Continued in Part III: Trouble

 

Dominic Toretto: Do you know what you’re doing?

The Fast and the Furious

 

Roman Pearce: Brian, you’re crazy, man. What the hell are you doing?

2Fast 2Furious

 

 

“What the hell is wrong with you,Rome?”

 

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?” Rome stopped glaring at the Edelbrock poster and turned to Brian, incredulous. “What’s the deal with you and this fool, why’s he come out here, wanting to mess with our shit?”

 

Brian spoke through his teeth. “Well, I would’ve asked him if you had given me a little time before you started World War Three...”

 

“I started?” Rome pointed at his mouth. “Didn’t look that way to me, bro.”

 

“I’d say that calling him high yellow was pretty fucking out of line.”

 

“Brother knows what he is,” Rome jutted out his chin belligerently.

 

Brian clenched his fists and actually stuttered with rage before he could speak, “Why. The. Fuck. Do. You. Care? And when did you start thinking that I did?”

 

Rome touched his split lip with his tongue but didn’t wince. For a second, he turned his head away from Brian’s anger.

 

“Why do you look at him like that?”

 

Brian stepped around to make Rome look him in the face. “Like what?”

 

For one moment, Rome ’s eyes shifted up to Brian, unguarded. Rome opened his mouth and then just shook his head. Rome blinked and the old fury was back. Rage stiffened Rome ’s strut as he stalked out of the garage without another word.

 

At 12:01 pm on Tuesday afternoon, the R n' B garage was a zoo. Dom pulled carefully into the tiny lot that sparkled with chrome. Roman was screwing spacers between the rear wheels of some hopped-up Honda, muttering to himself. Dom wondered if twenty-four hours was enough time, figured it probably wasn’t and got out of the car anyway.

 

A couple of teenagers were standing around trying to look cool and unfidgety. Dom walked up while Brian was trying to placate some weekend racer who appeared to have his head firmly up his ass.

 

“…What do you mean, you won’t?” The kid looked to be all of 18 and every inch a rich poseur. “It’s physically possible, but you won’t? What the fuck is this shit? What happened to the customer is always right? What happened to…”

 

The white tape across Brian’s nose looked like a flag of surrender. Just fifteen seconds of this kid and Dom already felt tired. Brian caught Dom’s eye over the hood of the Eclipse GS-T hardtop and mouthed neon. Dom smirked internally. With the expensive ground effects that the kid had already saddled on his little toy, it only had about four inches of clearance. Looked like he’d cut his coil springs.

 

Dom interposed himself mid-rant. “Be pretty irresponsible to kit this baby up with underlights.”

 

The kid turned and raked his eyes up Dom. By the time he got to Dom’s face, he looked thoroughly confused. “What?”

 

Dom spoke low, but very clearly, since obviously this kid wasn’t too bright. “You’d lose ‘em on the first speed bump. Or pothole.”

 

The kid looked exasperated. “Yeah, that’s what he said.” Gesturing to Brian as if Brian was his disapproving dad. “Why can’t we just…”

 

“Plus there’s the weight, which you really don't need.” Dom went on as if he hadn’t heard. “You know, if I had the money for neon, I’d do something about my exhaust system. And not just…extend my tailpipe.” Dom looked down at the kid’s tailpipe as if it was a low-down, dirty shame.

 

At least the kid had enough good sense to look abashed. “Well, I mean…what kind of Gs are we talking about here?” he mumbled.

 

Kids like this, you couldn’t go wrong casting vague aspersions on their masculinity. “Well, do you just want to look pretty…or actually, you know, go fast?”

 

Before the kid could get his back up, Dom said, “You think about it. I’m just gonna have a word with the boss man here.” 

 

“Thanks,” Brian muttered as they got out of earshot. “He’s been busting my chops for almost ten minutes.”

 

“Rice boys,” Dom shrugged. “We were all newbies once.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Except you.” Brian grinned. He didn’t stop grinning when Dom whapped him on the shoulder. Not hard, just enough to ruffle his feathers a little.

 

“So can you take a break?” Dom asked, already knowing the answer.

 

“Dude, they’re killing me here.” Brian gestured helplessly at the row of cars. “I can’t stir a step today.”

 

“That’s cool,” Dom said, trying to mask his own disappointment. Brian didn’t need to know quite yet how little he’d slept counting the hours down to this moment. Rome had straightened up and was looking mutinously at the unoffending Honda. Dom decided to cut right to the chase.

 

Brian offered, “I usually order in when it gets like this…”

 

“I’ll go get something for you.” Dom turned on Roman. “You wanna go?”

 

Roman cocked his head and scratched meaningfully at the seamed cut on his lip. He glanced back and forth from Brian to Dom as if trying to gauge if this was some kind of trick. Finally, he squared his shoulders and said, “Yeah, why not?”

 

Brian stayed in the rearview until they turned the block, looking kind of dubious and hopeful.

 

Rome curled into the seat with his back to the door of the Plymouth , glaring at Dom, rolling his eyes and kind of muttering to himself. Dom tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel and took an even breath. It was like a contest to see who could keep the tightest rein on their cool.

               

Dom remembered a sunny Saturday when his dad had pulled out a win at a race where he’d been seriously outclassed. He could almost feel the heat on the back of his neck and smell the exhaust. He remembered the white of his dad’s smile when he’d leaned down and explained how he’d thrown caution to the winds and dived for the corners. Dominic, if you can’t beat ‘em straight out, you’ve got to do what they don’t expect.

 

So make an overture. Best to start with a statement that no one could disagree with.

 

“You don’t like me much.”

 

Roman widened his eyes and almost smiled. He started out very deliberately. “No, where’d you get that idea?” Then his face hardened and he continued. “Maybe I fucking despise you, G.”

 

Dom knew that Roman expected him to screech to a halt and mix it up just a little. He could see Rome bracing himself even now. He let Rome stew a bit as he kept driving. “So why is that?”

 

“People come, no warning, being all coy and casual and shit…” Roman addressed this to the dashboard, spiking Dom with sideways glances. “I don’t have to think something’s up. I know something’s up.”

 

“No warning?” Dom mused. “What, you think I should’ve called first?”

 

Roman ignored that and continued. “I don’t know what went down in L.A. and I don’t wanna know. All I wanna know is that your bitch ass is not going to be fucking Brian’s shit up. That’s it. That’s the deal.”

 

Dom was quiet for a few more minutes until Roman was practically vibrating with tension. Roman didn’t seem to like the quiet. Roman had done his best to provoke him, now it was Dom’s turn.

 

Dom said calmly. “Is that the real reason, or just what you’re telling yourself?”

 

Rome just oozed rage. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

 

“He’s free, white and 21. He can take care of himself. You’re not married, so why are you tripping?”

 

For a long moment, Dom was sure that Roman was about to reach over and punch him until he was cross-eyed. Rome looked like he was chewing on the inside of his mouth and mentally trying to hog-tie his temper. Trying very hard not to smirk, Dom pulled up to a burger palace. They ordered and waited in silence until they got the food. It wasn’t until they were back on the road that Roman spoke again.

 

“He’s my friend,” Roman said with great restraint. “You fuck with him and I will strangle you with your own dick.”

 

“Okay, I’ll write that down somewhere so I don’t forget,” Dom said without masking his sarcasm. “I’ve had friends too, y’know. I know how it is.”

 

“Yeah, but me n’ Brian go back. We’ve been friends for a while, yo.” Rome snarled. “Like our entire lives.”

 

“Strikes me as you’re more than friends.”

 

Rome leaned back on the upholstery like he was just about to pull the pin from a verbal grenade. He was ready to detonate, when Dom continued. “You’re more like brothers, right?”

 

Somehow, that sucked the juice right out of Rome . He tightened his face and turned away. “Yeah, man. It’s like that.”

 

“I’ve had brothers too,” Dom asserted. 

 

They drove in taut silence for a while. Rome wasn’t bristling with anger anymore, but something in his face still looked unsatisfied.

 

“You got something you wanna say?” Dom wondered if he’d regret this.

 

Rome jiggled his head impatiently. Rome sat facing him, leaning on the door with his eyes narrowed in that way that made him look so exotic and dangerous. “Your quarter panels aren’t steel.”

 

Dom tried not to grin. “Hood’s not either.”

 

Rome rolled his eyes, “Why? How? How did you manage this?”

 

“You got the funds, you can manage quite a bit.” Dom suddenly realized that he sounded like an asshole, so he continued quickly. “Outside of Ensenada, there’s a factory that does some piecework for Honda. Aluminum, fiberglass, even carbon fiber. They’ll do custom work too, for the right price.”

 

Rome snorted appreciatively and rolled his hand. “So, again, why?”

 

“Technically, every pound you cut gives you an extra six horsepower.” Dom explained. “And with a rig this size…”

 

“Shit, you did all that for weight?” Rome looked at Dom with disbelief. “You may be crazy, you realize that? Seriously insane.”

 

Then Rome looked thoughtful, as if he could picture the possibilities. “What does it do to your torque?”

 

*****

 

Brian looked relieved when they showed up with greasy bags, both still standing.

 

They ate at the battered card table after Brian had cleared away all the purchase orders and invoices.

 

“So what have you got left?” Dom asked after they’d taken the edge off.

 

Brian ticked off on his fingers. “New Tremec gearbox for this Camaro which I’ve done before, it’s just time-consuming…”

 

“…Unless we have to shorten the driveshaft,” said Roman gloomily.

 

Brian rolled his eyes. “You’ve gotta finish that Honda.”

 

“I’m on it.” Rome snapped. “And we got to switch out the headers on that dude’s Viper.”

 

Brian rubbed his eyes carefully around his bandage. He leaned back until his chair was almost at a 120º angle and balanced there.

 

“Wow.” Dom leaned back himself and relaxed every muscle in his face. “Sounds like you could use some help.”

 

Brian quirked up one side of his lip and looked over at Roman. Pure rebellion warred with the desire to finish before sundown in Rome’s eyes. He scowled at Dom while wolfing down the last of his burger, but when he finished chewing, he just shrugged like he really didn’t give a rip.

 

“I’ll help you bolt on that gearbox,” Dom offered Brian quietly and Brian’s smile went turbocharged.

 

They didn’t have to shorten the driveshaft or move the firewall. Brian was re-tightening the subframe and Dom was screwing in the faceplate just as the sky got pink. After they finished, Brian ambled off, proclaiming his intention to scare up some beer.

 

“You’re not gonna be the boss, comprende?” Roman muttered at Dom’s back.

 

Dom turned and smiled his most charming smile. “Cool with me.”

 

********************

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.” Brian hoped his voice didn’t still sound goofy, slightly nasal around the swelling. He’d spent most of the past two evenings communing with painkillers, arnica and a bag of frozen peas.

 

After the greetings, the conversation petered out. Brian picked at the switch of his drill while Dom twirled his keychain. Both of them stared like they were getting hypnotized.

 

Dom broke the silence. “So you wanna grab a bite?” He scratched himself behind the ear.

 

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Brian looked for a rag to wipe his hands. “What are you thinking?”

 

Dom shrugged. “Tamales? They any good around here?”

 

Recognizing his cue, Rome popped out of the utility room that they were using for an office. “Y’all going to eat?”

 

Dom started, tentatively. “Looks that way.”

 

Brian offered, “You want us to bring you anything?”

 

Roman canted his head and glared at them. “I’m coming with, fool. Ain’t waiting for your sorry ass to bring me cold food. Liliana’s got the best tamales.”

 

“Rome…” Brian started and then trailed off, unsure of how to finish. Brian wasn’t jazzed about the prospect of a repeat performance of the day before yesterday and he had no idea how to handle the new Roman Pearce. Rome had showed up at the garage this morning early for the first time, well, ever. Lacking a car project, Brian had set him to call customers for pick-ups and Rome hadn’t even bitched about it. It was eerie.

 

Rome was giving him a defiant look. Brian glanced at Dom.

 

“The more, the merrier,” Dom said in a voice that almost sounded sincere. ‘So where is this Liliana’s?”

 

********************

 

Dom wanted to be cool, to talk coolly and easily and give out a nice, friendly vibe. He didn’t want to come across as sullen as Mr. boyz in the ‘hood over there. They had gotten their food and drinks and managed to snag one of the round concrete picnic tables next to the beach.  There was a distinct advantage to a round table where Brian could sit between them. The disadvantage was that the half-moon benches didn’t move and they could barely fit their knees under so they had to sit sideways. Dom decided to ignore Rome’s glare and he tried to ignore the happy little part of his brain that noted that Brian was facing him. Pretty damn childish, man.

