by Damon Suede
Who were these people? Not muggers. Not spies. For some reason, Ruben had expected the goons to be identifiable by their costumes: ugly gangbangers or mobsters in sharkskin suits or creepy Eurotrash with eye patches and a hairless cat. More Hollywood bullshit.
Chunk blinked at Andy as if waiting, then turned to snarl something at Walrus.
Andy struggled to shake his head, and his swollen lips moved. Walrus backhanded him, and bloody drool ran from Andy’s chin.
The silent impact opened a searing hole inside Ruben, so hot and sharp that he thought at first he’d been shot. Andy could die in there while he stood out here in his shorts holding his dick. This job wasn’t a game, but he’d been beaten anyways.
Even deaf outside, Ruben saw immediately what they were trying to do. They needed info, and Andy was stalling for time, but that would only work till they got impatient. If they could get him downstairs and into a trunk before the cops arrived, they’d exit through the garage, and Andy would disappear for good.
Chunk tipped Andy’s chair back and dragged it a few inches, saying something unpleasant. Gory saliva ran out of Andy’s nostril, off his chin, but he didn’t whimper or respond. He looked brave. He looked handsome and terrified.
Keeping to the shadows, Ruben slipped back to the north door and entered the apartment in slow motion, hyperconscious of his bare feet and boxers, taking no chances.
Inside the library, Ruben flipped the panel to reveal a keypad and a screen that read MOTION DETECTED.
No shit, Sherlock.
All these systems featured some kind of silent panic switch that alerted the cops. Andy had shown him how to arm and disarm the system plenty of times, but beyond the basics he had no clue. Again Ruben cursed his laziness and complacency. He pawed the panel’s buttons. A lot of fancy bullshit he didn’t have time to figure out while seconds slid down the drain.
Andy muttered and grunted in the other room. A couple thudding hits and then something shattered. No time.
What had Andy said? “You know plenty.”
Hardwired alarms tripped if the wires were cut, right? Without questioning the impulse, Ruben clawed the control panel off the wall with one tight hand, ripping it from the sheetrock so that it dangled on thin wires. C’mon, NYPD.
Instantly, all of the lights came on and a high zeet-zeet-zeet siren filled the apartment. The digital window shades began to strobe, clear-opaque-clear-opaque.
Time to move!
The dining room got quiet. Footsteps headed in his direction. He yanked a couple more wires loose for good measure and pressed his bare skin against the wall so they’d pass him without seeing him there. He had to get out to Andy.
Ruben tucked himself into the little tree alcove off the kitchen, careful not to disturb the leaves.
At the last second, the lanky thug turned and saw him and opened his mouth, showing crooked teeth.
Before he could make a sound, Ruben swung and his right fist connected hard; his left followed with an uppercut that lifted the guy off his feet. He crumpled like a deboned trout.
Ruben crouched. His knuckles throbbed and oozed blood but somehow didn’t hurt. Adrenaline. He tried to calm his heart, tactical breathing: four in, hold four, four out.
A scraping sound from the living room, something heavy hauled across the floor.
He needed a weapon. Anything. A knife seemed silly, but maybe a club. He saw the red tube of a fire extinguisher and reached for it without thinking.
On the floor Walrus grunted and squirmed, but there was no time to waste. Ruben made tracks toward the living room and Andy. All that mattered was Andy being okay.
Ruben gripped the fire extinguisher in his sweaty left hand and crept forward in a rush, moving so fast along the hall he almost ran into the other asshole.
Chunk was dragging Andy strapped to the chair toward that service elevator. Andy sat still, his head lolling, and the goon was walking backward and cursing under his breath, so he didn’t see Ruben’s angry approach and had no chance to react till the last instant.
Ruben swung the extinguisher in a tight arc.
“Motherf—”
It connected with an ugly clang. Chunk lost his grip and fell back against the wall with a wet howl, his nose mashed sideways. Bloody spittle flecked Ruben’s bare chest and ran down his mouth and chin.
Andy’s chair dropped.
Ruben reached to catch it and missed. It slammed the floor hard, and a whoof of air escaped Andy’s still face, far too quiet on the floor. He didn’t groan or react. Bad.
