by Pandora Pine
Jesus, what a tangled fucking web.
14
Deacon
All morning long, my fingers found their way to my lips, which I would swear on a stack of bibles were still tingling from Ozzy’s kisses. I knew it was ridiculous, but I could feel the ghost of his touch all over my body. Is that what it felt like when you connected with your soul mate?
“Looks like someone had a good night last night,” a voice said from behind me.
It was Kent McNamara, The Gloucester Times food critic. He was the one who had recommended the Mermaid Café for my date with Ozzy. “Hey, Kent. The restaurant was everything you said it would be, and more. The food was absolutely delicious.”
“I know the food is delicious, but what about your date?” Kent’s green eyes sparkled. He was wearing a pair of black dress pants, with a perfectly starched white button up shirt, which had the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Over that, he wore a black waistcoat, set off by his black-and-white polka dotted bow tie.
“I’d give him five forks.” I burst out laughing. Kent laughed along with me. In his restaurant reviews, he used the fork system to grade the dishes he tasted, from one, meaning don’t feed it to your dog, to five, meaning this is the only food I want to eat for the rest of my life.
“Did you give him five forks?” Kent waggled his eyebrows at me. He had perched himself on the edge of my desk. He looked as if he would die if I didn’t tell him what happened last night.
“No, I didn’t even give him one.” I tried not to sound disappointed. I’d wanted to go to bed with Ozzy since I met him nearly a year ago. I knew this was only our first date, but I had wanted him for so much longer. I supposed he needed the opportunity to get used to the idea of us dating each other.
Kent’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean? What the hell happened? I figured a man like him would be the kind of guy who’d fuck you until the well ran dry.”
I had thought the exact same thing. “He was a perfect gentleman all night long. He opened doors for me and paid for the meal. When he said he wanted us to get to know each other a bit better, I agreed with him.”
“Come again? He turned you down? What is wrong with that man? Is he still all fucked up over the doctor that done him wrong last year?” Kent seemed more offended than I had over what happened last night.
“It was only our first date. I’m not usually the kind of guy who takes another man to bed on the first date. It was refreshing that Ozzy said no.”
“Refreshing?” Kent shrieked. “He’s a man, not a mojito.”
“His mouth might have said no, but his dick was screaming yes.” I couldn’t believe I was telling Kent the dirty details. “He was hot, hard, and ready to rock ‘n’ roll. At least I know he’s attracted to me.”
“Is it going to be worth the wait? I mean does he have a serpent, a snake, or a worm?” Kent grimaced at the last suggestion, as if a worm wasn’t worth his time.
I giggled, feeling like I was fourteen years old again. I looked around the office, to make sure no one else was close enough to hear what I was about to say. “Oh, honey, please. He was more like a dragon.” I’d only had a moment or two to touch said dragon, but those few seconds were enough to know Ozzy was packing heat. The kind of heat that made you limp the next morning.
“Damn, I had a feeling that was the case. Sometimes big men like that are a disappointment in the trouser department. What happens next?”
I sighed. “He said he was going to call me today. So far, he hasn’t. I’m sure he’s just busy, you know, saving lives and all.” I had been doing my damnedest all day to keep my eyes off my phone. Ozzy was a busy man. He was an important man, and I knew full well I was just some guy he’d had a first date with. He didn’t owe me anything, and all he’d given me was his word.
“You are an amazing man, Deacon. If Mr. Fire Captain doesn’t see the same thing in you that I see, fuck him.” Kent let out a nervous giggle. “Don’t fuck him literally, but you know, fuck him!” He hopped off my desk and spun around in an elegant circle with his arms raised above his head, as if he’d just completed the perfect dismount from the balance beam. “We live in a beautiful seaside town. There truly are plenty of fish in the sea.” Kent pecked a kiss against the side of my head. “If you want to grab a drink later to roast him in effigy. I’m your man. There’s this cool little bar over in Rockport I’ve been meaning to check out. Free drinks because I’m on the job.” Laughing, Kent headed back to his own cubicle.