 

“So how’d you find me?” Brian started after they’d each killed a tamale.

 

Dom shrugged. “Sounds like the cops found you, didn’t they?”

 

“Cops have resources.” Brian didn’t give an inch.

 

“So do I,” Dom didn’t feel he could explain. It still didn’t make sense. Plus it felt kind of cool to play mysterious.

 

“So, uh, you got pretty popular in L.A. for a while,” Dom had practiced for a while to make this sound tactful. “Mia said you made the news twice.”

 

Brian pulled one side of his mouth up. It could have been a grin. “Twice, huh? Let me guess ‘Fugitive cop sighted in Texas’?”

 

Roman swallowed an enormous bite and looked at Brian appraisingly.

 

Dom continued, “Yeah, something like that. With your picture and everything.”

 

“How often did you make the news?” Brian asked his tamale.

 

Dom leaned back from his food a little. “Funny thing about that…”

 

“Yeah?” Brian asked offhandedly.

 

“Yeah, real funny. Not much manhunt came our way. Which considering we’d ditched two shot- up cars that were covered in fingerprints, seemed like more luck than I’ve got.”

 

Brian leaned back and regarded Dom seriously. “Well, you know they probably went to an impound lot.” Brian glanced at Rome before he continued. “And the damndest things can happen in impound lots…”

 

For some reason, this made Roman loose a short bark of laughter.

 

“Oh, really?” Dom leaned back.

 

Brian shrugged. “I had friends, y’know.”

 

Dom took a sip of his soda to process this. Another reminder that Brian had left every last thing he had to hand Dom his keys. He drained his cup.

 

Rome was looking at Brian sourly. “These friends you didn’t have three and a half years ago, huh?”

 

Brian cut his eyes at Roman and his voice had a sudden ferocity. “Obviously not. Three years makes a difference, yeah?”

 

OK, there was history there that Dom would have to figure out. Though in view of some of the ink stretched across Roman’s biceps, he could make a pretty good guess.

 

*****************************

 

This shit was seriously on Roman’s last nerve. It was like he was on the phone with his family, getting the story piecemeal, backwards and from a dozen different angles. He just wanted to get big homie alone and convince him to quit looking at Brian like that. Get Brian to just spill the beans on this dude and quit being so mysterious. Or something.

 

“So how did you get ‘free and clear’?” Dom asked before Roman could say anything. Brian looked at Roman and Roman rolled his eyes. Brian could explain.

 

“Well, there was this Fed, I’d worked with on your…uh…thing, named Bilkins…” Brian started.

 

“Stand-up dude. For a cop,” Rome said around a mouthful of nacho.

 

“Yeah, well he wasn’t always. He’s mellowed out a lot.” Brian appeared to be trying to compose the story in his head. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and absentmindedly lit one. “Well, see he wanted me and Rome to get in with this drug lord name of Verone…”

 

“…one sick motherfucker, man. Into rats.” Rome shuddered theatrically.

 

“Look, can I just tell this?’ Brian breathed smoke out his nose in annoyance. Rome shrugged.

 

Dom unexpectedly reached over, pinched the cigarette out of Brian’s mouth with his finger and thumb. He looked at it for a second like he couldn’t begin to imagine its function. Then he shrugged slightly, crushed it out on the underside of the table, and flicked it with deadly accuracy into a trash can.

 

Brian was actually openmouthed with surprise. Roman bit down on a laugh. Dom frowned down at the table for a second and spread his big palm over the pack of Marlboros. One squeeze and Dom had a pathetic little ball of paper and cellophane for another perfect shot into the trash.

 

“So you were saying?” Dom prompted. Brian blinked at him. Rome muffled his smirk in a mouthful of molé. Really, that was kind of cool. Rome had wanted to do that for over a month.

 

Brian glanced at Rome and then continued “…ah, yeah, well, so we won this kind of race/audition thing and we became his drivers….”

 

*****************************

 

Brian came awake all in a second. There was someone on the boat, walking past the head. With all the blasts from the past this week, he didn’t hesitate a second before rolling over and fumbling his 9mm out of the footlocker that he used as a nightstand. Brian had a brief flash of Lance Nguyen’s button-black eyes before he located the gun. He had it cocked by the time the shadow appeared in the doorway.

 

“Shit!” Roman recoiled a step back into the hall. “Jumpy, much?”

 

“What the fuck, man?” Brian was so relieved that he felt like his muscles were melting. He sagged back down on the bed.

 

“What crawled up your ass?’ Roman asked softly. “I’m just checking in. Making sure everything’s…copacetic.”

 

“It’s…” Brian knocked the pillow away from the clock. “Three A.M. Fucking school night, bro…what, did you want me to sneak out and egg some chick’s house with you? You need to grow up.”

 

Rome snorted softly. “You need to chill.” He settled down next to Brian’s feet on the bed.  “You gonna race this weekend?”

 

Brian ruffled a hand through his hair. “I guess. Hadn’t really thought about it.”

 

Rome just sat quietly for a few moments, chewing on what looked like a popsicle stick and looking like he wanted to say something.

 

Just as Brian opened his mouth to ask Roman what he wanted, Rome surprised him by speaking. “Hey, I’m sorry about…earlier. I don’t mean to keep busting your balls. I remember what I said on the pier and I meant it.”

 

Brian thumped his pillow half-heartedly. “’S cool. I lost three years of my life, I’d probably feel entitled to the occasional bitter and angry moment too.”

 

Rome chuckled. His teeth sparkled in the moonlight. Brian had to smile too; Rome’s laugh was always infectious. Rome stretched his arms over his head and rolled down until he was flat on his back with his head at Brian’s knee. Brian could see the edge of his jaw as he turned to look up at Brian and ask.

 

“So you asked him why he’s here?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“’Cause, it’s rude.”

 

“How’s it rude?”

 

Brian pulled the pillow over his head to muffle his groan. Rome reached up and yanked it away. He nudged Brian’s thigh. “So, how’s it rude?”

 

“Because. It would…It would be like I didn’t trust him or…something.” It would be like I didn’t want him around.

 

“So the hell what? Ain’t as if you were friends.”

 

Rome said it casually in a way that chafed.

 

“Yeah, we were. For a moment back there, Rome. We were friends.” He continued because he knew it would hurt Roman in some small way. “We were good friends.”

 

Rome was silent. Brian wanted to explain, explain everything, but it felt like something that he couldn’t risk examining too closely, particularly in front of Rome. Rome sat up slowly.

 

“You leaving?” Brian tried to sound as if it was a matter of complete indifference to him.

 

“Shhhhhhh.” Rome’s shadow was over him suddenly and Rome’s breath was hot on his waist.

 

When Roman thumbed his buttons undone, Brian wanted to laugh or pull away, but again, it wasn’t something he could examine too closely, so he just lay still while Roman teased down his underwear and squeezed his limp dick.

 

What is this shit? Brian could feel his skin tightening as Rome spread a hot hand over the hard bone of his pelvis and took a long, slow taste of him. He didn’t say it though. Roman hadn’t put Brian’s cock in his mouth since they were both eighteen.

 

Rome didn’t tighten his lips over Brian; he used mostly his tongue and fingers to pull Brian up to a full erection. Rome’s hot breath on his crotch, Rome’s clever fingers on his sac, quickly made Brian so hard that his eyes squeezed shut.

 

Almost unconsciously, he reached to smooth his hands over Rome’s skull and was shocked out of his sex haze when Roman slapped his hand away. Brian smirked a little, breathless. Same ol’ Rome.

 

Rome didn’t like to be touched when they did shit like this. It made him feel dominated or something.

 

All he could see was the gleam of Rome’s eyes in the moonlight. Brian lay back and shut his eyes and just let himself feel. Roman kept his mouth open and just bobbed his head, curling and stroking the flat of his tongue along the underside of Brian’s cock. The tingling cool-hot of breath and the tight ring of Rome’s fingers around the base made him throb.

 

“Rome,” Brian muttered thickly. “I’m gonna…”

 

Rome tightened his fingers and pulled his mouth away to bite Brian’s thigh. When Brian opened his eyes, Rome was crouched above him looking very wicked and sexy. He rubbed the head of Brian’s cock over his lips while he sped up the rhythm of his hand. Brian arched his back when he came, but he didn’t thrust.

 

His come on Rome’s dark hand looked like melted pearls in the faint light. When Rome jacked him through the last hitches of his orgasm, he felt wrung out like a rag. So much feeling, too much feeling these last couple of days. He suddenly couldn’t keep his eyes open.

 

He could feel Rome’s weight shift on the bed, then it was gone. Brian rolled over and managed to catch at Rome’s thigh as he moved past the far side of the bed. “Hey, you wanna stay? You wanna…”

 

“Nah, man,” Rome said softly. “I should go.”

 

Brian wanted to ask, even though he knew Roman would never tell. But Rome was already gone like a shadow in sunlight, so Brian didn’t have time to ask why he looked so serious and almost sad.

 

*****************************

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Brian peered down out of the engine well. “Hey, hate to ask and all, but would you mind handing me the 3/8ths?”

 

“No problem,” Dom’s head appeared suddenly, very close. “Here you go.”

 

“Kinda thought you were on vacation.” Brian didn’t mean to, but the words came out sounding shy.

 

“Idle hands.” Dom shrugged, idly. “You need some help?”

 

“Some advice, maybe. What do you think of this? Guy doesn’t have much money.” Brian explained as he pointed to the Nioxx dry delivery system.

 

Dom thought about it for a second and shrugged. “Double his horsepower. A good start, I guess.”

 

“You think he could win with this?”

 

Dom grinned. “He could win if he never has to turn the wheel. Better transmission and differential wouldn’t hurt though. He’ll win some penny-ante suburban shit, come back when he gets a taste.”

 

Brian tightened up the valve, thumped the hose and ducked out from under the car. “That’ll do then. You hungry?”

 

“Oh yeah,” Dom nodded emphatically until Brian just had to smile. “Well, then let’s do it.”

 

They were almost to the car, when Rome pulled up in his slick-as-shit Eclipse. He regarded the two of them darkly for a moment. “We eating?”

 

Brian paused a second and shrugged. Dom appeared to smooth the frown off his face carefully. Dom tucked his keys back into his pocket. “So you gonna drive?”

 

Rome narrowed his eyes at Dom and Dom widened his at Roman. Brian rolled his eyes at both of them and climbed into the back so he could punch either one of them at will. If he needed to.

 

*****************************

 

They drove for twenty minutes, Roman darting heated sideways glances at Dom like Dom was a teenager about to start shoplifting. Dom kept his hands unmoving on his thighs and gazed out at the passing Miami scenery like he was fascinated by each stand of palm trees and Cuban sandwich shop.

 

They ended up eating in some quiet little crab shack on the bay near Tej’s place. Rome skidded to a halt in the graveled lot, jerked the handbrake up, and gave both Brian and Dom a scorching, you-people-are-giving-me-a-headache look.

 

They managed to get ensconced at a booth and graciously acknowledged the mild flirtation of their waitress, looking for all the world like three work buddies on their lunch break and not two ex-cons and a fugitive cop. An older man wandered over to the dusty jukebox. Rome gave his order shortly and turned around to glare when the first notes of ‘Margaritaville’ wafted through the joint.

 

Brian had the feeling that Rome was going to continue to play chaperone. Roman was even now looking at him like some kind of stage mother, like he was trying to prompt Brian to ask the right questions. Brian knew that what Rome thought were the right questions, didn’t even come close to his own ideas on the subject.

 

“So how’s Mia?” Brian tried to ask this from behind his grouper sandwich to disguise just how much the casual words scared the shit out of him.

 

Dom continued chewing for a while before he answered. “She’s good. Real good.”

 

“Yeah?” Brian felt the relief kind of buzzing in his head.

 

“Yeah, she’s in school and working part time in some lab. Making it all look easy. Got herself a nice little place.”

 

“What happened to the house?” Brian hoped he didn’t sound stricken.

 

“Sold it.” Dom said shortly. That seemed to be territory that should remain unexplored. Then Dom continued gently. “Safer that way. Plus, she couldn’t have stayed there, walked down that stoop every day.”

