Chapter 17
EIGHT days later, Griff’s HotHead photo shoot almost split them up.
Two hundred hours of waking up together, of making smal repairs and moving Griff’s stuff and paying off the debt and fucking like mink. Then Griff had to make good on his agreement with Alek.
Dante blew a gasket.
If he’d been jealous before, now he was completely irrational. It didn’t matter that they’d been on a website doing porn. It didn’t matter that this would keep them safe. It didn’t matter that no one would even know it was Griff in the photos. Now that they were a couple, Dante couldn’t take the idea of letting Griff stand in a studio for three days while some “whore” felt him up and snapped shots of his junk.
Dante had even gone to Alek and tried to take his place. He’d begged and threatened, actualy, but Alek was adamant; he wanted Griff for the photos.
Period. Which of course only exacerbated the situation. On the plus side, Dante didn’t physicaly attack Alek, but only because Griff apologized fast and got him to the truck in time.
In the end, Griff agreed to let him come along, and Dante was determined to make the next three days a living hel for everyone involved, Griff included.
During the ride up, Dante stood across the elevator fuming. His hostility smoked off him like heat in the desert until Griff was sure he was bending the air, forming mirages around them out of his rage.
God save us from possessive Italians.
They had taken the subway to Broadway-Lafayette and walked over to an old beat-up loft conversion on the Bowery, next to a homeless shelter and a methadone clinic. The battered red door opened to a grubby halway. This place had obviously been a factory at some point, and the elevator was open-faced, with a metal gate that alowed them to watch the bare concrete of the shaft as they crawled slowly up to the photographer’s apartment in tense silence.
Finaly, as the lift crawled past graffiti painted on the concrete between the fourth and fifth floors, Dante muttered, “What a shithole.”
“C’mon. She needs the space. Alek said she was realy talented and chil.” Griff glanced at Dante’s stiff shoulders; why was he stil acting so crazy? This had to be the slowest elevator in the universe.
Dante smiled, but it didn’t reach his cold eyes. “Alek wants you so bad he’d cut his own throat to get your hands on him.”
“Easy, tiger.” Griff clamped his lips together.
Ding! They stepped out and looked right, then left into a hardwood-floored hal that creaked under their feet. There was faint music coming from one end; instinctively, they both headed in that direction.
Dante walked a little ahead of him, making sure he got there first so he could give her what-for. “I’m not gonna put up with some slutty piece drooling over you and fondling you.”
“D, you can’t have it both ways.”
“Yeah, if I’m flirting with someone, I’m in charge. But how can I be sure what she does with you—” Dante realized he was talking to the air and walking alone. “Where are you going?”
Griff had turned and was striding back across the creaking floor toward the elevators. “Going home. We’re gonna have to do this together. I spent my whole life trying to get to you. I’m not gonna wreck it over some chick we never met before who just wants to take some pictures. Alek is being generous to us. This is generous, dipshit.” Griff pressed the button.
Dante reached him and raised a hand to touch him but didn’t. “C’mon, G. I’m sorry. I know… look, if the shoe was on the other—”
“Then I’d fucking deal. Oh wait, I already did! ” Griff exploded in the empty halway, not giving a shit who heard. “I’m cleaning up a mess you made. You think I didn’t watch you on that site, flirting with Alek. A hundred times? A thousand? You think I don’t know every word you said, that I didn’t want to flush myself down the crapper every time you winked at him or licked your fucking mouth like you were gonna let him blow you? Like it wasn’t an axe in my head?” Dante’s face was frozen. His eyes were midnight glass, any trace of that green buried deep. “Wh—I—”
“You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you twice. The idea of going in there to strip off for strangers and I wanna puke. But I’m doing it.” Griff braced himself against the wal and bent over, hands on his knees, looking at the floor. Finaly, he muttered, “I’m doing this for us. For you! It’s awful enough without you twisting the fucking knife.” He could see Dante standing close out of the corner of his eye, but neither of them moved.
Dante made a smal sound that made Griff turn. He was fucking crying, standing like a broken soldier. Dante’s face was a rictus of agony, a tragic mask slick with pain.
When Griff straightened to look at him, they both seemed smal in the vast halway.
Dante nodded at the floor. “I can’t lose you, man.”
“Then talk to me. Just talk to me and we’l figure it out.” Griff’s hand held out looked too big, like he would knock a hole in the plaster wals if he wasn’t careful.
