Head [01] - Hot Head Read online

  She giggled. “I can spot you boys at fifty paces. With or without rubber pants. I won’t… say anything.” About dropping the bal, she meant. “Hel, I may lie to my friends and say we did it twice.”

  “How was I?” He laughed and blushed til his ears were warm.

  She licked her upper lip and flashed those big eyes. “Amazing!”

  “Thanks.” Griff realized he’d become a story she’d tel: the ginger giant in a kilt from the 9/11 party. Fair enough—a naughty anecdote seemed like a fine thing to be.

  Wel, that was mostly true. He could almost picture her teling the story to her girlfriends over coffee and salads, bragging and exaggerating it a bit more each time til he was seven feet tal and sending her love letters. He wished he could actualy be the stud she was going to build him into later, to make her bathroom no-starter seem sexier, cooler, riskier.

  Loser.

  She smoothed lipstick on and ran a hand through her glossy hair. “Just doing my civic duty.” With a wink and a wiggle to get her skirt straight, she slipped out the door.

  Griff stood and turned on the tap. He splashed his face and stared into his bleary gray eyes in the mirror.

  Loser. Idiot. Creep.

  The guys would be horrified if they’d watched him turn down such hot tail. They’d be even more horrified if they knew why. Under the kilt, he stil had a thick erection pushing at the pleats, but it wasn’t for her. Big problem. If he went out there like this, everyone would see. He squeezed his bloated shaft through the wool and gasped.

  He locked the door and dug under the pleats. He fumbled to get hold of his straining cannon, then wrapped a hand around himself.

  Two minutes, tops.

  Griff sat back down and closed his eyes and stopped fighting his real fantasy.

  A FEW minutes later and Griff felt like he’d had breakfast and a shower. Wel… maybe an Egg McMuffin and a squeeze of Purel. Axe waxed, nothing complicated.

  By the time he emerged from the toilet, his bals had finaly stopped hugging his groin and shifted downward. He’d wiped up with a paper towel, but he could feel a swipe of semen drying on his inner thighs.

  The Stone Bone had filed up even more. Other firefighters had come in wearing firehouse T-shirts as chick bait, wives far, far away. As one, everyone at the bar raised their elbows and glasses as the little Cuban barback swiped a grayish towel over the pitted, carved surface: bigcock and Shasta loves Ronnie and a game of tic-tac-toe.

  “343! 343!” At the back of the bar, a group of firemen from Brooklyn Ladders and Engines belowed a toast, beers high. The civilians clapped and raised glasses around them. Back in 2001, 343 members of the FDNY had given their lives at Ground Zero, and New York was stil grateful. That was good. That felt right, the city remembering ten years later, even after the Pit had been paved over and the Twin Towers were just another tacky statue for the tourists to take home to Pennsyltucky.

  Griff maneuvered his massive frame to the bar. Head and shoulders above the crowd, he jerked his head at the busty bartender, shouting over The Doors.

  “You seen Anastagio?”

  The bartender shrugged and bugged her eyes at the packed room. Griff chuckled and smiled his thanks. Where had Dante gone? Griff sighed, suddenly hungry for real. Dante’s pizza idea sounded even better now. His stomach growled in agreement.

  Then as if the thought had summoned him, his best friend appeared—black hair sweaty and tangled against his neck, rough hand on Griff’s shoulder.

  “There’s my man! Big G!” Dante stood crushed against the bar, popping gum with that pirate smile stil smeared across his face.

  “Hey, midget.” Griff wedged closer to him and breathed the sharp tang of Dante’s particular smel: sweet and leathery and musty like a clean locker room.

  Griff smiled; he’d know that scent anywhere.

  “Hey! Five feet eleven is normal. You’re a mutant.” Dante was peeling the label off his fourth beer, the other three curled in front of him on the bar. He hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and the blue stubble on his chiseled Roman profile made him look like a thug in a cartoon. He took another deep swalow from the bottle, the muscles of his long throat working.

  “Let’s get outta here, huh?” Griff jerked his head toward the door.

  Dante sounded a little drunk. “You’re having a good time. And we al found company, looks like.” He scanned the party, where the rest of the guys were splashing in puddles of female fans.