The chunky goon spat dark red at the wall, along with a couple teeth as he scrambled away and toward the back stairs. “Ss’a mistake, man. Alla m’stake.” He ran for it. “He didn’t want trouble.”
“Seriously?” Ruben followed him far enough to see Walrus inside the elevator as Chunk backed on, wary and defiant. Where were the cops?
“No trouble. Huh?” The unholstered gun stopped Ruben’s feet because this wasn’t a summer movie. Never mind. He backed away quickly.
The police would be coming. Everything was out of his hands except for Andy. He jogged back to the chair on its back.
Please don’t be dead.
Andy hadn’t moved on the floor. His shirt was split almost to his navel, half the buttons missing and one shoulder torn loose. Where the undershirt had pulled up, a large cluster of bruises had started to darken under his left nipple. Assholes had tried to break a rib.
Ruben crouched beside him. He put his ear to Andy’s sternum. A sure heartbeat. And his chest moved slightly dragging air into him in shallow sips.
Breathing. Good place to start.
With shaking hands, Ruben peeled the tape free of Andy’s bruised lips as carefully as he could. Instead of ripping out hair to get the tape off his eyes, he left the blindfold in place till last. “Shh. Easy there. Easy does it.”
Andy’s lips looked blue, or was that the halogen spill from the terrace?
Ruben rummaged in the drawer for a knife and cut Andy free of the chair one limb at a time, then slid him onto the floor as easily as he could manage.
“Shh. Shh.” He hushed the silent room and realized he was trying to calm himself down.
Andy didn’t respond.
Ruben leaned close to make sure the breath was real, and the heartbeat. He raised Andy’s hands to touch them and they were warm, warm and softer than he’d expected. Everything was okay and Andy was safe now.
“Shhh.” He traced and retraced the plump bow of that lip with his calloused finger, scraping the smooth-smooth skin.
Drop by drop the sizzling adrenaline drained out of Ruben, into whatever cold dark place that panic goes to hide. Queasy and ecstatic, he bent close to Andy, willing him to wake up. C’mon.
Andy exhaled and his skull rolled tentatively on the floor.
Relief flooded his chest. Without thinking he bent down in relief and joy and pressed their lips together and groaned at the impossible rightness of kissing Andy.
Oh.
He dragged their mouths against each other, feeling the grain of Andy’s stubble under his lips and tongue. The fresh sweetness of his skin.
How could it feel so natural? Why had he fought this so long? He might never have another chance so he sure as fuck wasn’t wasting this one. He held his breath and his pulse thundered in his ears.
Andy’s breathing deepened, and his lips firmed under Ruben’s for a moment as if he was swimming toward consciousness. For a sweet flash, Ruben’s tongue slipped inside and touched Andy’s. Stop!
Ashamed and aroused, he pulled back. The alarm had gone off, so someone had to be on their way, right?
He sat cross legged and kept vigil, afraid to leave Andy in case those fuckers returned. Ruben’s right fingers crept under the oversquare jaw and onto his cheek. The pulse knocked against Ruben’s thumb. Good.
His arms flexed involuntarily, wanting to hold Andy but knowing he had no right. Pretend you’re normal, Oso. What would he have done a month ag
o? What would a professional do? What would a friend do?
He rocked to his feet and walked stiffly to the bar. He bent across it to snag a folded towel, blind to the bottles for once in his shitty life. He’d split his knuckles, but somehow he couldn’t feel them. His heart still galloped as he walked back.
Andy groaned and stirred.
“Hey bud.”
Andy’s eyes focused and he smiled. “Rube.” He laugh-coughed with some effort then winced. “Oh bud. Thank you. Thank God you’re here.” His eyes glittered feverishly as he went into shock.
“Easy, fella. You’re okay.”
“Naked.” Wincing, Andy pushed up on his elbows and gave a couple slow blinks.
Ruben looked down at his damp boxers and bare torso. “Not exactly. I was—”
Andy barely nodded. Unspoken: the fact that he had been spying on Ruben naked in the pool again. Neither of them had been looking the right way.
“They’re gone?” Andy searched Ruben’s face for a few seconds.
Ruben nodded and wiped his smeary hands together, absurdly grateful that his boss had decided to fake amnesia. “I encouraged them in that direction.”