Dante shook in front of him, frustration leaking onto the floor one stinging drop at a time. He wouldn’t let himself take the pale hand.
“C’mon, D. Enough with that bulshit. You know better.” Griff straightened and puled Dante into his chest, not giving a shit who saw the queer firemen. “You be brave for me and I’l do the same.” He kissed the top of the tangled head.
Dante nodded and let himself be held for a moment. “Prick.”
“Asshole.” Griff puled back so they could see each other. “Now you decide. Are you gonna stand here in the fucking halway singing opera like Loretta, or are you gonna come in with me and solve our life so we can actualy have it? Your choice.” Finaly Dante stiled and wiped his nose. He raised his eyes to Griff’s, searching them. The bastard managed a smal grin. “Did you realy watch me that many times on the site?” Blink. Blink. Al innocent vanity.
Griff groaned and smacked his head, but when they reached the photographer’s door, they were standing beside each other.
“Rent-controled.” Beth puled open the door before they could buzz. “I’m not nearly as successful as this place makes it seem. I lucked out when I broke up with my last girlfriend. You’re on time.”
She looked surprised about that. She was maybe four feet nine inches tal, definitely under five feet, and al of one hundred pounds soaking wet. Her hair was a gleaming blond knot scraped up onto the back of her head. She wore overals over a long-sleeved T-shirt, and high-tops. Her studio took up the entire floor, with windows looking out over the Bowery.
“You’re Griffin?”
“Or Griff. Hi.” Griff shifted his weight in the door, feeling clumsy and dumb.
She held out her hand, and Griff shook it. She swung her gaze over to Dante and squinted. “Boyfriend?” Huh. They hadn’t exactly discussed it; Griff wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say.
Dante was. “Yeah. That a problem?” Ful-on Brooklyn. He narrowed his eyes and ambled into the room, realy laying the Italian Stalion on thick.
She didn’t even watch him. “Not unless you’re gonna get in my fucking away. Was that you pitching the panty-tantrum in the hal?” Ruh-roh.
“We were having a conversation.”
“Sounded like a snit. I’m used to it. I work with a lot of models, so I got hot’n’cold running hysterics in this joint.” Griff caught her eye and shook his head to let her know it was okay. She didn’t agree.
Beth turned back to scold Dante. “Like you’re a rabid Dalmatian and he’s a hydrant? Macho territorial bulshit. Nothing new to me, Tonto. Why don’t you piss on him if it’l make you feel better?” Beth roled her eyes as she laid lenses in rows on the counter. “For the record, I’m not angling for your man, genius. He has the wrong parts. Hi?” She pointed at herself and crossed her eyes. “Big dyke, much?” Griff tried to defuse the twin time bombs. “Uhh, standing right here.”
Dante ignored him and stuck out his noble chin. “I just want to make sure nobody hassles him or does anything—”
“Yeah, yeah. Ooga-booga. Sit down.” Beth had his number, and she wasn’t afraid of anything. “Don’t touch anything.” The east wal was solid windows, and the west wal had an enormous rol of white paper mounted at the crown molding, which fel to the floor in a seamless spil. It was lit by large lamps on stands, which were off at the moment. When they were turned on, it would be blinding.
“Griffin?” Beth was smiling right in front of him with her blue eyes, patting him down with her knobby little hands. Her anger had evaporated. It was like talking to a pushy pixie. “You done any modeling before?”
“No, ma’am.” He actualy had to look down to realy see her. Even in this cavernous space he felt like a cyclops.
“Jeez. I’m not your granny. I’m only thirty-six. I mean Alek said you’d—”
Dante snorted from the kitchen. “Blown his load for Russia.”
Great. Thanks, D.
Beth didn’t blink, just waited for Griff’s answer.
“Uh-huh. But nothing like for the camera and”—Griff gestured at the expanse of white paper—“everything.”
“We’l start slow. If you need breaks, you tel me. If you get uncomfortable, say something.”
“What about if I feel uncomfortable… ma’am?” Dante sauntered from the kitchen eating a muffin, al but chewing with his mouth open.
Beth didn’t blink. “Then I know that I’m doing my fucking job, Guido.” She plucked the muffin out of his hand and took a bite and handed it back. “C’mon.” Then she ran them through the setup and the facilities: toilet, fridge, basic equipment. It was a huge apartment, and the light from the windows was bright enough cause a migraine.