  “So let’s rol. I’m starving. And you wanted to talk….” Griff searched Dante’s eyes, trying to read the concern flickering there. He rarely asked anyone for anything.

  Dante snapped his fingers as if he hadn’t been planning to ask already. “Pizza to go. Why don’t we go back to my house and you can crash?” He always invited and Griff always said no.

  Bad idea.

  Griff shook his head in apology. “I gotta be up early. I should get home.”

  “And my clocks don’t keep time?” Dante made his vilage idiot face, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out sideways.

  “I don’t fit in any of your beds. But pizza, yeah. We can talk on the way, if you’re ready….” Griff stood close to him like a bum huddling at a trashcan fire and tried to catch his charcoal eyes.

  Dante glanced at him for a second, then searched the floor, down where Griff’s huge calves bunched above his socks and boots.

  Griff flexed them involuntarily.

  “Y’sure?” Dante rocked on his feet and squinted sideways at him.

  “Yeah, D.” He was already turning toward the front. “What the hel do you need to talk about?”

  “Not here.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Griff laughed. “I could realy go for Lucali’s. If you don’t mind the line.”

  “Uhh. I got zero cash.” Something dark moved in Dante’s eyes.

  Griff didn’t hesitate to offer. “I’l buy us a whole pie. C’mon.”

  Is it money that’s got him so worried?

  Dante shook his head and jerked it toward the door. He was practicaly vibrating. “Here’s the thing….” Griff stepped back and poked him. “Anastagio, I can spot you. You need a loan til payday? I can cover whatever.” He could swing it. Aside from bouncing in this dump, Griff also did framing for a local contractor who was always looking for capable hands. Al the guys did work on the side. The FDNY was famous for paying shit wages to the loony bastards who ran into burning buildings while everyone else was running out.

  Dante bumped shoulders and nudged Griff to the exit. The Stone Bone was so packed now that moving meant sliding past everyone’s bodies in ful contact.

  Dante was practicaly pressed against his back, abs against Griff’s butt. Thank God he was a couple inches shorter so nothing, uh, lined up.

  Someone touched his shoulder, and Griff turned.

  “Mr. Muir.” Alek lifted his glass goodbye. Apparently, the slick Russian had made his way back to the mob of firefighters too, looking a little out of place in his suit, gesturing like a car salesman while he chatted with a couple of EMS workers from Queens.

  Griff nodded but didn’t stop moving toward the front. He just wanted to get out of this crowd and the noise and find out what was wrong. Coming here tonight was a terrible idea. Hadn’t 343 firemen died? Why did people want to celebrate a tragedy?

  They were almost at the door when Griff felt Dante stop moving behind him.

  What now?

  “Shit,” Dante muttered. Griff turned to look over the forest of chattering heads.

  “Anastagio! Are you trying to run off?” A sassy brunette standing at the bar poked Dante in the chest, tonight’s Plan B probably: tight skirt, tits soft under her dress, big caboose, her mouth loose from kissing somebody—probably him.

  Dante gave a short laugh and squeezed his eyes shut, like he was trying to remember her name. “Uh, no… this is my buddy, Griff.” She didn’t even look over. “Dante, I been trying to get with you for like two years, and we were getting somewhere and
now you’re gonna ditch?”

  “No, baby.” Dante spoke softly and leaned forward.

  Suddenly Griff didn’t feel so hot.

  Dante stepped to the corner of the bar next to her, one hand up on the scarred wood. The murmured excuse poured out of him. “We gotta get up in the morning. And Griff hasn’t eaten today. I gotta feed him.”

  Even in a crowded Brooklyn bar, you could see her Delilah eyes sliding between them, annoyed at the cockblock. She made a face. “You guys live together?”

  “No.” Griff stepped closer to the bar himself, just to get out of the crush of people.

  “Wel, practicaly. He’s like my brother.” Dante pushed hair off his face. “And he’s gotta be up in a couple hours.” Dante stroked her leg just below her skirt.

  “We can pick this up later. C’mon. I need to take care of him.”

  “What about me?” She knew this song and dance.

  Griff noticed Alek’s shaved head cocked nearby, eavesdropping on Dante’s bulshit with a crooked smile. On the juke, The Roling Stones were wailing about beasts and burdens while the crowd yowled along out of tune and 343 ghosts watched.

