. He licked his lips and turned back. “I mean I’m headed… yuh-huh.” He chuckled.
Motherfuck.
“Hey! Hey.” Griff snapped his thick fingers and dropped his voice to the gravel that Dante caled his barbarian voice. “Whatever you’re thinking, fucking don’t. Dobsky, you listening?” Was he gonna have to get direct?
Tommy turned back to the table and dug in his pants for something. He lifted a wrinkled business card close to his bloodshot eyes.
Griff had to sit on his mitts to keep from snatching it. Was that Alek’s phone number? Or the HotHead card? Either one was a disaster. He needed to get Dobsky out of here without making a scene or letting on that he knew what was what.
The paramedic chewed his lip in concentration and thumped the bent card with his stubby fingers. His eyes went back to Alek at the bar.
“Dobsky, don’t make me toss you out on your ass. You’re a fucking mess. Go home to your wife before you pass out.” Tommy turned and scowled at Griff. He stil didn’t know Griff knew, and that was an advantage. Had Alek already made an offer?
“Listen to me talking here.” Griff leaned over at him. “I’m trying to do you a solid.” Tommy snorted and sloshed the pint glass. For a second his gold eyes were about to cry; then the glassiness was gone. Rising up out of the booth so he could face Griff, he poked the bigger man in the chest to punctuate his boozy anger. “You… can’t… help… shit.” He hiccoughed and sat back hard on the bench.
“Pipe down, jackass.” Griff glanced around them to make sure no one was paying attention to the stubby drunk and the coppertop giant chatting in this booth. He growled under his breath, “Before I stuff you in a box and fucking mail you to your house. Let me cal you a car service.” Tommy smiled and blinked once, anger forgotten. Another slow blink, like he was winking with both eyes. He weighed the offer and swalowed a belch. “No thanks, buddy. I’m good. You’re huge, huh?” His gaze ran over Griff’s chest and shoulders.
Perfect. Physical intimidation had backfired and gotten the kinky bastard horned up. He’d forgotten that bulying turned Tommy’s crank.
“C’mon, Tommy.” Griff considered the wisdom of walking around the table, yanking him to his feet, and dragging him outside into the cold air, but didn’t move. He looked to his post at the door. The clock was running.
They sat in that booth trying to find words to say very different things to each other.
Before Tommy started teling any truth, Griff coughed and broke the tense moment. “Hey, man, nothing is that bad.” That’s a fucking lie and we both know it.
“Griffin. I think I want a divorce.” Tommy’s voice broke across the little table. “People get divorced.” Oh shit. “What are you talking about?”
“’S’awful, man.” Tommy rubbed his face. “I don’t know who to fucking talk to.”
You and me both, asshole. Griff thought of how close he’d come to teling Tommy everything before— thank you, God—deciding to keep his mouth shut.
At the bar, Alek was picking up his order carefuly. Griff saw a middle-aged woman next to him flirting, to zero effect. Wrong tree, much?
Tommy was sliding his glass on the condensation on the table. “Griff, you’re a real good guy, right. Level. Uh, have you ever thought about…?” Watching him flounder, Griff realized he was working up crazy drunken courage to confess something awful. Tommy wanted to tel him everything and ask for advice that Griff didn’t have to give.
“Like, you’re a brick shithouse. I mean, you and Anastagio are fucking men. Like brothers. Mnm. Nobody hassles you. If I needed….” Tommy chewed on his fear, trying to get the words out, and Griff let him; he had his own. “’Cause, we’re both, uh, guys.” The specter of that raw aley fuck balooned in the air between them, hovering and materializing as Tommy spoke.
Between the two of them, only Griff knew that they were both thinking of the same dangerous desire: the scraped skin, the rigid cocks, the hairy chests, beard-burn and precum, the grunting-straining-sweating-moaning heat possible between two men who wanted the same thing and weren’t afraid.
Not me; I’m terrified.
Tommy took a breath. “We got al kindsa needs. Which means we can be pigs too.” He snorted back a laugh.
Griff closed his eyes, waiting for the axe to fal right here in the Stone Bone, half-hoping it would.
Tommy finaly found the words, his stare intent. “What I’m saying is, did you ever wonder what it’s like to…?” Make out with a man.
Fuck your friend.
Be gay.
Griff gritted his teeth and held his breath, opening his eyes to see the words emerge.
Tommy looked up, groggy, took a breath to finish his questi—
Like that, Alek was standing with his crotch bumping the table. “Here we are, gentlemen.” A wave of relief and guilt crashed over Griff as the specter of man-sex evaporated before Tommy could make it tangible.