“Jesus! You make serious bank doing this photo thing, huh?” Dante picked up a massive lens from a table of cameras, being a douche on purpose.
“Dante!” Griff hissed and glared at him. Back off.
But Beth just plucked it out of his hands and replaced it. “If you’re talented and bloodthirsty—but I am, so yeah.” She started to head back to the kitchen but paused to smile. Her voice was a lulaby. “And if you touch my shit again, I’m gonna kick your insides out and wear you as a party dress.” Dante nodded and put the lens down carefuly. Griff smiled. Smart lady.
She regarded Griff from a couple yards away, eyeing his scale and measurements like a lioness scoping a wildebeest. “We got three days. This is a favor for Alek.” She looked up at the light overhead and held a smal black square in front of his face. “Light meter. You’re good.” Dante orbited them like an irritated moon, but he didn’t interfere beyond asking, “What kinda favor? I mean, why are you helping HotHead?”
“Alek finds models for me sometimes. He has—” She appraised Griff and approved. “—quite a fucking eye.”
“On that we agree.” Dante put a hand on his boyfriend’s broad back.
“Alek can’t afford my support team, so I’m a crew of one for this. I got snacky crap so we don’t have to run out al damn day.” Griff was relieved. “So it’l just be us?”
Beth smiled. “Better anyways. I don’t like to have a massive team with someone who hasn’t—”
“Gotten butt-ass, bone-dog naked for your vadge-cam?” Dante offered with an angelic smile, standing close.
“Fucking hel, D.” Griff turned to Beth with an apology, but she spoke first.
“Huh-yeah. Thanks, cockbreath.” Beth looked at Griff for permission and then stepped closer to dissect him from about two feet away. “There’s no face in these shots, so we don’t need that kind of makeup. I may need to trim pubes or pits or whatnot. Your skin’s very fair; maybe some shading, but not much. Little oil, maybe?”
She spoke that last to an invisible assistant, then realized there wasn’t one. She closed her eyes and grimaced politely. “Sorry. Bad habit. You look pretty cut already.”
“I work out at the firehouse. And I run sometimes, you know.” Griff felt weird looking down at his body like it was a suit that belonged to him.
“I don’t see a lot of guys built like you that aren’t charbroiled. Gay or straight, bodybuilders tend to gril themselves pretty regular. And they al got tattoos up the yingyang.”
Dante ran a possessive hand over Griff’s shoulders and neck, the calouses rough in exactly the right way.
Griff found himself arching into it like a massive cat. It felt nice being stroked in front of a friendly witness.
“You’re kind of a natural for body modeling. Seriously. You could clean up.” Beth walked Griff over behind a screen so he could strip down and gave him a thick navy robe that he could wear in between. “So you don’t freeze.”
She left him to shuck down and he did, feeling cold and strange in this exposed room, super aware of those windows facing the stark white paper. When he came out in the robe, she walked around him like he was a bul at an auction. His robe only reached his knees and the sleeves mid arm, which made her smile.
“You are a big one, huh? What are you, like two hundred forty? Two hundred fifty pounds?” Griff nodded. “Sorry.”
She chewed her lip and puled on one ear, muling some options. “Don’t be sorry. It’s great. I think I know what Alek wants. C’mere a sec.” Griff folowed her back across the hardwood floors to the sheet-metal kitchen and Dante’s irritated dark glare.
Beth simply ignored Dante, stepping around him to grab a bottle of olive oil. She poured it into her hands and rubbed them together like she was washing them. She came toward Griff. “Lose the robe for a sec?”
“What are you doing?” Dante stepped in front of Griff protectively, for al the world like he was going to wrestle the little lesbian to the ground.
“I’m not gonna molest your boyfriend. Back down, genius!” She showed her slick palms. “The muscle wil look better under oil. Breaks the light. And he’s so fair we need al the contrast we can get.”
“Fuck that. I’l do it.” Dante scooped up the olive oil bottle and lathered his hands with it, annoyed. Stepping close to Griff, he spoke in a near whisper. “This okay?”
“Sure.” Griff nodded. “I’m not gonna break, Dante. It’s for us. They’re just pictures.” Dante grimaced and whispered, “I know. Sorry, G. I fucking hate this.”