It was still early in the day. I wasn’t going to give up on Ozzy Graves yet. I’d spent the last year pining over the man, the least I could do was give him a few more days. I’d had so much time over the last few months to get used to the idea of a relationship with him. Ozzy hadn’t had more than a few weeks, so far as I could tell.
The best way to keep my mind off him was to get back to work. Unfortunately, Ozzy was my work today. He’d promised to give me an interview, and I wanted to make sure I had all my ducks in a row with the type of questions I wanted to ask him.
Turning back to the computer, I pulled up a fresh document. My mind went blank as I stared at the blinking cursor. That tingling sensation in my lips was back. I knew if I shut my eyes and allowed myself to go back in time, I would feel the warmth of him melting into my chest. I’d feel his giant hands on my face and that big dick rubbing against my own.
Had I done something wrong last night? Was I being too forward asking him to take me to bed after a first date? Or was he just the last gentlemanly man on earth? I supposed if he were only after one thing, he would have taken what I was very willingly offering him. The fact that he was interested in waiting, and in a second date, seemed to bode well for me. Like I’d told Kent, his dick had been hard, painfully so by the size of it. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to ignore a ravenously hungry dragon, but somehow, Ozzy had managed.
I’d stood in the window last night watching as he backed out of the driveway and pulled away down the street. The minute his headlights disappeared in the distance, my pants were around my ankles and my dick was in my hand. It was fast, and messy. My slit hurt from the force of my orgasm. I’d never experienced anything like that in my life, and I had plenty of experience in getting myself off.
I was getting hard at the mere memory of what happened last night. I’d had to duck walk to the bathroom, my pants around my ankles, my right hand loaded with my own cooling jizz. I was a glorious disaster when I looked at myself in the mirror. My blonde hair had been sticking up in little spikes. Beads of sweat had run down both sides of my face. Both cheeks were flushed, and my pupils were so dilated there was barely a hint of blue to be seen. If I had been that much of a mess after taking matters into my own hands, I could only imagine the results Ozzy would wreak upon my body.
Thinking about my dick, Ozzy’s dick, and when the two might meet again, was getting me nowhere. I needed to focus on this interview with the captain of Firehouse Three. Once I thought of him by his title, rather than his name, my work got easier. I lost myself in coming up with questions that were hard-hitting, but not in a vicious sort of way. The people of Gloucester deserved to know what Ozzy thought about the arson fires, but I was going to have to structure these questions in a way that would leave the citizens of the city unable to assign the blame to him.
I had gotten through an entire page of questions when my cell phone started buzzing at my left elbow. I was so locked into what I was doing, I almost didn’t answer it, until I saw the name on the phone’s display. Ozzy Graves.
The phone vibrated twice. Fell silent. Ozzy was gone.
Stunned, I considered picking up the phone and calling him back. Maybe he would just call me back. Leaving the phone where it was on my desk, I turned back to my work.
Every few moments, my attention would wander back to my phone which was still silent and dark.
Had Ozzy gotten called away? Had someone walked into his office and interrupted his call? Or had he just changed his mind a
bout wanting to talk to me?
Feeling the lowest I’d felt all day, I got up from my desk and headed toward the office kitchen which was always stocked with snacks. I needed carbs. A lot of them.
15
Ozzy
Instead of going home last night, I’d gone back to the firehouse. It was my night off, but I always seemed to sleep better in the bunkhouse with the rest of the crew. I’d spent my entire childhood in the McCoy house sharing bedrooms with my brothers. Being in a room with other people had never bothered me. On the contrary, it soothed me.
The other reason I wanted to be in the bunkhouse was in case the fire alarm went off. It hadn’t, and I was able to grab three uninterrupted hours of sleep before I’d been woken up by a nightmare. It reminded me of those old Looney Tunes cartoons Hen liked to watch when we were kids, where the main character had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The angel was always urging the character to do the right thing, while the devil urged hedonism.