Alek put a cup of coffee on the pitted table in front of Tommy’s paws.
“Tom?” Griff asked a question he knew wouldn’t get answered. “What, man? What it’s like to…?”
“Never mind.” Tommy fel silent, closing his stubby fingers over the hot mug.
Alek sat down beside the baffled paramedic and nodded to Griff— time to go. They came to silent agreement while Tommy tried to figure out how his terrible confession had been hijacked and why he was drinking a cup of joe in the Bone.
“I gotta get back up front.” Griff swung out of the booth, nodding to the manager up front, who looked pissed. “Drink up, Dobsky. Last round. Get home to your family.” He landed that last word looking at Alek.
Alek tipped his head to the door. He understood Griff perfectly, the order and the threat. “When he reaches the bottom of his coffee, I wil put our friend in a taxicab. I promise you, Mr. Muir.”
Poor Tommy.
Griffin went back to his station at the door, wishing he knew who to ask for advice.
THE next morning, Griff left his dad’s house without eating. He was serious about moving before the holidays, and it was after Columbus Day.
Loretta Anastagio had made a couple appointments to look at rentals with him. Before the baby was born, she’d studied for her real estate license and sold a few houses.
Griff had caled her and asked for help getting the hel out of his father’s basement. He knew what he wanted—nothing fancy, just a place he could afford with the jobs he had that was close enough to his life so he wouldn’t waste half his days commuting.
He wanted something clean, near his two families, and within a half hour of the firehouse and bar by car or subway. She’d tried to force him to get more specific, but he didn’t care and his rules were simple: no roommates, no matter how nice; no studios, no matter how cushy; nothing on Staten Island, no matter how cheap.
Simple, right? Apparently not. Loretta tried to negotiate even those slight requests, but he’d held firm. Griff knew exactly what he could put up with day to day.
Sighing, she’d made ominous predictions about impossible rents, and Griff had just told her to dig around. New York real estate was always a radioactive shark tank. Griff just needed to see some options.
Reluctantly, she’d agreed to look after she’d dropped Nicole at kindergarten. He would meet Loretta there and drop her off in time to pick up her daughter at noon.
As he drove to the school, Griff checked his phone. Just a voice mail from Alek letting him know that he’d put Tommy in a cab as instructed. Translation: “I didn’t ass-pound your drunk friend with my large Russian penis last night.”
Griff wondered if there was a way to scare Tommy enough to make him avoid Alek altogether.
He thought about caling Tommy’s number to make sure he’d made it home safely, but thought better of the idea. They weren’t exactly friends, and it sounded like things were already tense in the Dobsky house. Last thing Griff wanted to do was complicate a bad situation by sticking his beak in.
Mind your own dumb business.
After he’d paralel parked in front of the brightly-painted windows, he looked for Loretta, but she was nowhere to be found. Griff looked down at his celphone. Had he forgotten to check his messages? Nope. Nothing there from Loretta.
“Morning!” a warm baritone caled from across the street. Dante ambled toward him with a cup of coffee and a butter-stained paper bag in one hand and a child’s carseat in the other. A van slowed down to let him pass. “Got you danish.”
After his accident, Dante had gone on leave with his mild concussion. It had only been a week since he’d cracked his head open and almost burnt alive. He looked more handsome than ever. Apparently, near-death agreed with him.
Griff tilted his head in confusion. “I’m supposed to meet your sister.”
“And I’m chopped liver?” Dante handed him the coffee.
“No. I just….” Griff accepted the bakery bag. He could smel apricot and his stomach rumbled.
“Frankie surprised her for their anniversary. He flew in from Iraq last night, and she caled me to pinch-hit as a child-kennel and apartment-pimp combo.” Griff nodded thanks, squinting in the morning sun. There didn’t seem to be any awkwardness between them. I missed you, D.
Dante grinned back, like he’d read Griff’s mind and agreed. “I knew you’d be hungry.”
“Cool.” Griff turned back to his truck. “You wanna drive while I eat?”
“Yeah. I want you to have food in you when you see these shitholes. Give you something to upchuck.” Griff didn’t have a hand free to smack his smiling friend, but it was the thought that counted. Besides, smacking a concussion seemed like overkil. He took a sip of the strong coffee. “How’s your head?”
“Hard as ever.” Dante knocked on his head like a door and Griff winced. “Whatsamatter?” Griff’s eyes bulged at his best friend’s blasé attitude. “Uhhh. It hasn’t even been a week? You’re on medical leave. Ringing any bels?”
“Nah. I’m fit for anything you can throw at me.” He roled his eyes and slapped his chest.
“Dante, get serious. You almost got roasted alive. You split your head open.”