 

Brian nodded sadly. There was a moment of silence while Rome looked from Brian to Dom and back. The waitress had brought everyone’s food except for Roman’s, so he was thumping his fork on the placemat like it was a snare drum. Rome looked both bored and pissed off and just wild that he couldn’t, in good conscience, start complaining about it. Brian gave him a glance that said clearly see what happens when you invite yourself, dumbass?

 

“So how’s Letty?” Brian took a long pull at the mouth of his beer and looked up at the ceiling when he asked this.

 

Dom smiled a small, wry smile and said softly. “Don’t exactly know.” Dom started peeling the label off his own beer and glanced at Rome.

 

Brian flicked his eyes at Dom quickly and then quickly away. Dom continued, “I assume she’s fine. Letty always lands on her feet.” Dom looked like he was going to say more and then decided against it. Brian took another long gulp to hide his face.

 

“What’s Leon doing with himself?”

 

“He’s still in the city. Trying to stay out of trouble mostly.” Dom looked down into his Coke as if he was trying to see what Leon was doing right that minute.

 

Rome stood up suddenly, looking disgusted. Brian realized that this was the quietest that Roman had ever been since…shit, Brian couldn’t even remember back that far. Rome pimp-slid over to the jukebox shooting Brian an acid look over his shoulder.

 

“Is he always this...protective of you?” Dom leaned in a little. “He kinda reminds me of someone.”

 

“Yeah?” Brian tried not to smirk. “How is Vince?’

 

Dom snorted, leaned down and fanned his fingers over his forehead. “You’re probably not going to believe this.”

 

“Try me.” Brian tried to hide the anxiety in his voice. “Is Vince okay?”

 

“I suppose it depends on what you mean by okay.”

 

Brian’s stomach tightened. “Well, what do you mean by okay?”

 

Dom caught the edge in Brian’s voice and looked up. “Sorry. I’ve had time to get used to the idea, see? I’m no longer shocked.”

                                                               

“Could you just get to the fucking point already?” Brian had a sudden fleeting urge to slam Dom’s head into the table. “I just…” I made a lot of sacrifices for Vince and I’d just really like to know that it wasn’t a total…loss. Get it?

 

That seemed to bring Dom up short. He rolled his head back and nodded, placating. “I get it. Really. So Vince was hospitalized for a while, right? Police were on him kind of half-assed because they were getting conflicting stories from the trucker who may or may not have been hopped up on six kinds of methamphetamine when he took his shots. Plus they couldn’t find the rest of us…real hard to kind of bring a case together, right?"

 

"That was the idea," Brian said dryly.

 

Dom raised his glass in salute. "So instead of carting him off right away, he’s there in that hick hospital in Hemet Valley for a month, getting physical therapy, stuff like that. So, anyway he meets this girl…”

 

Oh. Brian relaxed a little. The story had a girl. “At the hospital?”

 

“Yeah. Candy striper, or some such shit. Love at first sight, weird, huh? Anyway, he falls hard for the good girl. And she falls hard for the bad boy. Opposites seriously attract. It’s all hearts and flowers and get this…she alibis him. Says no, they got it all wrong. They got the wrong guy. Vince, he got shot protecting her from some old boyfriend and her word is good. Her word is solid.”

 

Brian raised his eyebrows. “Who is this girl?”

 

“This is the part that’s kind of hard to believe.” Dom leaned in. “She’s a born-again Christian. I never met a woman so pious. This lie is probably the last one she’ll ever tell and she and Vince are off to Oregon to…I dunno, have a dozen kids or something. Make some little paradise on earth. Needless to say…I’m not the most popular guy around anymore.”

 

“Well, that’s pretty much….the last thing I ever expected to hear.”

 

“That’s Vince for you.” Dom smiled wryly. “Make a good woman lie.”

 

Brian shook his head. “Wow. That’s love.”

 

They grinned at each other, and then suddenly it got weird.

 

*****************************

 

When Rome got back to the table, Brian excused himself to go play over all of Rome’s jukebox selections. Or go to the bathroom, get some air, something.

 

Rome scowled at Brian’s retreating back, scowled at Dom and scowled down at his crab cakes. He stabbed a fork into one steaming little patty, but it was so good that he kind of lost the clear focus of his anger.

 

“So when did you get out?” Dom asked matter-of-factly.

 

Rome looked up fast. Dom didn’t sound like he was trying to get up in Rome’s grille but that could be just his cagey game. Rome suddenly considered how he was eating: six inches from his food, fork in constant motion, his plate guarded in front by his forearm. It practically screamed ‘I’ve done time’. He settled back in the booth, looking at Dom warily. “Six months ago.”

 

“What was the beef?”

 

“GTA.”

 

“Chino?”

 

“Yup.”                                                                                   

 

Dom nodded slowly as if he’d had all his theories confirmed. “Long bit?”

 

Roman tried to sound unconcerned. “Three years.”

 

Dom’s eyes flashed at him suddenly, he raised one eyebrow. Rome got the feeling that somehow Dom was impressed. “Long time to spend in the gladiator school.”

 

It came to Roman in that instant that Dom wasn’t some citizen bystander asking out of curiosity. Dominic Toretto had spent some of his own time exploring the penal system. Which was painfully obvious when he thought about it. Rome suddenly felt like an idiot. His not-quite-healed lip tingled and he brushed it with a fingertip.

 

Rome explained, “Eight counts they had me cold on. So I went down hard even though it was first-time. Juvie records sealed and all.”

 

Dom’s lip seemed to want to slide up. “You stole eight cars?”

 

Rome bragged, just a little. “In forty-eight hours.”

 

Dom beckoned with two fingers, tell me everything. So Roman did. Dom chuckled and made sympathetic noises at all the right places.

 

“So how about you?” Rome asked as if they’d been talking about their respective high schools.

 

“Lompoc. Two years.” Dom took a sip of his soda. “Attempted murder.”

 

Rome’s mouth went dry. No wonder big homie’s usual expression hovered somewhere between stay the fuck away from me and get any closer and I’ll gut you. Rome couldn’t quite imagine the block they stuck you on for crimes against persons in Lompoc. Two years probably felt like a decade when you never got to actually sleep.

 

“How’d you work that shit?” Two years for attempted murder?

 

“Extenuating circumstances, pled down to ag assault. I went in clean, kept my head down. Didn’t fuck up.”

 

Rome examined a hush puppy before eating it. “I fucked up a lot.”

 

Dom just nodded at him again slowly and he raised his bottle in an ironic little toast. Rome felt some part of himself relax. Amazing how those five little words could be code for whole volumes of things. Brawls, shivs, gangs, tats, all the many things you would do if you were in prison and scared almost out of your mind. Things like that which stood like a wall between you and the rest of the world even after you got out.

 

Dom turned his head sideways and asked Rome. “Did you have to wear that stupid ankle-bracelet thing? Man, I hated that shit.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Rome chuckled a little. “Didn’t let it cramp my style, though.”

 

Dom leaned back and grinned. “Do tell.”

 

*****************************

 

“So what happened to Brian? He’s looking kinda rough.” Maria asked teasingly.

 

Rome shrugged. “What am I? His babysitter?”

 

Maria traced the side of her thumb over the tiny, itchy remains of the cut on Rome’s lip. “Did you guys fight?”

 

“Yeah, he wanted to ask you out, so I clocked him,” Roman said deadpan.

 

Maria giggled in a way that made her sound like a schoolgirl, “You’re funny, papi.”

 

“Is that why Brian doesn’t ask anyone out?” One of Maria’s friends was trying to find her best pose on the trunk of the Nissan 350Z parked beside Rome’s Eclipse. “You want to keep us all for yourself, Rome?”

 

Roman shot an appraising look her way. All Maria’s friends were flirtatious, Bonita more than most. The way she was packed into her dress, plus the heels on her mules, looked like a whole lot of trouble. Rome put on his best there’s-enough-of-me-to-go-around look. “I got needs, girl.”

 

Maria’s posse all ‘wooooed’ in unison and Maria nudged Rome in a way that didn’t feel completely good-natured.

 

“Baby, you know I’m just playing,” He pressed a kiss on her pout. “I’m gonna go warm it up, get the party started, you wanna come along?”

 

She sulked for a second longer and then slipped her hand into his. Rome took her on a quick circuit of the assembled racers.

 

“So, anything?”  Brian asked. He and Dom had staked out turf next to Tej. A wide circle of people hovered around them, mostly rice boyz perving on their lines and logos. The girlfriends stood further back in that indifferent way that just begged to be noticed.

 

Rome pointed with two fingers over at the latest challenger. “This fool’s rolling on dubs, thinks he’s the biznatch.”

 

“He new? Don’t think I’ve seen him before.” Brian’s long legs pushed him halfway up the hood of the Skyline. All Brian’s clothing looked fresh. Like he’d just bought the stuff yesterday. Rome found it vaguely irritating.

 

“From Hialeah, I think.” Rome confirmed. Tej cracked his gum as he took in the Mustang driver who was kitted out in a track suit and practically choked with chains and medallions.

 

Dom cocked his head over at the crowd hovering around the sassed-up Mustang and looked distinctly underwhelmed. “None for me, thanks.”

 

“Why not?” Rome asked in lieu of saying something much ruder.

 

Dom lazily raised an eyebrow and one shoulder. “Looks sketchy.”

 

“I’ll race him then. I ain’t proud.” Rome huffed.

 

“Since when?” Brian chuckled.

 

Dom obviously knew better than to smile, but he scratched the curve of his lip thoughtfully. “Make sure someone else holds the cash, yeah?”

 

Roman waved off the advice impatiently.

 

The Mustang put down half its slick tires in the first two seconds and Rome was laughing to himself as he took the Eclipse up to redline in second gear. He let the pony pull up next to him before shooting the juice and leaving the guy stuttering behind in the last hundred yards. Toretto wasn’t the only one who could hold back ‘til it mattered.

 

Rome did a little victory lap that brought him back to the full wattage of Brian’s grin. Dom was leaning on his running board, his head so close to Brian’s that he could’ve whispered in his ear. He lifted his chin in acknowledgement of Roman’s victory. Rome’s challenger pulled up, his engine wreathed with wisps of steam. He got out, rolled his shoulders and lowered his head like a bull.

 

“Good one, man,” Rome offered his hand. “Better luck next time.”

 

The gangsta wannabe spat disgustedly at the ground between Roman’s feet. Rome felt his victory adrenaline ratchet up into his this-looks-like-trouble adrenaline. Rome tilted his chin upward and rolled his own shoulders a little.

 

“Man, that was bullshit,” the young thug added a little volume while his friends formed up behind him.

 

Rome didn’t have any doubts that he could kick this trifling motherfucker’s ass around the block a time or two, but…it would be aggravating. His shirt might get ripped. Maria might get pissed off at him. Or shit, that guy might have something with harder edges than a fist. Rome could feel the cold in his stomach and he flexed in wariness. Behind him, Brian had straightened up a little, tilting his weight forward in that way that said he was ready for anything.

 

Dom didn’t have to raise his voice to have it carry through the crowd. Rome could feel it on the back of his knees. Dom murmured, “What’s the problem?”

 

Rome twisted his head until his neck cracked. Dom took two steps forward until Rome could see him out of the corner of his eye. Dom said softly, “This guy playing on ass?”

 

“Looks that way,” Rome pitched his voice to carry. The crowd hushed.

 

The wannabe racer looked at him with a hesitant sneer. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He cut his eyes at his friends. Definitely ready to rumble. Rome could feel Brian settling into place on his left side.

 

Dom’s voice had a rough edge, like a file smoothing sharp corners down. “Bet with no money, you’d better win. Otherwise…”

 

“It’s your ass,” Rome finished.

 

The kid still sneered, but his eyes were getting shifty. “I got the stack.”

 

“That’s good. ‘Cause we know you now.” Dom gestured expansively at the crowds around them. “We know your face, know your car. You think we waste time on fools with no dash and no stash? Walk away without paying, best just keep walking. You could keep your money tonight…” Dom cocked his head and purred. “…maybe. But you won’t race again. Not for real money. Not here.”

 

It didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like an edict from a judge. Tej was nodding his head like he was about to call for an amen.