Andy pulled himself to his feet and punched at the keypad. The alarm stopped short. “I thought I was a goner. You were downstairs.” Now it had been said. They both knew that Ruben had been swimming, just as they both knew Andy had been watching.
Andy stumbled over to the wet bar and snagged a glass, filled it from a decanter. After pulling a pill bottle out of a drawer, he shook a tablet into his palm and then washed it down with the booze.
“You shouldn’t use them to chill out.” As if he didn’t want to wrench the bottle free and down it in fiery gulps.
Andy grunted but didn’t raise his eyes. He righted one of the chairs.
Ruben crossed his arms. “Do you know who they were?”
Andy wiped his face carefully and then shook his head. “Fast.”
“You’re bleeding.” His heart turned over. Some fucking bodyguard.
Andy’s head wobbled. The red ooze shone slick on his temple, and he dabbed at it carefully. “All at once. It’s not like TV. I dunno. I think I expected everything to go slo-mo but it was like blinking. Balcony. Door. Swing. On my back. Jesus.” A shudder convulsed his torso and he winced.
“Shh. Hey. Hey look at me.”
Andy blinked and turned.
“Your eyes are all blown out. C’mere.” Ruben reached toward him with a shaking hand. “You may be going into shock. I think you need a stitch or two.”
“S’just a graze.” Blood dripped from his jawline onto his pale chest.
“We don’t know that.” Ruben walked him back to the living room and the low couch.
Still dazed, Andy allowed himself to be sat. Another scarlet drop lengthened the thin stripe over his nipple.
“Let me check you out.” His hand snuck out and held Andy’s head in a soft cradle.
Eyes closed, Andy tipped his head back for Ruben to look. He was still sweating like a sprinter. Neither of them spoke for what seemed a long time while Ruben checked his head, neck, and shoulders with cautious fingers.
Ruben kept his hands under control and ran through what he could scrape up of his first aid training.
Andy swallowed and his larynx bobbed.
“Sorry.” Smoothing Andy’s hair back, Ruben inspected the brow more carefully. “Still bleeding.” Ruben went to the dining room and took a crisp napkin off the table, handing it to Andy as he came back. “Pressure. Press hard.”
Andy winced but obeyed. “They got my ribs pretty bad.”
Ruben looked a question at him and Andy nodded, allowing Ruben to shift the torn shirt gently. The scraped bruise on Andy’s ribcage had begun to darken to a dull rust, violet at the middle. The sight of Andy in pain and panic had turned his legs to pipe cleaners.
Andy sat so still he seemed to shimmer with his stiff nipples and his blown pupils.
“Deep breath.” Ribs seemed sound but probably needed an X-ray. The blood had dried under his nose.
Andy sniffed and let out a shuddery breath. He looked about ready to barf.
Ruben expected him to ask for a Scotch, but Andy didn’t. Is that ’cause of me?
What was he supposed to do now? Every part of him wanted to go to Andy and hold him, and no part of him knew what the reaction would be. If Andy had been a woman, he’d have postured and winced and let her lick his wounds.
Andy was anything but a woman.
Blood matted the left side of his hair and pooled in the collar of the shirt, a stained crescent in back like a diagram for a craft project: cut along the dotted line. Huddled against the cushions, he looked strong and stubborn and strictly male. He eyed Ruben’s knuckles.
“You should box. I hope you broke his nose.”
“I know I did.” Ruben knew that sound well, the satisfying celery crunch of popping some motherfucker who wanted to hurt people he cared about. Growing up in Miami, he’d learned how to throw a punch that counted.
Somehow smashed and miserable Andy was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. An overwhelming urge to protect him, avenge him, claim him tore through him like warm whiskey.
And his mouth. Jesus Christ his mouth, his mouth. Ruben could still taste Andy, the sweet, sharp sting of his saliva… the sullen plumpness of his lower lip slipping through Ruben’s teeth for one frozen moment.
Horrible thirst clawed at his throat. He fidgeted and paced, unable to rest anywhere.
I kissed a man, I kissed a man.