Beth laughed and moved away, wiping her hands on the towel over her shoulder. “’S’better anyway. He’l let you be more thorough than me. Be sure and find the nooks and crannies. Maybe it’l calm you both down.”
Dante put his warm hands on Griff’s colarbone and smoothed a sheen of olive oil over his shoulders, around across the top of his back, down his heavy arms to his hands.
Griff’s dick took notice right away, jutting from his fiery bush and poking Dante. “Sorry.” Dante shot a possessive glance at Beth. He was saying something under his breath as he worked.
At her tripod, Beth waved away his modesty. “No apologies to me, Red. I need you to get wood and keep wood. Crew of one, remember? If jackass here is happy to grease you and fluff you, it’l make our days easier.”
She looked between them, measuring something.
“I get it though…. You guys do look pretty amazing together.” It was an honest compliment.
Dante smiled before he could stop himself and grunted thanks. Going back to the bottle as necessary, he patiently polished Griff’s entire body like a statue, worshipping it with oil, his face quiet and proud and possessive.
Dante worked al the way around him, kneeling to get close to his lower half so that his breath tickled the cinnamon hairs on Griff’s thighs.
Again, he was murmuring, and Griff could just make out the words “mine-mine-mine, you’re mine-mine.” Dante leaned forward and brushed his lips behind Griff’s knee.
Griff smiled and sighed. By the end of the process, his skin glowed under the warm lights and his erection was hot iron.
“Don’t be shy!” Beth was thriled with the result; she stood, hip cocked, with the heavy digital camera held up at her shoulder. “You are a stunner, huh? I see what Alek meant. Jeepers.”
Dante stood up, fuming, and she threw him a towel to wipe his hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off Griff and muttered under his breath, “I hate other people looking at you.”
Griff whispered right back. “’S’okay, D. This is for us. No one wil ever know but us.” Dante nodded, eyes on the floor as he stepped back toward the dimness beyond the lights and the camera.
Beth held that light meter thing under his face and squinted at one of the spots to his right. She climbed on a stepladder and set a thin flag of fabric that broke the harsh beam into a diffuse glow.
Griff could feel the jealousy and anxiety and Italian guilt roling off his man in waves. His man. “Hey. Hey, Anastagio. Look at me.” Dante did, turning back right at the edge of the light, his face guarded and grim.
“Whose am I?”
Dante nodded once, smiled a little. That was better.
DANTE and Beth fel into a kind of grudging, teasing, mutual nitpick society over the three days.
She thought he was a jealous, arrogant asshole, and he thought she was a bossy spider monkey.
Secretly, Griff thought they were both right. And he found out that modeling was way less glamorous and way harder on his body than he’d expected.
Crunching his muscles and flexing his dick and holding one position for up to an hour at a time left him feeling like a wet, knotted rag. He kept cramping in the cold.
Being a firefighter was way less painful and way more interesting. Hel! Even being a bouncer he got to talk to people and breathe normaly and wear pants.
Stil, three days to pay off HotHead was nothing. And then they had the world.
The first two days had been taken up with what Beth caled “parsley,” because those pictures were like a sexy garnish that Alek could sprinkle on webpages as necessary.
She had a list of body parts and attacked each one with grim efficiency, checking them off as she worked her way over every square inch of him. After the third hour he couldn’t even work up shyness about having Beth climb over him like a jungle gym. She admired him, but as if he were a tree or a rock.
For two entire nine-hour days, Beth shot Griff’s nipples, back, feet, biceps, glutes, calves.
- Click - Flick - Ca-click - Click -
His cock soft and his cock hard, and the curl of his ridged abs, shoulders, triceps, biceps.
- Click - Click - Ca-flick -
She did wider shots of his bent legs, his ful arms bunched rigid, his lower back and butt crack, his bals and wrinkled foreskin against his thighs.
- Click - Click - Flick-click - Click -
She even shot his armpits, and she’d given Dante a toothbrush and made him comb the bright whorls there until Griff was so fucking ticklish he thought he was going to curl into a bal.
- Click - Fa-click -
Neck, toes, hairy chest, spread cheeks, hips, throat, hands spread and in fists.
- Flickclickcaclick -
To Griff it seemed like a butcher sectioning a side of beef.
Moo.
Beth joked the whole time, and she made him feel almost comfortable. She was amazing.