 

The thug locked eyes with Dom for a long moment before looking back at Roman. The crowd stayed at a low murmur, on action-alert. The thug sucked on his teeth while rolling his eyes. He reached into his waistband and Rome stiffened a little. The wannabe pulled out his roll and slapped it into Rome’s hand like he was anxious to get rid of the filthy greenbacks. He turned and circled a finger, signaling his posse to roll up and move out.

 

Rome took a long, silent breath looking down at the thick wad of bills. Seriously, the juice was barely worth the squeeze. At least he didn’t have to cut his hands up on some guy’s teeth. Rome looked sideways at Dom and jerked his chin.

 

Dom raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement of Roman’s thanks and turned back to chat with Brian. Tej ambled up to Rome smiling wryly. “My cut’s not looking steep now, is it?”

 

Rome just rolled his eyes.

 

Suki ran up to them, crowing about how she’d taken two grand off some player that afternoon and his custom rims. Tej slid his arms around her and dutifully ooohed and aaahed.

 

“You gonna switch them out for me tomorrow, baby?” Suki asked, kissing him quickly before she ran off to gush to another crowd of her giggling friends.

 

“Oh, you know it.” Tej called to her retreating back.

 

“You are so whipped,” Rome groused at Tej.

 

“If you were smart, you’d realize that it’s the only way to be.” Tej grinned at Rome with a flash of gold and shook his head like he knew it was a lost cause. “But you ain’t smart.”

 

*****************************

 

He’d lost the bandage two days ago, but he had a week of painkillers left. He took one too many and they deepened his sleep until Rome almost had to shake him awake.

 

Brian rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The blue-tinged moonlight told him how late it was. All he could see was Rome’s inky shadow, feel his warmth on the side of the bed. Rome smelled like rum, lime and sweat.

 

“You got a…” Brian cleared his throat. “…problem or something?”

 

The light shifted on his skull as Rome shook his head, “Nah.”

 

Brian scratched his stomach drowsily. He was almost back asleep when Rome said, “You’d have had my back tonight, right?”

 

Brian turned on his side, thumping the pillow. “As always.”

 

Rome was silent for a long moment. At first, Brian almost didn’t notice the weight of Rome’s hand on his hip. It was the long stroke down his thigh that woke him up finally. Brian lifted his head off the pillow, “You gonna stay?”

 

Rome froze and peeled his fingers off Brian’s leg. “Nah, I can’t.”

 

Brian jerked the sheet from under Rome’s butt, pulled it up over his chest. “Then don’t start.”

 

Brian felt the bed shift as Roman got up. He listened to the planks creak as Roman walked out onto the deck. After he’d waited three minutes without hearing an answering creak from the gangplank, he sighed and sat up. He slid into yesterday’s pants and followed the moonlight to the back deck.

 

Rome was leaning on the rail looking out at the moon path to the other side of the bay. His eyes were slightly hooded and it made him look cruel.

 

Brian stood for a while, feeling the breeze stroking him slowly awake. He cleared his throat and asked, “You miss home?”

 

Rome cocked his head incredulously. “What?”

 

“Home, d’you miss it?”

 

“Shit, man, there wasn’t anything there to begin with.” Rome laughed a little. “What am I supposed to miss?”

 

“I dunno.” Brian sat down carefully on the rail. It looked like it could take both their weight. “Your mom’s cooking?”

 

“My mom’s not really that good a cook.” Roman looked at him sharply. “If you ever tell her I said that, they’ll never find your body.”

 

“Huh,” Brian mused. “I thought she was good.”

 

Rome shook his head regretfully. “We were just always hungry enough to eat dirt, remember?”

 

“Sure, I remember. I remember…” Brian yawned. “…everything.”

 

Rome went silent for a while, rocking a little on his heels with the rhythm of the boat. “You know what you want?”

 

Brian screwed one eye shut and then the other, then opened both. “Look, bro, that’s like a good question when we’re ordering lunch, but without some context I’m gonna have to follow up with another question and that is: just what the fuck do you mean?”

 

Rome grinned unexpectedly, “Guess you’re more awake than I thought. Needing context and everything.”

 

“Yeah, well.” Brian slumped on the rail and tried to put the cool back in his voice. “Give.”

 

“Life, man,” Rome gestured expansively at the moon. “What do you want from life?”

 

“Christ,” Brian slumped harder. “Only you would show up in the middle of the night asking philosophical shit like that.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Rome grumbled frankly, hunching back into the rail. “I didn’t plan on it.”

 

Rome froze a little after saying this and Brian felt his sudden anger jolt through him like an electric shock.

 

“Yeah, I know you, man,” Brian said nastily. “Wouldn’t want to mess up your usual M.O. Wouldn’t want to rock the boat.” He pushed all his weight off the rail to emphasize his words. The houseboat didn’t rock exactly but the water murmured. Rome just narrowed his eyes and silently told Brian not to be a dick.

 

“I got everything I want, Rome.” Brian said in a ‘this conversation is over’ tone. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

 

“You asked big homie just what the hell he wants then?” Rome’s stance was suddenly belligerent.

 

“Just what the fuck is this obsession of yours with him?” Brian returned. “What does it matter what he wants? Who says he wants anything?”

 

“He don’t have to say,” Rome shifted angrily and the deck planks creaked. “It’s plenty ob…”

 

“Whatever,” Brian interrupted and made to move to the side. “Ask him yourself.”

 

“Think I won’t?” Rome sounded both aggressive and tired at the same time. “I get plenty of chances. You like him hanging around so much, you’d think he was some kind of Playmate of the Year.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Brian snapped over his shoulder. “At least he doesn’t ask me stupid questions.”

 

Rome’s voice came harsh over the sound of the slap of water hitting the sides of the boat. “Hey, cuz, it’s only when folks start wondering, that they start asking.”

 

 

Brian held Rome’s eyes defiantly for a few long moments when he showed up at the garage the next morning. Roman didn’t say a word, just grabbed the work orders out of his box and shuffled through them. Brian coughed meaningfully and Rome asked without looking up, “Getting a cold?”

 

Brian sighed and went back to de-carbonizing a cylinder head. They managed to go the morning without acknowledging their late night almost-conversation. Only the steady rhythm of work kept the tension from building up like a summer storm.

 

Brian happened to be glancing Rome’s way when he heard the distinctive rumble of the Plymouth which meant that Dom was only a block away. Rome took a deep breath, while Brian was straightening up and wiping off his hands.

 

Dom had pulled up at the edge of the tiny lot and Brian looked out at him and then back at Rome. Dom made a little circle with his index finger and Brian nodded.

 

“Change your shirt, bro, you look like trash,” Rome’s voice came drifting sarcastically from the utility room.

 

“Going to lunch, you wanna come?” Brian ducked his head under the last lift and leaned on the doorframe of the utility room.

 

Rome didn’t turn around to look, just kept picking at an El Camino’s carb and drinking a soda. “Nah, not today. I got a thing.”

 

“A thing? What’s a thing?” Brian swiped at the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand, hoping he wasn’t leaving an oil streak.

 

Rome paused and looked at the ceiling. “Just a thing.”

 

“Yeah? That’s cool.” Brian paused, unsure of what he was supposed to say. “Maria?”

 

Rome simply nodded.

 

“Well, have fun.” Something mean made Brian say, “Don’t wait up.”

 

Rome swiveled around suddenly, “You want me to close, I’ll close.”

 

Brian shifted from foot to foot. “Uh, you sure? What about your thing?”

 

Rome bobbed his head, “It’ll be cool. It’s Saturday, anyway. Take some time off. You’ve been working too hard lately.”

 

Brian restrained himself from checking Rome’s forehead for a fever. “OK…thanks.”

 

Brian turned to go. He got to the door half expecting Roman to laugh and take it back, but Rome just muttered in a voice that obviously didn’t want to be overheard, “Get your head straight.”

 

“Just you and me today?” Dom asked as Brian settled into the Plymouth and adjusted his headrest. Brian looked as cool as ever, even cooler maybe. He looked really nice actually, wearing a spotless shirt in a gray-blue that turned his eyes laser-bright.

 

Brian adjusted his shades. “Chaperone’s taking the day off.”

 

Dom nodded and asked quietly. “So, what are you in the mood for?”

 

“You got some time?” Brian wriggled a little on the bench seat, looking like he was trying to find the best place to put his hands.

 

“I got nothing but,” Dom replied.

 

Brian jerked his chin. “Let’s hit it. Get on the turnpike south.”

 

“Where are we headed?”

 

Brian stretched back into the generous bench seat. “I thought we’d head down Highway 1. Go eat some shrimp.”

 

Dom felt a fountain of warmth flood his belly and flow up his spine. “How history does repeat itself.”

 

Brian paused for a second, then turned and looked at Dom over the top of his sunglasses. He said slowly, “Different this time, you know. It’s a whole ‘nother ocean.”

 

Dom had a feeling that those words were meant to relax him, so it was kind of weird that they had exactly the opposite effect.

 

Brian asked quietly, “You’ve never seen the Keys, have you?”

 

“Nah, not yet.” Something about today, something was different. He could feel the difference.

 

“It’s a trek though,” Brian warned “Over a hundred miles.”

 

Dom thought about the two and a half thousand miles he’d come to be blinking into the sun with Brian by his side. “So let’s do it.”

 

Dom pushed his own sunglasses back up and goosed the accelerator hard enough to make Brian laugh like a kid.

 

*****************************

 

It just looked like redneck Florida until they passed Islamorada. Marshes crowded up to the roadside, rustling with humidity. Brian watched the furrow in Dom’s forehead get deeper as he tried to rein the big car in against the traffic. Then the scrubby trees got sparser and all the cars around them seemed to decide that it was time to turn off or move. The ocean and the bay spread out from either side of the road. Brian looked over at Dom when the first big bridge arched across the sky.

 

“Pretty cool, huh?”

 

The dimples framing Dom’s smile got deeper.  “It’s gorgeous.”

 

“I love it down here,” Brian said to the horizon. The balance between land, sea and sky was perfect.

 

“Heat doesn’t bother you?” Dom tilted his head to sample the breeze.

 

“You get used to it.” Brian shrugged.

 

Dom held the wheel steady while scanning the ocean side for dolphins. "We need a convertible."

 

Brian said seriously, “Yeah, that’d be something.”

 

Dom took another deep breath like he was tasting the briny air. They were quiet for a while just watching the clouds and feeling the steady thrum of the engine in their skin and bones. Up on the bridges, the big car seemed like it would launch itself and fly.

 

They arrived in Key West three hours before sunset, parked on a side street and strolled down Duval to the piers. The streets were tinseled with motorcycles, mostly Harleys and Buells with Ducatis and Kawasakis sprinkled in for color. Traffic moved at a walk. A slow walk.

 

“Bike week,” Brian explained. Dom just raised his eyebrows. A crowd of sailors passed on the far side of the street, splashing beer from their go-cups and talking too loudly. It was way too early for dinner and almost too late for lunch.

 

“So what do people do for fun around here?” Dom asked quietly.

 

Brian grinned and steered them into the Flying Monkey, “Mostly? They drink.”

 

*******

This was tough.

 

Brian tilted back on his barstool trying to find the most comfortable position. Dom looked comfortable in his half-lean, taking in the changing color of the sky, the pretty, underdressed people and the flocks of chrome-heavy motorbikes.

 

Brian chewed on his straw, felt the buzz in his veins and knew in his bones that he was going to be the one to blink first. He looked over at Dom, who had finally succumbed to the song and ordered a margarita.

 

Three different bars. Over seventy bucks of assorted brews and cocktails. Brian couldn’t begin to gauge how much time that represented, other than the lowering sun which was painting the sky yellow, pink and dark violet. And this conversation was still proceeding like a half-assed game of chicken, where they’d peel off if it felt like they were getting too close to something.

 

It was amazing how much they could talk without saying anything. It was a weird feeling. Like playing a game without knowing the stakes. 

 

"So what's the story...." Dom started and Brian's stomach tightened. "on that Skyline."

 

Brian relaxed a little. “No story. Picked it up somewhere. Gave it a little TLC.”

 

“A little? Tej told me that they trashed it when they pulled you,” Dom swiped languorously at the beads of sweat on his neck. “Hit it with, like, an EMP.”

 

“Yeah,” Brian drawled, wondering just when Dom and Tej had been having these detailed discussions without him. “Kinda brought me up short.”