“Don’t worry, G. You saved me already. I’m not gonna wind up a vegetable.”
Griff breath gusted out in a chuff of amazement. “Christ. You’re already a fucking vegetable. A sprout.”
“I got your sprout right here, Muir.” Dante squeezed his basket and chewed his medium-rare lip. “We can’t al be redwoods. And you may not be a fan, but my sprout here gets planted plenty.” He folowed Griff back to the truck. “Keys?” Without warning, Dante stepped close and thrust his hand into Griff’s pockets, digging around right there on the street.
“Agh!” Griff froze standing next to the passenger door.
Dante chuckled low. “There’s my blush.”
Griff held his breath while Dante’s hand slid against the side of his soft bulge. He tried to remember that they were just two friends joking around on the corner in Brooklyn. He hissed, “Yeah. I coulda… you don’t have to play undersea treasure hunt in my damn pants.”
“Gotta watch out for that electric eel.” Dante closed his hand over the ring and winked and puled his fist out.
- Jangle - Jingle -
Griff took a sip of coffee and checked to make sure no one had seen. The sidewalk around them was empty. He almost didn’t care.
Huh. I guess porn’s kind of a cure for hang-ups.
Dante puled the door open for Griff to climb inside, then closed it firmly. He jogged around the front and hopped into the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe I get to drive your damn truck.”
“I always wanted a slick wop chauffeur.” Griff took a big bite of apricot Danish and chewed happily.
Dante laughed and dug a wad of folded paper out of his back pocket to hand him Loretta’s listings: his escape plan. They were warm with Dante’s body heat and curved from being snug against his butt. “Where to first, Mr. Muir?”
Griff chewed a moment and let the creased pages cool off a little before he unfolded them.
Dante was raring to go. “Pick a dump, any dump.”
Griff scanned the page. Loretta had thoughtfuly organized them by neighborhood. “Hmm. First stop, looks like Sunset Park.” Dante bobbed his head, checked the mirror, and puled into the street smoothly.
GRIFFIN didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but he had no idea New Yorkers were wiling to live in such disgusting places. For some of them, slums would have been a step up.
They al sucked, every apartment Loretta had dug up—not just a little, but on a biblical scale. It was appaling to see what Brooklyn had to offer to a blue-colar bachelor seeking digs. Finaly, Griff understood what Loretta had been trying to tel him so tactfuly.
That wasn’t completely fair. Some of the places turned out to be nice but completely unrealistic. Even with his income from the FDNY, bouncing at the Stone Bone, and working construction on the weekends, these apartments were so expensive that Griff would have to work sixty hours a day to make the rent, let alone eat or pay for electricity.
The apartments he could afford, al three of them, were medieval in their ugliness and unfitness.
Option one was a sixth-floor walkup that had actual piles of trash scattered up the endless steps and dog turds on the landing. On the floor, a couple screamed at each other in French, it sounded like. A toddler wandered outside the door in diapers and bare feet. No thanks.
One apartment hadn’t even had wals or a toilet, just the bare pipe sticking up out of unfinished concrete in the dead center of an empty room. “Couple weekends, good as new!” the super had exclaimed. “You can instal whichever rooms and whatever crapper you want.” He pointed at the three-foot window high on one wal. “And a view!”
The third place turned out to be a semi-legal two bedroom that had been built over a pizzeria without permits by a couple of shifty cousins. They explained that their family couldn’t find out about the tenant so rent had to be paid weekly in cash. As a bonus, Griff could have al the pizza he could eat, plus they could place bets for him with their dad’s numbers racket. Upstairs, Dante found a rat the size of a possum curled dead in the pepperoni-scented bedroom. The sheepish cousins explained that they’d spread poison downstairs in the basement, so the rats had come up here: “On vacation, like.” Dante laughed al the way back to the truck, thumping Griff on the back, trying to get him to laugh too.
Once they were on the road again, Griff didn’t say anything. He just folded and refolded Loretta’s pages, stil curled with the shape of Dante’s ass.
Dante was driving back toward the kindergarten so he could colect Nicole.
“Sorry.” Griff felt like an idiot for dragging Dante al over creation.
“C’mon! For what? I wanted to help.”
“You don’t mind driving around?”
“Duh. No! I fucking hate it, G.” Dante turned to Griff and twisted his handsome features into his vilage idiot face: eyes crossed, tongue out. “I want you to move in with me, man.”
“Nah. I appreciate it, but I need to get a place of my own. I’m a grownup.” Griff turned to look out the passenger window, not wanting to see the plea in Dante’s bottomless eyes.
“Think. I got al those rooms.”