  The girl squawked. From the look on her face and Dante’s position, Griff was pretty sure he had a couple fingers inside her right there.

  Jesus. Dante was always talking chicks into doing crazy, semi-legal shit with him, preferably in public, preferably in front of Griff for the ful blush-a-palooza.

  Griff would sweat and stammer and stare at the floor, and Dante would always take it one step too far. And the weird thing was, the women usualy thanked Dante afterwards, stalked him and texted him for months.

  Griff snorted and gave his best friend a look. Dante loved to embarrass him, lived to see him blush. Hel, Griffin could feel the blush spread over every square inch of his body under his friend’s cocky stare. His legs were probably blushing below the kilt. He almost glanced down to check but managed to keep his gaze on the cluttered bar.

  Against its wet wood, that cut across Dante’s knuckles looked stretched and raw. It probably needed stitches, not tape.

  “What’d you do to your hand, D?”

  “That is none of your business.” Dante’s smile got wider, but his eyes seemed holow, staring at Griff like he wanted to be anywhere else. The muscles in his brown forearm flexed under Griff’s eyes. The girl groaned at something Dante’s hidden hand was doing.

  “No, I meant the…. Never mind.”

  Griff rubbed his stubble, wishing the two of them were somewhere else, wanting a hot pepperoni slice, wanting anything but a crowded bar in Brooklyn ten years later. Suddenly, being a made-up X-rated anecdote for a married woman seemed more real than he felt. Like he was the 344th ghost. Something in his broad chest expanded, leaving him no room to breathe, crushing him from inside.

  “Griffin?” Dante asked softly, as he stopped and stepped away from the brunette. His caloused hand on Griff’s beefy forearm snapped him back into the room.

  Griff flinched and raised his gray gaze the entire one hundred miles it took for it to reach Dante’s, barely holding it together. “I gotta go.”

  “We gotta go,” Dante spoke to the girl, cutting off her protest with a short kiss square on her mouth. “Unless you want to come with us, babe? Together, I mean. Griff’s a firefighter too….”

  The fuck?

  Music pounding and people jammed together and Griffin was standing there alone in a suffocating bubble of white noise, looking at the air, counting to zero.

  Why did he get like this? He grunted and looked everywhere but at his best friend’s handsome, worried face.

  She looked at both men—the muscle, their mass—and did the math: a bed-ful of two firefighters on September 11th.

  Griff could see the gears turning as she bit her lip, squinting at the geometric possibilities.

  She loved the idea.

  He did not. “I don’t think so, Dante. I need to eat and get to bed.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, G. You and me ain’t partied together in a long time.” Griff knew exactly what his best friend was suggesting; he just didn’t trust himself enough to say yes. He knew Dante wanted to help but shook his head. No.

  Dante puled Griff down, his lips almost brushing Griff’s ear, and whispered, “Gimme….” Griff shivered and nodded yes even before his best friend spoke. He was sweating, and the spunk on his inner thigh was sticky again.

  “Can you gimme a sec? I’l meet you out front.” Apology thickened Dante’s words.

  Griff kept nodding and picked his way to the door, sliding through the rowdy crowd.

  When he got there, he opened it but didn’t step out into the cool air, stopping instead right on the threshold of where he didn’t want to be, the party boiling around him.

  He did not watch Dante’s smooth olive-skinned hand brushing off tonight’s piece of ass so they could escape. He did not watch Dante’s strong back and legs cutting through the crowd toward him like a dark knife. He did not watch the way Dante’s square jaw and seal-black hair caught the light when he reached the entrance to smile in relief and wink.

  Mostly he did not.

  Chapter 2

  THEY’D been friends forever.

  Nah, that was a fucking lie.

  Griff had known who Dante was since junior high. But it was ’cause of Paulie they became buddies. Paulie was Dante’s older brother, and like Griff, Paulie was a varsity lineman on the local footbal team. In fact, Paulie and Griff had played together al junior year and a month into senior before Dante was more than his friend’s jerky kid brother, which seemed crazy now.

  What didn’t seem crazy now?

  Paulie Anastagio was one of six kids from a nutty Italian family who lived in a rambly Cobble Hil brownstone purchased before the Depression by Mrs.