The dream wasn’t wrong. I felt like a man caught in the middle. I needed someone to confide in. Someone who would understand my side of the story and the decisions I’d made. There was only one person I knew who could help me settle this dilemma, my brother Hennessey.
Around ten the next morning, I headed over to his bar, Bait. I knew he’d be there checking on inventory and getting ready to open an hour later to serve the lunch crowd. I picked up the phone and dialed Deacon’s number. At the last minute, I hung up the call. I wanted to hear what my brother had to say about the situation before I spoke to Deacon again.
“Look at what the cat dragged in.” Hennessey laughed, slapping a hand down on the bar. “Rumor has it you had a hot date last night, with everyone’s favorite newspaper reporter. How’d it go? Did you tap that tight ass, or what?”
Maybe coming to see Hennessey was a mistake. I climbed onto one of the barstools, trying to figure out what I wanted to say. He set a ginger ale in front of me, the look on his face serious now.
“What happened? Are you okay? Do I need to go down to the newspaper office and crack some skulls?”
As annoying as Hennessey could be when it came to wanting all of us to kiss and tell, his heart was always in the right place. “You might need to crack some skulls, Hen, but they won’t be down at the newspaper office.”
My brother frowned, causing lined furrows in his forehead. “Oh, is it your skull I need to crack?” Hennessey set the knuckles cracking in both fists.
I’d never been able to stand that sound. I’d made the mistake once of telling Dallas how much I hated it. Word got around, and before I knew it, all four brothers were cracking their knuckles every chance they got. “Yeah, my skull is on the list. This is kind of a long story. Do you have time?”
“You’re my brother. Of course, I have time. I always have time for you.” Hennessey walked around the bar and took the stool next to mine. “Tell me what’s going on. I can already tell you’re not sleeping very well.”
From the time I moved into the McCoy house until the time Kennedy landed on our doorstep, I’d shared a bedroom with Hennessey. He was David and Mandy’s only biological child. I assumed he would be angry at having to share his room, his toys, his parents, and his house with strangers, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He and I had gotten on like a house on fire from day one.
I took a long sip from my ginger ale. My hand shook as it reached for the glass.
“Whatever it is you’re about to tell me, we’ll figure it out together. I promise you.” Hennessey set one of his big beefy hands on mine and gave it a squeeze.
“You might not like me very much after you hear the story,” I started.
“What did Mom always say? ‘You don’t have to like each other, but you do need to love one another.’ Now stop beating around the bush and tell me what’s going on.” Hennessey offered a cheesy smile. Out of all of us, he was the one who got the biggest kick out of throwing our parents’ platitudes back in our faces.
“It’s about the arsonist.” I took a deep breath. Out of all of us, Hennessey was the best with people. He’d know what to do. That was the reason I’d come here in the first place.
Hennessey stayed silent.
“You know what happened two weeks ago at the fire scene at Old Salem Road.” Why was I stalling? This was the easy part of the story.
“You’re talking about Deacon, aren’t you? How he was there that night, and how he saved the family who lived in that house.”
It was my turn to nod. “Deacon also showed up at the next fire. Again, he was there before we showed up on scene. This was the fire where the door had been glued shut from the outside.”
“What? I don’t remember hearing anything about a door being glued closed. How the hell is that even possible?” Hennessey wore a horrified look.
“There are a lot of glues and epoxies on the market that will do that kind of job. My guys were able to get a sample of it to send back to the crime lab. Anyway, the family was able to escape the flames by using bedsheets as ropes and climbing down from the second floor. By the time we arrived on scene, Deacon was standing at the base of the sheet-ladder trying to coax the family’s young son down to the ground. We managed to deploy the air cushion just in time for the father to leap out the window to safety. Again, everyone was safe, but it still bothered me a bit that Deacon was there ahead of us. I walked him back to his car that night and when I opened the door for him, there was a bottle of Gorilla Glue lying on the floor of the passenger side.” I shut my mouth, wanting to see Hennessey’s reaction to the story.