 

“I bet.” Dom paused as the sun sank another inch. “That year and that caliber of Nissan, that must’ve been all chipped to hell and back. Computerized down to the side mirrors. How’d you rebuild it?”

 

“Slowly and carefully,” Brian said, feeling oddly like he was confessing something. “Engine was still good, chassis too, so I had a body with a heart and lungs all I needed to do was…”

 

“Replace the central nervous system?” Dom half-smiled.

 

“Yeah, something like that,” Brian shrugged lightly. “Enough time, money and patience and I guess you could probably fix anything.”

 

Dom looked back to the horizon, “Not anything.”

 

“Well,” Brian said slowly with a sudden sense that this conversation was taking place on a whole other topic. “You could try.”

 

Dom grinned a little and said, “I knew a guy once who….”

 

Brian took a sip of his drink and concentrated so hard on the sound of Dom’s voice that he forgot to listen to the words. The sunset tinted Dom’s skin a kind of honey color.

 

“…That doesn’t get difficult?” Dom touched his tongue lightly to the rim of his glass. Brian could almost taste the salt himself.

 

“What?” Brian blinked when he realized that Dom had stopped speaking.

 

Dom raised his eyebrows and asked wryly, “Left-handed shifting doesn’t get difficult?”

 

“Ah…nah, I’m pretty good with my left hand,”

 

Dom raised his eyebrows even higher and asked, innocently, “Oh, really?”

 

Brian rubbed his eyebrow with his middle finger and Dom chuckled.

 

Dom stretched languidly. Brian looked away. He could practically hear Rome’s voice in his head ask him. He looked out at the water for a second and pushed himself back into the present.

 

“You haven’t asked me why I’m here.” Dom tilted his fourth drink back and forth, watching the tequila and ice eddy and swirl in the bottom of the glass. Brian glanced at him sharply and Dom smiled at him.

 

Brian felt a thrill of heat on the back of his neck and ducked his head. “Not my business.”

 

Dom’s grin was infectious; the bartender strolled up and offered refills. “You don’t care?”

 

“Did I say that?” Brian’s voice sounded loud in his own ears. These mojitos were hot stuff. Brian mumbled into his glass. “Figured you’d say, and then I wouldn’t have to ask.”

 

Dom’s attention had wandered. Dom was looking past him to the darker side of the bar. Brian leaned back a little and followed Dom’s eyes. Two seats down, a huge guy with a ponytail and a leather vest over his t-shirt was kissing another guy with tattoos that crowded right up into his hairline. First guy came up for air for a second and shot Dom a look that was about as friendly as a rocket-propelled grenade.

 

Brian interposed himself before Dom could get them on the list for an ass-kicking. “You hungry?”

 

Dom blinked and checked the level in his glass. “Someone promised me shrimp.”

 

“So….” Brian dabbed a shrimp in cocktail sauce. “Why are you here?”

 

Dom looked at him for a long moment, not smiling.  “Why are you here?”

 

Brian chewed without tasting and shrugged. There was a note in Dom’s voice that was unfamiliar. “I have to be somewhere.”

 

Dom asked from behind his beer. “I mean, why are you twisting a wrench? If you’re ‘free and clear’ why aren’t you off somewhere being the white knight?”

 

“A cop, you mean?” Brian cocked his head. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Dom was being sarcastic. 

 

Dom’s bottle hovered an inch away from his lips in a distracting way. Dom arched one elegant eyebrow and nodded.

 

Brian shrugged again and spread his hands, “Does it look like I’m doing something wrong? It’s a fun town. I got my own shop, cool address…good friends.”

 

He picked up his beer and tilted it at Dom. “And until last week, there wasn’t anyone faster in the neighborhood. You can’t sit there and tell me you….disapprove of the lifestyle.”

 

Dom pulled one side of his mouth up. “Fair enough.”

 

Brian continued, “You know, you pull up to a crowd and the guys all owe you money…”

 

“…And most of the ladies want you to owe them something.” Dom finished.

 

They shared a chuckle. Brian felt his seat creak as he leaned back. “Like a rock star.”

 

“Better than a rock star,” Dom gestured vaguely with his bottle. “No paparazzi.”

 

Dom set his drink down and leaned back in his chair. “Gets dull after a while though.”

 

Brian shrugged a little. “Maybe.”

 

Dom didn’t say anything, just looked at his shrimp like he was waiting for it to beg for mercy. “Why’d you do it in the first place?  Become a cop, I mean?”

 

Brian looked over Dom’s shoulder, “Where I’m from, there weren’t really a whole lot of options for guys like me.”

 

“Somehow I doubt,” Dom took a sip. “That there are a whole lot of guys like you.”

 

Brian felt his stomach tighten again like someone had just threatened to punch him. The pleasure of those words moved through him so fast that it almost hurt.

 

“’S true though.” Brian said, after he regained his composure.

 

“Nah, there’s more to it than that.” Dom leaned back and folded his arms. “Become a cop, you don’t just tick a box and go to auto shop when your first choice was gym.”

 

“Why all these questions?” Brian stripped a shrimp self-consciously. “Point’s kind of moot.”

 

“I’m just trying to understand.” Dom said low.

 

“Understand what?” Brian noticed he was leaning on his left elbow so hard, it was going numb.

 

Dom paused, then leaned in and whispered archly, “Some of the crazy shit you do.”

 

“Oh, yeah?" Brian took the weight off his arm and flexed it. "Coming from you, that's kind of..."

 

"I'm serious, though." Dom looked serious. "This is a serious question."

 

"You know, like most people who live their lives a quarter mile at a time..." Brian started. Dom grimaced like Brian was reminding him of something stupid he'd said while drunk. "...I'm just not very good at the day-to-day stuff."

 

“Yeah, I hear that,” Dom’s eyes gleamed in the glowy Christmas tree lights that ringed the terrace of the restaurant. He sighed. “No matter how fast you are the days always catch up.”

 

Brian bobbed his head, “Yeah.”

 

There was a longish pause while Dom examined his plate thoroughly and Brian watched him. If it wasn’t a comfortable silence, it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable.

 

“But that’s not the real reason,” Brian said finally. “That I’m no longer a cop.”

 

Dom picked up a piece of parsley and chewed it very methodically.  He said “Yeah?” in a go on voice. “Why not?”

 

Brian hooked an elbow over the back of his chair. “Mostly ‘cause I suck at it.”

 

Dom huffed a gentle laugh. “That so?”

 

“Uh-huh,” Brian said seriously. “I lack some pretty-much-essential qualities for a cop.”

 

“What’re those then?” Dom was still almost smiling.

 

Brian paused for a moment, hearing Tanner’s calm intonation in his head. “Really poor impulse control, apparently. I run too hot. Plus I don’t have a good instinct for self-preservation. You can’t protect and serve if you can’t protect yourself.”

 

Dom chuckled down at his plate, then glanced up at Brian from under his eyelashes. He relaxed back into his chair and brandished a beer bottle. “Let’s drink to that then.” Dom’s voice got loud enough to carry. “Here’s to no instinct for self-preservation.”

 

Brian tilted his bottle for the clink obligingly.

 

“So why are you here?” Brian asked, trying to keep his tone light.

 

Dom hesitated, so he wheedled. “C’mon, I just spilled, like, half of my guts over here.”

 

“Just half?” Dom raised an eyebrow and smirked. Brian frowned at him while Dom squashed his napkin and pushed his plate away. The restaurant was starting to empty out; they were the only people in this corner of the courtyard. There was music playing somewhere.

 

"Like today?" Brian prompted.

 

“It’s getting late.” Dom stretched theatrically. “Time to go.” He signaled for the check.

 

“Tell me about the Plymouth,” Brian countered smoothly.

 

Dom shook his head, grinning. “Picked it up somewhere. Gave it a little TLC.”

 

“All the time I put into the Skyline, I still wasn’t rebuilding from the ground up,” Brian returned.

 

“Yeah,” Dom gave a fake sigh. “Probably a mistake to invest in something that old, beat-up and temperamental.”

 

“Well if it suits you….” Brian said brightly.

 

Dom laughed and aimed a mock-swipe at Brian’s shoulder “I wasn’t looking to do anything in particular with it. I was just experimenting. Seemed like there was a lot of time to….”

 

Dom’s gaze sharpened for a second and he trailed off.

 

“Why’d you pick a Plymouth?” Brian asked gently. “Seems so old-school.”

 

“Mmm, that’s easy,” Dom murmured. “They’ve all got that special something that I really admire.”

 

“And what’s that?” Brian asked just as the waiter set down the check. He threw a few bills down without looking at it.

 

Dom rubbed his thumb over the edge of his lower lip and said seriously, “They’re pretty much indestructible.”

 

******

 

“What’s with all the pictures?” Dom squinted down the street where they were parked. Brian glanced down to where little clusters of tipsy tourists were leaning together for a photograph before breaking apart and moving on in twos and threes. “What’s down there?”

 

Brian took a longer look, then shrugged, “Dunno. Let’s take a look.”

 

They strolled down, hands in pockets. There were shells crushed into the concrete and they glittered in the faint light. Dom ducked to avoid a palm frond. When they got the end of the street, the small crowd had dispersed and the road was relatively quiet.

 

“I don’t get it,” Dom scanned the rows of old-fashioned, clapboard houses looking mystified. “What’s the attraction?”

 

Brian looked up and grinned. “The mile marker. Highway One.” He pointed up to the reflective green and white of the sign that read simply ‘0’. “Must be kind of cool for the people that drive down here from, like, New York." He jerked his head toward the other side of the street where they could hear the ocean shushing against pilings and smacking the sea wall. "End of the road.”

 

“Why’s it have to be the end of the road?” Dom asked slowly, turning away from the sign. “Maybe it’s the beginning.”

 

“Yeah, no, sure.” Brian wondered at himself, surely he wasn’t drunk enough to be this tongue-tied. “Why not?”

*******

 

With the windows down, the briny air flowed through the Plymouth. Brian could almost taste the saltwater in the air, the damp warmth felt like a light hand on his face. Somehow the time had just seeped away and now it was late-late, the road was dappled with lights from an occasional gas station or motel. The inky black of the ocean seemed to want to swallow the stars.

 

Suddenly a breath of cooler air whipped through the car followed by a rushing, roaring sound from the ocean side. Brian looked out into the dark of sea and sky, just in time to catch the burst of lightning and a crack that sounded like the earth was breaking.

 

They just managed to roll the windows up before the rain was on them. Tropical cats-and-dogs, build-an-ark type rain. It drummed against the hood and roof with an almost sentient ferocity.

 

Even though the Plymouth’s lights were set high and spaced wide, Dom still had to hunch forward and squint. The raindrops seemed to be flying out of the darkness to attack them, like a horde of soldiers throwing themselves on the car.

 

“What is this el Nino?” Dom sounded both irritated and slightly awed.

 

“Nah, it just rains like this,” Brian settled back. It was actually kinda nice, if you could ignore the fact that there were plenty of low parts of the road ready to flood and Dom’s tires were made for racing, not traction. Wouldn’t do to hydroplane on one of the causeways. It was a long way back to Mexico.

 

“It’s a monsoon,” Dom grunted.

 

“This is the swamp, not the desert, remember?”

 

Dom just nodded, hitched himself forward in the seat and turned his brights on. The wind pummeled the side of the car. Brian could see the muscles play in Dom’s arm as he tightened his grip on the wheel.

 

“Do you want me to drive?” Brian murmured.

 

Dom shook his head slowly, “I don’t want anyone to drive. This is shit.”

 

The dark-tinted windows which made life more comfortable in nonstop sunshine put them at a serious disadvantage with no streetlights and very little signage.

 

They hit a low patch and Brian could hear the water churning around the undercarriage. Dom turned off the stereo and his breath sounded loud in counterpoint to the constant shush-shush of the rain.

 

Brian couldn’t actually bring himself to make the suggestion, so he tapped his index finger on the window as they passed the gaudy neon blur of a motel. Dom didn’t acknowledge the gesture, but his chin sank down to his chest.

 

Brian watched as Dom’s thumbnail dug into the seams on the steering wheel. They drove onward in silence.

 

They passed a sign: Miami – 104 miles. The air in the car started to thicken.  Brian focused on the darkness ahead trying to make his mind blank, to slow his heartbeat. He almost flinched when he felt the Plymouth swing off wide into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn.