Unspeakable rage and loneliness made Ruben want to smash what remained of the sleek furniture, to punch himself in the face. What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t thought, the whole time he’d lived up here in this ridiculous cage. He’d done his fake job and then the real feelings had slipped out. Maybe Andy would take pity and pretend nothing had happened.
I kissed him.
A jittery discomfort shook his hands and crushed his chest flat no matter where he stood. His terrible thirst clawed at him. Just one drink would help. In the still office behind him the computer fans whispered and rivers of financial gobbledygook rushed zigzag across the crooked plasma screens. He bargained with his past and his hope. All he needed was just one fucking drink to drown this impossible heat licking through him like gasoline alight.
I kissed Andy.
Ruben caught sight of himself in the dark windows looking out toward the black-curdled bowl of Central Park. In the glass, his eyes were haunted hollows. His jaw was clamped hard like he’d taken a gut punch that would make him piss blood. He pressed his hands against his reflection to stop the shaking, but neither of him could stand steady. His boxers had almost dried but the rest of him was slick with acrid, anxious sweat.
Ruben tried to slow his breathing down. Maybe Andy had been unconscious when he’d done it. Please let him have been unconscious. Who could he talk to? Peach? Charles? Marisa? A priest? He’d have called his new sponsor if he had one, but since he was a fucking genius there was no one to call.
“Oso?” Andy’s low voice startled him.
Ruben looked over, squinting as if Andy were a klieg light that could blind him. Here it comes.
The voice sagged with wary tenderness. “You okay?”
“Sure.” Ruben knew what was coming. “I’m not the one got beat.” How this would go? He rocked on the balls of his feet, terrified and dripping in front of his boss, with sweat for once instead of pool water. His heart chug-a-lugged in his chest as it drove the adrenaline monster back into its wet, red cave. Another fuckup. Another pink slip. Another wasted chance.
Worse than getting beaten up, that’s for damn sure.
He refused to leave Andy alone, but he did as much of a perimeter check as he could while keeping his boss in view.
Andy spoke in a low, calm voice, as if calming a rabid animal. “You did great. Hey. Rube, I’m fine. It’s good.” Blood scabbed his nostril and the socket of his left eye be
gan to darken.
Ruben licked his dry lips and tasted brandy, and blood. His dick wobbled half-hard under his damp boxers, but who cared really. No secrets here anymore. I’m a drunk and a queer. “Sorry.”
Andy rubbed his lips against each other. “C’mere.”
Ruben lurched forward and smeared the sweat on his pounding chest with a numb hand.
Little by little he realized: the alarm had gone dead, but the cops hadn’t shown. Why wasn’t anyone banging down the door?
Andy laid his entire hand over the wadded napkin to hold it closer. He flinched, eyes enormous. “You really think I need stitches?” Even with the Dudley Do-Right jaw, he looked about seventeen.
“It’s…. I’m gonna….” Ruben cradled his head with a careful hand. “We don’t know. I’m no medic.” He fought the urge to freak out. “Jesus. You scared the shit outta me. I still hoped you were paranoid.”
“Shows what you know, Oso.”
Ruben didn’t laugh.
“I can call Dr. Bronstein in the morning.” Andy’s split mouth seemed gummy and slow.
Ruben knew exactly how it tasted.
Maybe the kiss would never come up. They’d both pretend to forget.
Where is everyone? Ruben’s hands slowed and he straightened. “Why aren’t the cops here? The doormen even.”
“They’re not coming.” Andy spoke dismissively.
“Course they are, jackass. I tripped the alarm.” He swallowed. “The cops are probably downstairs right now.”
“No. I promise.” Andy rubbed his upper arms. “That alarm doesn’t alert the building or the NYPD.” He didn’t look like he was joking. “They don’t even know anyone was here.”
“Uhh.” Twilight Zone.
“Those men were a warning, is all.”
“You’re saying those motherfuckers were just a couple dissatisfied clients?”
“We’re fine.” Andy lowered his hand before looking at him. “A disagreement, but it’s done.”
“Bauer, after all your paranoid bullshit, full-blown denial has set in? Was that some kind of felony-friendly negotiation technique you learned at Columbia?” Ruben grimaced like a maniac.
“They didn’t have very much to say.” Andy took another mouthful of liquor.