“You think Deacon is the arsonist?” Hen wore a look of disbelief.
“I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. What’s worse is that I might have a bit of a crush on him.” I had outright thought Deacon set that last fire. I had been jumping to conclusions, but for a while there, I’d been convinced Deacon had done it.
“I think you’ve got a bit more than a crush on that boy, but I’ll leave that alone for the moment. You’re feeling guilty for going out with him even though you had these suspicions?”
I shook my head. “It’s worse than that. Much worse.” This was the part of the story that got a little hairy. The part that was going to cause my brother not to like me very much.
“Tell me. We’ll deal with the ramifications of it when you’re finished explaining everything.” Hennessey leaned closer.
“I was called into a meeting the other day. Kennedy was there, and so was the police chief and the fire chief. Lastly, was the member of the Massachusetts State Fire Marshal’s office who’s been handling the Scorcher fires.”
“That sounds like a pretty serious cast of characters.”
Hennessey had hit the nail on the head. “You know how it goes in this town. It doesn’t take long for a story to circulate. Everyone had heard about Deacon being the hero at the Old Salem Road fire scene, and then there his name was again, popping up as helping the family out of the window at the last fire. They all think Deacon is the arsonist.”
“It makes sense,” Hennessey said with a nod of his head.
“What the hell do you mean it makes sense?” I roared.
Hennessey held his hands up in front of him. “Calm down, man. Let me finish what I was about to say.”
I kept my silence and nodded for Hennessey to continue.
“It makes sense that total strangers would think Deacon was capable of something like this. None of them know what a good guy he is. He’s always working for charities to help not only the LGBT members of this community, but everyone. They don’t know him like we do.” He raised an eyebrow as if to say, See, I am on your side.
“What do you mean the chiefs don’t know him like we do? Until this very moment, I didn’t even know the two of you had met each other.” Deacon sure got around. He seemed to know everyone in town, including all of my brothers.
Hennessey blushed. I was terrified for a brief moment that my broth
er had slept with Deacon.
“Deacon serves on several charity boards with me. There was never anything between us, but I can easily see that he would make an amazing partner for someone else. I’m not going to name any names. I’ll just point.” Hennessey’s left index finger jabbed me in the shoulder.
“Yeah, well, you might be right about the bigwigs in the police and fire departments not knowing anything about Deacon, but here’s where the story gets a little bit messy.” I took a deep breath, hoping it would steady my nerves. It didn’t. “They asked me to keep an eye on him.”
Alarm lit Hennessey’s eyes. “Who asked you to keep an eye on him?”
“Fire Chief Higgins and Police Chief Holland. They told me to stick close to him and find out if he truly is the person setting these fires.” I felt lower than mud.
Hennessey was silent. He stroked his beard, staring off into space. “You’re spying on Deacon because the two chiefs asked you to? Is that why you asked him out last night? Jesus Christ, please don’t tell me you fucked that poor boy.”
“He wanted to, but I stopped things before they could get out of hand. He likes me, Hennessey. He really likes me. If I’m honest with myself, I like him too. I would like the opportunity to get to know him better and see where this thing goes, but once he finds out what I’m up to…” I couldn’t bear to imagine what Deacon’s reaction would be when he found out I was double-crossing him.
“Do you really think it’s him? Do you think Deacon is the one running around town burning things? He’s always struck me as the kind of man who builds things up, rather than knocking them down. I can’t imagine for the life of me that he’s the one doing this, but sometimes people surprise you in the worst ways possible.”
“I don’t know what to do, Hen. I think there could be something between us. Every time he smiled at me last night, was like a dagger through the heart. Every time we kissed, I felt like I was kissing my own future goodbye. I just don’t know what to do next.” How had I let things get this far?