 

Dom idled for a few moments under the hotel’s awning, cooling his turbocharger. Brian put his hand on the door handle but Dom shook his head at him silently. So Brian watched Dom disappear into the brightness of the lobby. Dom’s body painted graceful shadows against the yellow light. Brian leaned back, closed his eyes and listened to the rain. He didn’t even have to force himself into the present moment; it felt like his mind had just stopped working.

 

When Dom got back in the car, he didn’t say anything and he didn’t look at Brian, he just made that odd little roll up gesture with his index finger. Brian took that to mean that the room was around back.

 

******

 

The rain was still pounding the hood, drumming the roof over their heads. The windows were starting to absorb the chill. They’d fogged slightly. The longer they sat here, the harder it became to leave.

 

Brian wished there was something clever he could say, make the awkwardness of this situation just evaporate. But nothing came to mind. The longer they sat in silence the more this odd, pulsing feeling grew.

 

ESPN, Brian thought. Pizza, Laker highlights, maybe a minibar. There was no reason on earth that this had to feel so strange. It would help if Dom would say one goddamned thing. Dom was just breathing evenly and looking down at his dashboard as if he were waiting for a gauge to give him some vital readout that would allow him to move. Occasionally he would look over, but couldn’t seem to raise his gaze higher than Brian’s hands.

 

Brian took a deep breath, braced himself a little and pushed the door open. The high whine of his own nerves was starting to make him angry. He forced himself to step out into the rain as if it didn’t bother him at all. The rain thumped him completely soaked within seconds, so he didn’t bother racing for a door that he wasn’t particularly anxious to step through.

 

He felt the car shake as the opposite door slammed. Dom stood blinking cautiously heavenward, looking bemused, what is this water falling from the sky? There was a streetlight in the far corner of the lot and it threw a circle of white into the curtain of rain. It painted one side of Dom’s face visible.

 

Brian took a deep breath.

 

It had been over a year, but it felt like an hour now, now when he was feeling just exactly the same way as he had then. They had been standing like this with the car beside them, just like this and that had been bright California sun, not dark Floridian rain, but he’d felt almost just like this. All ripped up on the inside. Feeling like he’d jerked the earth from under his own feet.

 

“Why are you here?” Brian surprised himself by speaking aloud.

 

Rain got in his mouth and he glanced over quickly to see if the rain had muffled his uncensored words. The rain drummed steadily on the hollow shell of the car. There was no doubt that Dom had heard him though. Dom turned that cautious look on him, blinking occasionally to keep the water out of his eyes. Dom’s voice was low, but it always carried. “Why do you think?”

 

“Just answer me,” Brian said. “I’m tired of my own theories.”

 

Dom cocked his head and Brian steeled himself. He swallowed and straightened, thinking that all the time and the distance between them that they’d somehow managed to bridge; it meant nothing if he couldn’t speak right now. He took two steps which brought him to the edge of the hood; he could feel the heat of the engine even through the cold of the rain.

 

“Bilkins said once that vengeance might bring you out here.” Brian did his best to sound detached. “But he didn’t know you like I did. You’re too cool and in control to let it own you like that.”

 

“And maybe I’d had enough.” Dom was looking at him with that old challenging expression that was almost a sneer. Dom looked so solid and complete in himself. His skin, smooth as a bullet, rain and light dripping from him. Rain gleamed on his skull, dripped from his knuckles and earlobes. His white t-shirt was now completely translucent and clung to him like liquid. Like someone had poured milk all over his chest.

 

“So why?” Brian persisted.

 

Dom blinked slowly and it made Brian suddenly conscious again of how incredibly hard it was raining, how the individual drops tapped his shoulders. The runnels of water that trickled and tickled down his chest made him very conscious of how few steps separated them.

 

Dom made a sound low in his throat and it took a second for Brian to realize that it was a chuckle. “You think I’m cool?” Dom looked up again and shut his eyes against the rain.  It gleamed on his cheekbones. “You think I’m in control?”

 

Brian noticed suddenly that Dom’s hands were tightly clenched. Brian took another step closer and Dom didn’t back up exactly, but he rolled his shoulders, shifting his weight back. Brian’s sharpened gaze caught the faint tremors that made Dom’s shoulders shake. Dom was still giving him a half-sneer but from this close, Brian could see that Dom’s lips were…

 

 

…trembling.

 

That old daredevil instinct led him to reach out a hand to press Dom’s chest. To nudge Dom’s plum-colored nipple with the edge of his thumb.  Brian could feel it as Dom took a deep, labored breath.

 

Brian could feel each finger as Dom wrapped his hand around Brian’s wrist. Dom pulled Brian’s hand deliberately up to eye level and looked at it curiously for a long moment. Dom turned the palm up and down and examined it from all sides and, for some reason, his steady regard made Brian’s cock chafe against the soaked denim of his jeans.

 

Then Dom carefully set Brian’s hand back on his chest, drawing his thumb over the ticklish vein on the back of Brian’s palm. Brian’s breath exploded, his cock leaped to attention and he jerked his hand back.

 

And Dom came with it.

 

They came together so hard that Brian was surprised it didn’t make more noise. Brian buried his teeth in Dom’s neck and Dom locked on to Brian’s shoulder, biting and snuffling. Dom had one hand jerking at Brian’s sopping t-shirt while the other squeezed the water from his hair.

 

“You know what you’re doing?” Dom’s hot breath made the goosebumps radiate from Brian’s ear. The sudden creak of metal was almost inaudible over the rain, but the Plymouth complained when he shoved Dom hard into the door. Dom twisted quickly and they both almost tripped.

 

“No,” Brian licked the rain from the long curve under Dom’s jaw. Sucked on Dom’s earlobe, mashed his face into the long tendon of Dom’s neck. Rain was getting up his nose. Brian was already panting and his nipples dragged against his shirt in a way that made him grateful that everything was soaking wet.

 

Otherwise the friction could have been truly incendiary.

 

**********************

 

Dom had a long moment where all he could do was just try to remember to keep breathing.

 

It was like trying a dish that you’d never liked the sound of and discovering on the first taste that it was something you wanted to eat every day of your life.

 

He felt that now with the hot rain flavor of Brian’s shoulder in his mouth. Brian’s skin awakened an old hunger inside his stomach, chest, right up into his mouth. The taste of Brian was satisfying and enflaming all at once. Dom mouthed him desperately, trying to lick, taste and inhale all at once. Rain was getting into his mouth and nose, but the chill wasn’t soaking in.

 

Brian’s hot breath was giving him goose bumps. Brian bit him on the jaw and it made him shudder.

 

He managed to drag himself to arm’s length for a second and it was bad, yeah, very, very bad. No one should have to see Brian’s mouth all slack and wet like that, Brian’s eyes all blurred with lust and rain. To feel Brian’s fingers lacing over his shoulders, to feel the steady pull that drew him, groaning, back into those strong arms. Brian tilted his head and drew Dom past the unbelievable torture of his wet eyelashes and into the fiery hell of his mouth.

 

Dom could feel the muscles in his arms almost cramping with the effort of not squeezing Brian until his ribs cracked. He tried to distract himself from the delicious wet mouth by fingering up each separate vertebrae of Brian’s spine and tangling his hands in Brian’s sodden curls.

 

Suddenly, Dom could think for a second and he pulled back. Brian looked confused, then that fierce, intent look that Dom recognized as anger. Dom hoped that Brian would forgive him; he just couldn’t stand the idea of something like this happening in a parking lot in the pissing rain.

 

He couldn’t speak, so he pointed. Brian blinked and his eyes cleared. He inclined his head toward the glass door into the stairwell of the motel. Dom nodded slowly.

 

He’d forgotten. Somehow. He’d forgotten how fast Brian could move when he was motivated.

 

********

 

The hallway smelled of cleanser and slightly of dog. While Dom jammed the keycard in the lock, Brian scanned the hall, shifting from foot to foot. The room was as cold as a meatlocker, humming with the strength of the air conditioner which was on full-blast.

 

When Brian shut the air conditioner off, its rattle was replaced by silence and the roaring rush of the rain outside. Now he could hear the steady thump, thump, thump of droplets falling from his clothes onto the thick carpet. Dripping from Dom in a slightly faster tempo. The door swung shut and the darkness became complete again.

 

Brian nervously felt along the wall and the credenza for some light source. He almost knocked the lamp over, but managed to grip it with the tips of his fingers. He switched it on and the light was dim enough so he didn’t have to squint. The wan light made the bedroom glow. Two broad beds separated by a nightstand. A T.V. on a dresser. A round veneer table and two chairs. A seascape on the wall to remind Brian that this wasn’t just an anonymous hotel room, it was an anonymous hotel room in Florida.

 

A long gust of wind sent rain pattering onto the balcony.

 

Brian worried for a long second that having lost the momentum of that insane, rain-soaked moment in the parking lot, that this all would stutter to a stop, that Dom would retreat back into himself. Dom had moved next to him and was standing at the edge of the open curtain looking out at a rather generous balcony and a stand of palm trees fringing a pool. Still dripping.

 

Dom’s eyes were oil black. He looked very serious as he ran a finger down the edge of the curtain and he didn’t turn to look at Brian as he said. “Don’t make me say something cheesy about getting out of these wet clothes.”

 

Brian barked one half of a laugh and grabbed the back of Dom’s neck. His lips were cold, but not for long.

 

**********

 

Back, c’mon this was stupid. Dom wondered how he could disentangle himself long enough to get at least one person’s shirt off. Maybe if he just started pulling, Brian would get the idea and stop doing that…whatever he was doing that was making it so hard to think. It was like they were trapped in a thick cloud of arousal that was making them too stupid and impatient to undress themselves.

 

He managed to stop the stroking long enough to curl one hand under Brian’s tee and pulled a few inches up. The skin of Brian’s back was so. Smooth. And he really wore his jeans way too baggy. Even with the rain making the denim stiff and uncooperative, Dom felt sure that if he shoved hard enough, he could make some headway on getting Brian out of his pants.

 

Brian wasn’t very helpful unless you called writhing in Dom’s arms and grinding their erections together ‘helpful’. His palm was warm on the back of Dom’s skull. Dom valiantly tried to focus.

 

Brian obviously took Dom’s hand dipping below his waistband as some kind of special invitation. His own hand that had been tracing every last detail of Dom’s ribs decided to tickle down into the long curve of Dom’s pelvis and make it snappy with Dom’s button fly. Dom grunted at the sheer audacity and he jerked back, forgetting the hand that he had twisted in Brian’s shirt for leverage. The thin, wet cotton ripped all the way up the side seam to the armhole.

 

The zzzzt! signaling the death of his shirt seemed to rouse Brian from the cloud of his Dom, tongue, hot thoughts and he actually paused to look down at himself. He looked back up at Dom with a curious mixture of outrage and lasciviousness.

 

“That’s how you like it?” Brian whispered and Dom thought, trouble!

 

Brian was grinning as he hooked his hands over Dom’s collar and ripped his still see-through shirt down the front to his waist. Brian had time to laugh once before Dom growled and shrugged himself free of the rags.

 

Brian leaned in and bit him hard enough to leave half-moon bruises on the bulge of Dom’s pectorals. Instead of recoiling, Dom pulled him tighter, plucking at the remains of his shirt. The collar gave way when Dom bit a hole in the shoulder.

 

And then Dom doubled the dare by hooking his own fist over Brian’s waistband, thumbing the button loose and jerking the zipper down so hard that it nearly sliced its serrated edge into his palm. Dom tugged at Brian’s pants as if their mere existence pissed him off. They swayed together, barely keeping balanced.

 

Hey, there were beds in this room. They both came to the realization at the same time.

 

The wrestling match ended with Brian getting pinned on the bed closest to the window. He would have put up a better fight, but Dom kept coming up with these killer moves like ‘scrape teeth on nipples”, “stick tongue in ear”, etc. Plus that extra twenty pounds made a difference.

 

Dom looked so deliciously intent as he jerked at Brian’s cock. The calluses scraping his prick in all the unexpected places pulled all of the long year of Brian’s pent-up lust gushing out of him like a fountain. Brian could actually feel himself falling into blackness, his muscles turning to custard while he tried to cling to consciousness. He blinked.