  Anastagio’s grandfather. The house sat on the seam between shithole Brooklyn and Brooklyn-getting-its-shit-together. Griff lived with his dad two blocks over in the shitty zip code.

  Griff and Paulie had met at basebal camp, late summer, and hung out through junior year because of footbal. Nothing heavy: some double dating, some shared joints, some trashed road trips to Jersey in some girlfriend’s car.

  Griff’s father thought footbal was a waste and school nothing but an opportunity to jerk off on the city’s dime. What was the point of school when you knew you were gonna wind up a cop or a fireman? Until he’d met Paulie, Griff sort of agreed. In high school, he’d whacked it plenty in the back of class.

  Paulie was one of those guys who was exactly what he seemed to be al the time: honest and simple and blunt as a pumpkin. He came by it naturaly. At five foot nine inches, 220 pounds, Paulie was a freight train on and off the field.

  First footbal game, Griff had heard the whole Anastagio clan yeling for his friend. Go Skyhawks! This large, swarthy famiglia shouting and clapping in the stands—black eyes and black humor. The Anastagio siblings jabbing and joking at each other til Mrs. Anastagio smacked someone’s head.

  When the Skyhawks won, while the team was pounding on each other’s pads and the crowd holered, Griff felt so jealous of his friend and that family he could barely look Paulie in the eye.

  It didn’t matter. After they’d shucked down and showered, Paulie grabbed him by the neck and Griff wound up wedged in the back of a Lincoln with Loretta Anastagio over his legs, laughing al the way to pizza and Coke. By the time the night was over, the whole family had sort of digested him, like a noisy, happy amoeba… and that was that.

  Pretty soon, Griff was always eating at the Anastagios’, helping Mr. A. with the gutters, carpooling with the brothers to parties or the beach, and eating out of that crazy overstuffed refrigerator. Finaly, he wasn’t wishing for the imaginary family he’d always wanted—it had kidnapped him.

  Griff’s dad didn’t seem to care one way or the other. As a fire marshal, he was out on investigations at al hours and pretty much left Griff to raise himself on bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid. Griff’s mom h
ad died when he was nine, so the Muir men had to make do.

  The Anastagios threw birthday parties for him. The summer before senior year, they took him up to Lake George for a week for what they caled the Annual Un-fishing Trip. And when Griff broke his arm playing basketbal one night, it was Mrs. Anastagio who brought him to the hospital. He and Paulie took care of the younger ones and put up with their lip. Griff learned to be a man from Mr. A., not his own dad.

  Every picture from his senior year showed Griff smiling—a thick thatch of fiery hair, shoulders like a refrigerator, standing huge and pale and shy surrounded by semi-adopted Sicilian siblings: their dark features and hard laughter…. Every photo was like the Sesame Street song: one of these things is not like the other.

  Right before graduation, Paulie had gotten Veronica Nuñez pregnant. The happy couple (plus little stowaway) married in June and moved to Staten Island by August. Instead of taking the fireman’s exam like he’d planned, Paulie’d started working as a contractor.

  As if by mutual agreement, the next brother in line stepped up to be the big brother with Griff: that was Dante, the ass-craziest Anastagio and proud of it.

  Trouble with extra rubble, he was. Taler and leaner and cockier than Paulie.

  Griff hated him at first. Not hate-hate. But he did pop Dante in the jaw one night when he got mouthy at a strip club they’d hit with a couple of other trainees.

  Dante kept hassling one of the dancers, a girl they’d known in school, and wouldn’t let up on her. Griff swung, Dante went down, and when he staggered to his feet with that pirate smile, blood on his lip… he just planted a big wet Italian kiss on Griff’s cheek. “Al right, man. Al right.” Click. They were best friends. Like turning on a lamp.

  They found out that they both planned to take the fireman’s exam, almost a foregone conclusion. They worked out together, partied together, picked up girls together, puked together.… Brothers.

  They passed the exam, Griff the first time and Dante the third. They went through probie school at Randal Island side by side. Afterward, Dante moved out to Queens, assigned to a crummy station that was always on the verge of being shuttered by budget cuts. Griff lucked out, probably because of his dad, landing a rack right there at Engine 333/Ladder 181 in Red Hook. The “Hot Hookers” was what the guys caled themselves, and damn, were they and did they.