Dante muttered the whole time and couldn’t be convinced to leave. His time off was over, but he’d taken sick days at his station and dared Beth, “I’m his, I dunno, groomer, slave, whatever. Give me something to do.”
Good as his word, Dante dutifuly logged their progress through Beth’s butcher chart, fetched coffee and sandwiches and seltzer, oiled Griff and rubbed his shoulders on the breaks like a water-boy. He groomed Griff for lint and dust like a chimpanzee.
If Beth pushed too long, Dante would get up in her face until she gave Griff a breather. By the second day, she was showing Dante the shots on her digital camera and talking about them. He had an eye, apparently, and after the first day was wanting to take pictures of his own. Suddenly they were pals, but they stil fought good-naturedly al the time.
Though he didn’t admit it, Griff was glad, both for Dante’s help and for his fierce, protective jealousy. They realy were a perfect team, smoke and fire. And every once in a while, he’d catch Dante watching him so intently, eyes scarab-black and hungry, that he’d honest-to-Christ shiver under the searing lights.
As the hours passed, Dante looked at him differently. Beth was showing him something he wasn’t used to seeing, maybe.
By the second day, Griff even clowned around naked. He stil put his robe on a lot, but it was for the cold. His modesty had falen away like ash.
Second afternoon, Beth stopped shooting closeups of his lower back and stood up and muttered, “Not a freckle.” Griff tried not to move when he asked, “Sorry?”
“I keep looking for a freckle or a mole. I can’t find even one.” Beth was looking his skin over from about an inch away like an archaeologist.
Dante tapped her to remind her Griff was a person. “Hey….”
She smiled an apology and cracked her neck before starting on his back again. “Your skin is unbelievable. I can’t believe you never did that crappy FDNY
calendar.”
“Nah. Not my thing.” Griff had been too shy and too white to put himself up for it.
“I been in the calendar a couple times.” Dante held out a bottle of water for Griff to take a swalow.
“Of course you were, Guido.” She roled her eyes. “Tan and greasy. Geled hair, I bet. That was back when you were popping girls in bar bathrooms, right?” Dante’s opened his mouth to get indignant, but Beth raised a hand. Griff chuckled to himself. Busted.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re a looker…. Trouble is, unlike your boyfriend, you know it.” She jabbed her fingers at Dante, who just managed to look offended.
“Hel, I’d pay either one of you to come back and model. Any time.” She snapped. “Y’al are a piss!” Dante had his hands on his hips and looked insulted that the offer had taken her so long to make. “You fucking wish. You ain’t a charity, and I’m too fucking expensive.”
“Al pains in the ass are pricey. Goes with the territory. You don’t scare me.” She leaned over Griff from her ladder for what he figured had to be a hard angle on his pectoral and colarbone and the sweep of his broad torso from above. “Lean back a bit more so I can see the line. Hold. Hold it. Dante, nipple.” Dante’s hand snuck around and pinched him, and the rosy bud peaked. Griff was past blushing. Way.
- Clickcaclick -
“Great. Flex the intercostals for me, Griffin. C’mon. Pushpushpush. Twist right a hair. Cut those ribs. Hold! Hang on one sec. Got it.”
- Fa-click -
Each night Griff left that studio feeling sore and bruised, like he’d been through a rough footbal practice. Each night he barely made it in Dante’s door before he fel asleep, smiling, with Dante’s hard length spooned against him protectively.
In the mornings, Dante fed him and rubbed him like a thoroughbred, waking him up with breakfast and a delicious sloppy blowjob. “Just to take the edge off.” Griff wasn’t complaining, and it did keep him from embarrassing himself too much in front of Beth while Dante’s oiled hands roamed over him.
On the third day, the three of them started at the ass crack of dawn, and there was no more parsley to shoot. These were the show pieces, the money shots.
That last day, Beth started posing him like a dol, and Dante started working for real. And as Alek had promised, she steered clear of his face and she was fiercely professional.
To start with, Beth shot him from the side, waist down. “Can you stretch his bals from behind?” She was talking to Dante.
Dante grabbed and stretched.
Griff yelped. His thighs were already straining as he squatted, one hand planted on the wood floor, his heavy cock and the bals in question were nestled almost in the crook of his elbow. The other arm was out of the way behind his back. He felt like human origami.