 

Dom was turning his hand back and forth, the way a woman might admire a ring. In the faint light, bright drops of Brian’s come gleamed across Dom’s knuckles. Brian had to squeeze his eyes shut as vicious arousal snaked through his belly again so soon after a moment of satiation. He rubbed Dom’s belly with the flat of his palm and reached to squeeze Dom’s cock through his pants.

 

“You could fuck me, if you wanted,” Brian didn’t even try mute the eagerness in his whisper

 

Brian wasn’t quite sure what he had been expecting. What he hadn’t expected was for Dom to blanch, curl up convulsively and roll off the bed. Brian’s heart felt like someone was stepping on it while Dom regrouped on the floor.

 

Brian rolled over and looked down at Dom who was looking pretty…poleaxed.  Dom’s upper lip was curled and he glared down at his hands.

 

“Bad idea, huh?” Brian muttered, trying to look unconcerned.

 

“No, that sounds…uh, cool,” Dom kept his eyes down. “Now’s just not a good time.”

 

“Oh,” Brian pushed his head up on his fist. Dom shivered, stood up and staggered toward the bathroom. “So when would be a good time?”

 

Dom paused, leaning on the doorframe. He looked down at his crotch wryly and looked back at Brian with an exasperated expression. He grunted even gruffer than normal. “Some time when I haven’t just come in my pants. That work for you?”

 

 “Yeah, okay,” Brian rolled onto his back and grinned loopily at the ceiling. “Sorry.”

 

“You’re not sorry,” Dom muttered as the door closed.

 

****************

 

Trying to strip a towel off the rail while stomping himself free of his wet pants and Chucks took all of Brian’s concentration. Suddenly, the fact that he was wet and sticky made his skin crawl. He’d had to pull his jeans back up to walk and their slimy damp made his nerves jangle.

 

 Despite the fact that he had just come, he felt itchy and on tenterhooks. He scrubbed himself vigorously dry with a towel, then wrapped it around his waist. Dom had spent about twenty five seconds stripping himself out of his clothes and Brian was sure he could beat that.

 

By the time Brian got back to the bedroom, Dom had snatched off the coverlet and was lying in the middle of the bed, his knees curved over the edge and his feet on the floor. He had spread his arms out until his knuckles met both sides of the bed and was examining the ceiling intently. His cock, dark, thick and full, curved almost to his navel.

 

The fact that Dom was just lying there, not touching himself, just waiting, Brian found almost frighteningly arousing. He was suddenly aching with hardness.

 

“So, um, that…,” Brian couldn’t believe that he could still string words together. His thoughts were a jumble of Dom, bed, naked, hard.

 

Dom looked at him, blinked and didn’t say anything. Brian’s hunger pulled him until he was standing at the foot of the bed. Dom spread his knees a little so Brian could get closer. Brian cupped his own cock and tried to maintain some semblance of control.

 

“What’s that?” Dom nodded at Brian’s other hand, but he still didn’t move.

 

“Uhmmmm, it’s, uh, lotion,” Brian looked down. He was amazed that he hadn’t dropped the little vials.

 

Dom blinked and appeared to be waiting for an explanation.

 

Brian started, “Y’know, so you could…” Fuck me stupid, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. He wondered why he felt so shy when Dom so obviously…didn’t. The electric prickle that sparked from where the outside of his knee was rubbing against the inside of Dom’s knee was making it hard to breathe, much less speak.

 

Dom rolled his lower lip under his upper lip. He tilted his head to the side and gave Brian an assessing look.  The warmth of his palm over Brian’s wrist sent a shiver up Brian’s spine, which put him slightly off balance and allowed Dom to jerk him forward. Brian barely caught himself as he tumbled into the cradle of Dom’s body.

 

Dom purred, “You know, I think I gotta better idea.”

 

Brian held himself very still while that sank in.

 

****************

 

“I don’t…uhm…” Brian struggled to fish words from the haze of pure lust. And keep his voice in the right octave. “Do you really…?”

 

“What?” Dom curved one eyebrow belligerently. “This is a problem?”

 

Brian shook his head quickly. “No…I…just don’t wanna...you know what you’re doing?”

 

“Theoretically,” Dom pushed himself a little farther up the bed. He twisted his fingers gently into Brian’s towel.

 

Brian continued doggedly, “We don’t have any kind of…protection.”

 

Dom looked at him thoughtfully. “That wasn’t bothering you a second ago.”

 

Brian ran a hand through his still-damp hair. “….You got me there.”

 

Dom rolled his hips slowly in a way that made Brian’s teeth clench. “I’ve put my life in your hands before. And you haven’t let me down.”

 

“This isn’t something that most people would like….save for a second date?”

 

“Is that what we’re doing?” Dom said in a level tone without a hint of irony. “….dating?”

 

Brian swallowed.

 

Dom just raised his eyebrows.

 

*******************

 

Less than an hour ago, he could not have imagined this. That he could actually lay fingers on Dom much less stick fingers inside Dom. He had sucked Dom’s cock until Dom dug steel claws into his shoulders and tugged his hair in a way that said clearly quit fucking around.

                                                      

In answer, Brian jerked Dom back down to the edge of the bed. He knelt on the coverlet which was bunched on the floor and pulled one of Dom’s knees up over his shoulder and pressed the edge of his teeth into Dom’s velvety sac. Dom went very still, except to gasp when Brian licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed a circle over the tight pucker. This was going to be…difficult.

 

Dom’s head jerked spasmodically on his neck as Brian tongued his asshole. He blasphemed quietly at the ceiling. Brian could hear the scrape of Dom’s fingernails as he dug into the sheets probably to keep from grabbing Brian’s head. Quitting smoking cold turkey did pay some unexpected dividends as Brian had absolutely no fingernails to speak of.

 

He alternated tonguing with nibbling, keeping Dom a little off balance by squeezing his dick. Then he really started to apply himself. The hand lotion was surprisingly high-end, oil-based for which Brian was grateful. With liberal lubrication and patience, Brian finally managed to twist two fingers inside Dom’s tight, over-muscled ass.

 

By this time, Dom was panting fiercely. Brian spared a glance up at him and was struck by the fact that this was Dom. The Dom he’d never imagined he could have in a million years was writhing and sweating, impaled on his fingers. Brian curled his digits slightly and felt the shudder wave the length of Dom’s body. His own arousal was starting to make the blood behind his eyes pulse.

 

Dom seemed to feel his regard because his eyes fluttered open. He blinked slowly down at Brian’s flushed face and tousled hair, and curled his fingers in a beckoning gesture.

 

Brian had to quickly roll back on his heels and squeeze his own cock savagely, pressing hard fingers almost to bone. Dom sat up quickly and pawed at him, “Are you all right?”

 

Brian wanted to laugh. And maybe he would, later. But he just squeezed Dom’s thighs and said, “You just got a little too…much for me, man.”

 

Dom cocked his head as if trying to decide whether Brian was being a dick. Dom’s lips were so red; he’d been gnawing on them. Brian groaned internally and managed to push Dom back into position. And started all over. By the time he got Dom loose again, Brian’s dick felt swollen and fever-hot. He wondered if he was going to be able to do this. The smell in the room thickened in his nostrils, sweat and come and rain. Every breath was making his cock swell.

 

Dom was huffing quick, tight breaths like he was about to bench press way too much weight. Brian pushed slowly, afraid that Dom was just going to somehow lock up and they’d be stuck together like dogs. He’d been hard for so long, that pressing slowly inside was almost as much ache as relief.

 

He found that he could hold on to a thin thread of control by simply not believing that any of this was actually happening. But then sweat would trickle down the back of his neck, the muscle in his calf would cramp slightly and oh shit, he was fucking Dom. This was too much to handle, this tight, this hot. Brian tried to pull back before he could spurt.

 

“Don’t you fucking move,” Dom snarled. His eyes were bright and savage and he looked like he was pushing himself onto a knife. It made Brian feel kind of violent and sordid, like a rapist. Dom looked like he was trying to concentrate on something else to make the burn bearable and Brian cast around for a way to pull the connection tight between them once again.

 

“You look so hot,” Brian started, tentatively. It was slightly easier to control if he tried to articulate what he was feeling.

 

Dom wiped the sweat out of his eyes and squinted at Brian. Brian continued, “Like my wildest porn dreams come true.”

 

He slid his hands up Dom’s straining flanks and pinched both nipples gently.

 

“I keep expecting to wake up really, really sticky,” Brian concluded. Dom’s breath broke on a gasping laugh.

 

Suddenly, Dom arched his back and raked his fingers into the sheets so hard that Brian could hear them tear. Brian froze at that angle and then bobbed gently. Dom grunted, drawing air in quick. And his flagging erection started to fill, lazily.

 

Brian stroked his thumb up the long vein of Dom’s cock while shifting his hips fractionally. “See, there’s a point to this.”

 

Dom glared at him. “Shut up and do that again.”

 

****************

 

It was good that it hurt. It should hurt. Everything hurt when it changed.

 

It hurt to slide out of your mother into this world. The blackness that had sucked him down when the flames roared up around his father, that had hurt. It had hurt like hell when he’d pulled himself out of the metal coffin of the Charger.

 

Pain was the natural prelude for every change. So he exhaled the breath he’d been holding and let Brian hurt him just a little.

 

Watching Brian distracted him from the rather alarming violation of his body. Brian’s eyelids fluttered when he was fully sheathed, his mouth slackened completely and he moaned. He looked like someone had just shot him full of heroin and he wasn’t even thrusting yet. The flush on his face and neck spread down past his nipples.

 

It was odd. Being able to see Brian like this made him feel, despite all evidence to the contrary, more possessor than possessed. Brian sloppily pressed his lips to the inside of Dom’s knee, still too blissed out to purse his lips for a proper kiss. Dom had expected to feel fragile doing this; he hadn’t expected to feel quite so much power. He unbent a little and curled his right leg around Brian’s thighs.

 

He’d been concentrating so hard on not moving and relaxing that the pleasure, when it came, caught him blindsided. A sudden jolt twitched through him, stronger than the first orgasm he’d ever had; it made his eyes close involuntarily. That brought Brian out of his haze for a second, his smile was dazzling.

 

Dom realized that this was the way he wanted all sexual encounters to be from now on. This was the closest that sex had ever come to approaching that quarter-mile feeling. He realized that he’d never before existed quite so in the right now as he was at this moment. He concentrated on nothing but the feeling and Brian’s face.

 

By now, Brian looked like he was in pain too, his face was furrowed with intensity and he was covered by a light sheen of sweat. He sounded like he was about to hyperventilate.

 

Dom tentatively reached up and stroked his hands over Brian’s straining shoulders, trying to communicate silently that Brian should relax a little. But Brian just breathed harder, and then started to gasp. Curling his back thrummed another of those white-hot flashes through Dom and little spots danced in his vision. Dom reached up and wiped the sweat off Brian’s forehead, then tugged gently at his own cock. The dual feeling tightened through his groin and he took a full breath to make it last a little longer.

 

Brian tried to bite his lip, but his gasps kept breaking through. It was astonishingly hot, seeing Brian in such an advanced state of …meltdown. He was so flushed, he looked sunburned and it made his eyes blaze like flame.  Dom spread his legs a little wider, let his weight pull his heavy limbs apart. Brian paused, teetering, for a long second. Dom tightened his grip on himself and realized just how close he was to coming.

 

Brian’s face crumpled, it looked like pain, like agony but for the fact that he was muttering, ah, yeah. And then very softly please.

 

Brian came awake and blinked up at the ceiling. The cottage cheese stucco shifted under the shadow of the rotating fan.  Brian didn’t normally sleep on his back and the air felt different.  He had a flash of whereamI until he caught the scent and saw Dom’s hand tangled up in the snowy white of the sheets.

 

Dom’s heavy thigh with the short prickle of hair was just the thing to nudge his morning erection against. Dom had draped his arm and one leg over Brian, more on top of him than not. Brian reflected that if he were Letty-sized he would have found this overwhelmingly heavy and hard to breathe. At his own size, Dom’s heat and weight were perfectly suited to keep the air-conditioned chill at bay. He stretched a little and rubbed his jaw along Dom’s forehead feeling the slight rasp of dual stubble.

 

Dom woke suddenly with a sharp, indrawn breath. He tightened his grip, raising his head about six inches to look blearily up at Brian. Brian stiffened involuntarily, knowing that this was the moment when Dom could do or say at least a dozen things that would hurt like hell. Dom’s eyes were dark and unreadable in the half-hearted light of dawn.