“Without fucking wals or doors!” Griff laughed and looked over at his best friend.
“Exactly! We could pool resources. Half the costs. I could use the steady rent, and you could even cover your part of the bils by helping me renovate. We’d both be better off and you know it. Even my parents think so.”
“They said that?”
“Griffin, they suggested it.” Dante took his eyes off the road to nail him with a glance. He frowned. “They know how much you work. They know what it’s like at your dad’s. And they worry about both of us.”
Griff tried to put his anxiety into words that didn’t cross any lines and stil sounded grateful for the offer. “Dante, I don’t think I should ever live with anybody.
I’m a pain in the ass. I keep rotten hours. I snore.” And I jerk off every single night watching you on the web.
Dante wasn’t buying that. “Yeah, asswipe, and I’m an arrogant prick. I own and use more grooming products than a chick. I can sleep through a missile strike and I have the same damn schedule, in case you hadn’t noticed. Why are you so dead set against me?” He put a hand on Griff’s thick leg and squeezed.
Why-why-why? I wonder.
Griff struggled to keep his thigh relaxed, not to react. He looked down at the hand and then at the road in front of them. He swalowed. “It’s not you. I love your place, you know that. And hanging out. Hel, I helped build out a lot of the deranged heap it is today. It—I don’t want to crowd you.”
“You’re not! How can you crowd me?! I’m asking!” Dante’s exasperation crept into his voice, reasoning with a lunatic.
Griff took a deep breath and let it out. “I just don’t want to put any pressure on you that isn’t already there.” Dante squeezed Griff’s leg and patted it— good dog— before putting both hands back on the wheel. “Okay. Okay. I just want you to know that I want you there. I wish you’d think about it.”
“I know.” Griff nodded. His thigh stil tingled with the handprint. “I do. I did. I have.” I think about it twenty-three hours a day, which is why it’s a rotten idea.
Dante puled into a space down the block from Nicole’s school. He kiled the engine and handed the keys back.
Griff took them and turned to Dante. “Sorry about wasting your Friday. You should be in bed.”
“It wasn’t wasted. Sheesh.”
Little people were miling with moms in front of the pastel letters painted across the front of the building.
Dante pointed and started to climb out of the truck. “There she is.”
To Griff’s surprise, he heard himself ask, “Can I come say hi?”
“Sure! Yeah. She’d love that.” Dante waited for Griffin to lock the truck and pocket the keys.
Under a bright painting of stacked pumpkins, Nicole was holding a young teacher’s skirt, pointing at their approach. The teacher leaned down so Nicole could say something.
Dante spoke out of the side of his wine-stain mouth. “I should mention, just so you know: she cals you Monster.”
“Monster?” Griff shook his head as they crossed the street. “Where’d she get that, I wonder?”
“Dunno.” Dante looked away and completely failed to seem innocent. “You’re huge and grouchy and fiery red.”
“I’l try not to step on any midgets.” Griff smiled and shouldered him hard enough to make him stumble.
“Hey!” Dante gave a bark of indignant laughter. “I’m fucking fragile! I’m recuperating.”
“Seem bad as new to me.”
The two firemen picked their way through the mob of tiny students to colect theirs.
Nicole watched them approaching with a kind of patient skepticism, like she was waiting for Griff to step on a building. Griff did feel like Godzila.
“C’mon, bug.” Dante scooped his niece up, nodding thanks to the teacher for waiting with her.
Nicole roled her little eyes at the injustice of being treated like a child. “Uncle Dante.”
“And Monster,” Griff muttered as they headed to Dante’s car.
Dante and Nicole laughed until he laughed too.
SOMETIME around two in the afternoon, Griff realized that he and Dante would make good parents—like, together. Oddly enough, Nicole was the one who diagnosed their delicate condition.
After the two men had picked up Nicole at school, they had gone for lunch at Ferdinando’s, old-school Sicilian ristorante al the way. They demolished a couple orders of rice bals, and then Nicole and Dante shared a few paneli specials, tasty chickpea fritters that were Dante’s favorite lunch. Griff had the pizziole, the pork so tender that he never touched his damn knife.
Griff insisted on picking up the check, and the soft way Dante looked at him to say “thanks” made him want to buy a milion lunches, lunches for strangers.
While he knew that having kids wasn’t realy this easy, Griff loved having the chance to goof off with his best buddy and play dad for a while. No alarms, no bar fights, no renovations. Just the three of them wandering around Cobble Hil, taking bakery breaks every now and then. And if some secret part of him pretended that they were a male couple spending the afternoon with their daughter, he tried not to think about it too much. Dante had promised his sister he’d have Nicole home at three.
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.”