“Fuck, Beth.” Dante’s exasperated sigh brushed the hairs on his hamstring. “At 8 a.m.?” Right now, Dante was wedged between his leg and the wal to stay out of the shot.
Beth regarded Dante in back, holding the camera on her hip. “Don’t castrate him, genius. I’m only using the right leg and the arm and his junk. I just want his bals to rest lower, so they’re in the fold of the arm. They sit kinda high and tight.”
“Sorry.” Griff realized he’d just apologized for the hang of his testicles and felt like an idiot.
Dante’s hands were gentle now as he tug-tug-tugged the oiled nutsack down without pinching or slipping loose.
Now that’s teamwork!
Behind him Dante bit his ass lightly with a smiling mouth, and Griff’s knob sweled inside its skin.
Beth chuffed in pleasure. “Perfect.” Click-ca-clickclick. “Hang on, Griffin. Almost there. Bicep! Squeeze-squeeze. One more and one more and one… got it. Beautiful.” Fa-clickclick. “That’s my beautiful boy.”
“Uh. That’s my beautiful boy.” Dante poked his head out to fake snarl at her.
“Then you better start deserving him, cheesebag.” As she circled, she poked Dante in the shoulder, and he didn’t say anything back, just scowled at the floor, thinking.
And so it went. Beth spent the last day like a happy spider, up on ladders, on her back under him, curled around light stands. It was as though she had spent two days learning his ingredients, and now she could cook with his entire huge, creamy body.
Whatever she was getting, Dante’s eyes got bigger and more serious as the day went on, his hands itching for a camera of his own. Beth ragged him constantly, but he seemed to love the good-natured abuse and provoked as much as he could. And the possessive stares he aimed at Griff were the cause of many ful-body blushes, which Beth documented with relish. He didn’t even feel shy around her anymore, but his arousal was sharp, and he knew Dante felt it too.
Around two, Alek came by to watch them work and peek at the results, but left when it was clear that they’d gotten into a groove together.
He and Beth nodded together looking at the proofs. “Exceptional,” was al the Russian said.
And even Griff could tel it was something special. He hurt al over and he was chiled to the bone, but when Beth let him see what they’d been building, he was shocked at the power and beauty of his own body. Not bad for a blue-collar shlub. He wondered if this was how Dante saw him, if that was why Dante looked so horny raking his scarab eyes over the results. He hoped so.
Near the end of that last day, Dante surrendered. Beth had been spiraling in on an image. By now, Griff understood the way she thought and could feel her focus tightening on the relevant part of his anatomy and the picture she wanted to catch til the muscles there tingled.
At the moment, his arched lower back practicaly itched under her keen eyes. He had a sense that this shot was going to be low, his face only just out of frame; he’d be visible from kneecaps right to the edge of his rust-stubbled jaw.
Dante was standing a little behind her, apparently hypnotized. He was unconsciously brushing his lips with one tan hand, watching Griff, his eyes squinted as he tried to see what Beth was seeing.
Look at him looking at me.
Griff smiled to himself.
She knelt down, shooting up to Griff’s buttocks and, just peeking between his thick thighs, the fat bals dangling under his uncircumcised cock. His back twisted into high, flexed relief, and one rosy nipple was just visible at the swel of his pec turning toward her. One of Griff’s hands held a meaty cheek slightly open to reveal the light cinnamon hairs and a hint of pink butthole. Gripping the oiled muscle, the first knuckle of his index finger just barely slipped inside him.
Hey!
“Stop right there! Don’t you fucking move. Don’t!” Beth barked and inched forward. “Almost… gimme a sec….” Griff froze. Dante was frozen as wel. The knuckle was just inside him, a sexy accident.
Like an excited marmoset, Beth dropped a little lower, skittering back with her legs and sliding on her shoulders so she could get the ful length of him from haunch to shoulder. “Okay. A little more twist. Chest high. Almost. Hold that! That’s it, man. Yeah! Tense the left glute hard. Beautybeautybeauty. Look at you….
Crunch it, Griffin. Flex. Flex! And—” Click-ca-faclick—
Dante breathed in sharply somewhere past the lights, like he’d been stung.
“Perfecto!” Ca- CLICK. “We got it. You’re good. Let go.”
“You’re sure?” But he’d already relaxed out of the pose. He was sore from holding the position for so long. It was getting dark outside, and he was ready to be done. Shit. No wonder models always looked so grouchy.
He looked over at Dante, who seemed hypnotized and blind, like his retinas had been burned by the bright lights. His mouth was open. His arms were wrapped tightly, hugging himself to work up nerve.
Griff went to him, shaking his head in confusion. “Whatsamatter?”
Dante spoke directly to Beth in a low voice. “That one’s for me. Alek can’t have that shot.”
“Says you.” Beth was already up on a ladder, shifting the filter in front of one of the light stands. “That was fucking art! I think that’d be a heluva logo for anything.”
Dante went and stood at her knees to look up. His medium-rare mouth was a tight line. “I mean it. That picture is mine.” He poked an angry finger at Beth, but she didn’t flinch, high on a step.
She swatted his hand away, leading with her little sharp jaw like a boxer. Wicked pixie. “I know. I thought you might like that.” Dante growled. Literaly. He growled at her like a Doberman.
Griff roled his sore shoulders, watching in confusion, looking down at his naked muscle. “Dante, what are you gonna do with a picture of me like this?”
“Keep it.” Dante turned to look at him, dead serious. His black brows were scowling and possessive in a way that made Griff feel soft inside, made him smile. “Don’t laugh at me.”
Griff shook his head and held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not laughing. I was asking.” From her perch, Beth regarded the sulen Italian with a cocked head and a naughty smile. She was up to something, playing him. The negotiation ping-ponged between them.
Dante turned back to her, his arms crossed, his face a hard mask.
“Tel you what….” Beth let the words wrap him like a boa constrictor, squeezing him. “I got a beefcake calendar coming up: Suds & Studs. If you’l drag your scrawny carcass here and pose for me, one afternoon, buck-ass naked in a tub, you’ve got a deal. Make it two afternoons and I’l even pay you.”
“Hey!” Griff straightened up, not bothering with his dumb robe. He wasn’t sure which of them had conned the other.
“No hair gel!” She wagged a finger at him.
Dante winked and held out his hand. “Done.”
They shook. Click. Instant friends, like turning on a lamp. Dante and Beth turned together and smiled at him.
By the time Griff went to rinse off the oil and get dressed in the bathroom, Dante and Beth were chatting happily about apertures and filters. Beth had a line of greeting cards to finish by the new year, and would they like to make a little extra cash modeling?
Griff caught sight of his own happy face in the mirror. He finished puling on his undershirt. Feels so good to be dressed.
“Baby, we’re gonna order Thai.” Dante poked his head around the door.
Smiling, Griff gave him a peck that lasted a little longer than strictly necessary. “I like you caling me that.”
“That okay?”
“God, yeah! Thai sounds great. I’m starved.” Griff jerked his head toward Beth and the rest of the studio. “But… you good with…?”
“You kidding? She’s a genius! That last shot?” Dante leaned forward and bit his neck. “Crazy lesbo figured out a way to make me fal more in love with you.
And I thought that—” Dante kissed the corner of his smile. “—was impossible.”
“Stop.” But Griff smiled, rested their faces together for a moment, leaning against his man. “Likewise.” Beth’s voice stopped them. “Guido, if you fuck him in my bathroom, I’m gonna cut that thing off and donate it to a dildo factory!” Dante just smiled and left Griff to pul on the rest of his clothes. He grumbled at her as he left, “Yeah, yeah.” The door didn’t quite shut. As Griff dried his bright hair and swigged water to rinse his mouth, the door creaked open slowly on the loft.
On the other side of the room, Dante was looking through a camera out the south window, and Beth was smiling up at him patiently.
The two of them laughed at something, happy pirates crossing swords. The wide blue-black sky went on forever behind them, a skyline missing the World Trade Center but not much else.
Griff felt like he could see everything-everything-everything.
Lub-dub, said his heart in his ears.
Right then, as surely as déjà vu in reverse, Griff knew they’d come back, he and Dante. They’d end up modeling for crazy Beth and make the money to make their house a home. Humpty-Dumpty, together again. Their families would deal with it. Loretta’s husband would come back safe. Alek would have his new website. Even Tommy would mend and live and hope. And Griff knew Dante would be standing beside him.
- Lub-dub… lub-dub…. -
With a last glance in the mirror, wiping his hands on his pants, Griff stepped out the door into a future he could almost imagine.