 

Dom yawned tiger-like and then snugged his head even firmer into the curve of Brian’s neck. “Temomin,” came a murmured exhalation over the hollow of Brian’s throat.

 

“Huh?” Brian tilted his chin away so Dom could hear him.

 

Dom swallowed experimentally and enunciated. “Ten more minutes.”

 

To his own ears, Brian’s voice sounded rough. “You got somewhere you gotta be?”

 

“’s not …” Dom’s voice made Brian’s skin vibrate. “Just need a little more….” Dom’s relaxing weight seemed to roll over him like a wave.

 

“Yeah?” Brian discovered he could just press the side of his mouth to the top of Dom’s head without jabbing Dom with his chin.

 

Dom pressed the edges of his teeth into Brian's clavicle. "…plans. I got plans."

 

“Oh shit,” Brian said. Joy suffused him like fever. He marinated in the feeling for ten whole minutes.

 

“Please, could we…please,” Brian gasped later.

 

“Please what?” Dom raised his head and scowled a little.

 

“I’m kinda….” Brian unclenched his fingers and tried to form words.

 

Dom seemed to decide that Brian was taking too long and bit him on the lower curve of his ribcage. Brian grunted and cupped Dom’s head.

 

“I’m starving,” Brian confessed. “Are we gonna…”

 

Dom stopped what he was doing and the hot, tight pleasure-pain of trying to come for the third time receded.

 

“Are we gonna what?” Dom drew himself up, leaning hard on his bent elbow. He kept his other hand spread over Brian’s stomach.

 

“Eat?” Brian gestured at the ceiling. “Drink something?” Act like normal human beings?

 

Dom seemed to consider the idea, and then he grinned. “Mmmm, yeah. Eat something.”

 

Dom brushed his chin over Brian’s ribs reaching for the bedside table. He pulled out the phone book and flipped around for a few seconds, nudging Brian gently closer to the middle of the bed. He sat up and picked up the room’s phone with a little ‘ching’. Dom ordered breakfast with an economy of words and time that Brian found impressive considering that he didn’t have a menu and had just picked a place that said ‘Delivery’ at random.

 

“You don’t wanna go out?” Brian said neutrally, when Dom had put the phone down.

 

“Clothes are still wet. Plus you might find that they take that ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’ shit pretty seriously down here.” Dom grunted.  He rolled slowly back down on the bed, like each of his spinal vertebrae was on a track. Brian unconsciously stroked Dom’s midriff, smoothness over hardness. “Gotta have standards, I guess.”

 

“I forgot,” Brian nodded. “Guess we can’t leave.”

 

“Flimsy.” Dom rocked his head assessing. “Kinda weak. But it is an excuse.”

 

“Whatever works,” Brian ran an experimental hand over Dom’s crotch. Dom was still half hard, defying all of his morning efforts. Dom had spent the morning so quietly intent, not talking a lot. Watching Brian too attentively in the edges of times when they weren’t actively focused on getting each other off.

 

“This is tough. Kinda.” Brian blurted out.

 

Dom’s forehead crinkled. “What’s tough?”

 

“It’s just kinda fucking with my worldview,” Brian continued.

 

Dom stopped looking at Brian sideways and shifted his gaze to the ceiling fan. “Which worldview is that?”

 

“The worldview where you suck cock so well,” Brian said flatly. “And with such enthusiasm.”

 

Dom stuck his thumb in his mouth, nibbling at his knuckle and Brian could see that he was fighting to keep a straight face.

“I never thought you would…” Brian trailed off.

 

“Yeah, you know, that makes two of us,” Dom shut his eyes with a sigh. Brian watched him breathe for about ten minutes.

 

Dom finally pushed himself up, wincing, like being fully upright sent twinges through him.

 

Brian thought I did that. Something about the thought made his head float in wonder while some muscle under his groin clenched.

 

Dom went to the bathroom and came out buttoning his still-wet jeans. Just then there was a knock at the door and Dom retreated into the hallway. He came back laden with paper bags.

 

“Righteous,” Brian snaked fully out of the bed for the first time that day and unconsciously wrapped a towel around himself. He was starving and everything tasted so good that he almost didn’t want to pause to chew it.

 

Dom watched him eat for a second, then dug in himself. For a while there was nothing but the crackle of bags and the sound of chewing. After they had laid waste to most of the food, Brian muttered, “What time is it, anyway?”

 

“Dunno,” Dom shrugged. “Is it important?”

 

“Mmmmhmmm,” Brian wiped his mouth. “Just curious. So I got an idea. Tell me if you like this.”

 

“All ears,” Dom sounded amused. He stood up and flicked at a gap in the curtains.

 

“Look,” Brian tapped at a brochure from the stack in the nightstand’s drawer. “They rent windsurfing equipment here. Kitesurfing, too. We could go downstairs and get them to hook us up. Catch some serious air. Or….maybe jetskis?”

 

One corner of Dom’s mouth curled up, so Brian relaxed back into the bed and continued. “Or I saw a mini-golf course about three miles back. I am, like, the Tiger Woods of mini-golf. I’ll give you three strokes.”

 

 Dom arched his eyebrows.

 

“Just in the interest of fairness.” Brian arched his own eyebrows, innocently. “Or we could charter something, do some fishing. Rent a catamaran. Or cigar boat, maybe.”

 

“It’s still raining,” Dom nudged back the curtain with a small flourish.

 

“Huh,” Brian wriggled his shoulders deeper into the bedclothes. He spread his arms out over the wreckage of the bed.  “Well, that’s cool. I didn’t want to do any of that other stuff anyway.”

 

“So,” Dom turned away from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. “What did you want to do?”

 

When he wasn’t in a desperate rush of lust, Dom kissed very deliberately. It felt like he set or placed his mouth on things. His fingers spidered lightly over Brian’s jaw. It was very seductive and kind of annoying.

 

Being held down and kissed was kind of a little too weird. Brian was tempted to squirm and struggle a little, but he had no leverage. Dom was more than half on top of him. Then Dom added insult to injury by stroking his hair a little. Brian squeezed Dom’s hips viciously and nipped Dom on his lower lip. Dom pulled back for a second, looking puzzled and slightly hurt.

 

“Do that again and I’m gonna kick your ass,” Brian said very factually.

 

Dom grinned suddenly like that was the best offer he’d had all day. “What, this?” He carded his fingers through the hair over Brian’s ear gently. Brian twisted his head and snapped at Dom’s wrist. He canted his hips up into Dom’s with a fierce thrust. Annoyed as he was, it wasn’t keeping him from getting hard.

 

“Stop it,” Brian growled.

 

Dom’s grin subsided and he looked serious. “Does this still hurt?” He stroked a thumb high over Brian’s cheekbone. Startled, Brian rubbed his own finger in the circle under his eye. Feeling the slight ache, he shrugged. Both his eyes were lavender-purple underneath, two black eyes were pretty common relics of a broken nose. He hadn’t thought about it until now

 

“Yeah, it hurts,” Brian couldn’t lie. “So what?”

 

Dom shifted slightly and nabbed one more gentle peck, like he was getting away with something. Then he grinned at Brian kind of mischievously, and his hands tightened. Brian could feel the exact moment when Dom let his mouth harden with hunger. His nose pressed hard into Brian’s cheekbone and it radiated a slight ache.

 

It felt great.

 

Brian wrapped his hand around Dom’s neck and concentrated on the white heat that flared up behind his eyelids whenever Dom rocked forward. He cupped the other hand over his own cock, stroking with intent.

 

Dom obviously felt Brian’s knuckles brush his belly, his eyes flew open. They were so dark and shiny….all of Dom’s surfaces gleamed: his body with sweat, his eyes with arousal. He leaned hard on his left side, so he could squeeze his hand over Brian’s.

 

Brian wondered what would happen if he relaxed completely, what would happen if he just let his weight slide around, if he stopped holding himself so taut. He caught Dom’s eyes, just as they fluttered shut. Dom groaned aloud when he felt Brian’s unloosening. Brian softening seemed to make him harder, his fingers dug into Brian’s flanks like spikes. Suddenly, Brian felt a shocking internal warmth that felt like his own muscles liquefying.

 

Dom paused for a long moment, then seemed to harden again. He batted Brian’s hand away and jacked Brian as steady as a pulse. Brian clutched at Dom’s hips as Dom stroked his thumb luxuriously slowly up the underside of Brian’s cock.

 

Brian realized that he hadn’t actually been looking at Dom’s face when he came and the sudden flash of disappointment was as intense as it was short-lived. When Dom touched his tongue to his lower lip, Brian relaxed completely and came on his chest.

 

When he opened his eyes, Dom was looking at him, blinking tiredly. He seemed almost caught off guard.

 

Brian stretched, feeling both the burn of his muscles and the cool ooze of come. Dom collapsed in a curl beside him, and dabbed at him with his towel. Leaning over, Brian flicked off the light.

 

Much, much later, Brian woke up from a deep, black nap and watched the surreal spectacle of Dom sewing up the side seam of his t-shirt, equipped from a sewing kit obviously cadged from housekeeping.

 

“We got a late checkout?” Brian asked gruffly, throat thick with sleep.

 

“We got another night,” Dom didn’t look at Brian. His long fingers holding a needle looked like a sledgehammer hovering over a pushpin.

 

“I gotta…” Brian blinked and paused. “I should go to work tomorrow.” He wondered if he’d put enough doubt in the sentence to make Dom talk him out of it. 

 

Dom glanced up and said mildly, “So we leave early. Don’t want Rome getting his panties in a twist.”

 

Brian groaned and pulled a pillow over his face. Then he rolled over on it and watched because really, Dom sewing? Better than television.

 

Dom bit through the last threads and handed Brian his shirt without making eye contact.

 

“Hey, that really works,” Brian pulled the shirt on gently and plucked delicately at the seam. “You really can fix anything.” It was stitched like Frankenstein’s monster and wouldn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but it would get him through the door at least. He picked his jeans up off the air conditioner. They were dry, if barely.

 

Dom snorted and rolled his eyes. He brandished four twenties. “Mine’s ruined. Go, forage. I want meat and Dr. Pepper. Think I saw a Target a little south of here. XXL.”

 

“Shit, I knew that,” Brian stood expectantly until Dom raised his eyebrows and tucked the cash into Brian’s front pocket. Then he kissed Dom six times from his ear to his mouth. Dom pulled back, shaking his head, but still not quite able to hide his grin.

 

Brian held out his hand. When Dom gave him a blank look, he raised his eyebrows, “I ain’t walking, bro.”

 

Dom raised his eyebrows back and hesitated for a second. Brian rocked back on his heels and looked at the ceiling. He said, almost to himself. “You’ll let me fuck you, but you won’t let me drive your car? That’s kind of backwards, don’t you think?”

 

Dom grunted and one side of his mouth twisted up. He handed over the keys grudgingly, “Guess when you put it like that, at least the car is insured.”

 

“I will be as sweet to her as I was to you.” Brian promised. “You ain’t even gonna notice I’m gone,”

 

 

“So,” Brian tipped up the last of his beer. “You never answered my question.”

 

Dom just looked over at him over the remains of another takeaway meal. The silence lengthened until Brian set his empty beer bottle down on the glass-topped coffee table with a clatter.

 

“So?’ Brian prompted.

 

“I’m just…” Dom rumbled. “…thinking of the last question you asked me.”

 

Brought up short, Brian blinked. He felt a little heat creep up his neck. Some of his sex talk had gotten awfully garbled and question-like: his last question might’ve been something like ‘Who’s your daddy?’

 

Brian tightened his focus on Dom. He rubbed his knuckles against Dom’s as Dom cupped his own bottle. He pitched his voice low. “Why are you here?”

 

“A lot of reasons,” Dom said cagily. He stood up and walked to the edge of their balcony.

 

“Tell me one,” Brian didn’t give an inch.

 

Dom leaned on the balcony railing, looking out at the palm frond-framed courtyard. The rain had mostly stopped, but an occasional gust of wind still sent a patter of drops into the pool. The fading light from the cloud-strewn sky threw a palm-tree-shaped shadow on their balcony.  

 

Dom nodded to himself. He turned and leaned back, bracing his hands on the railing. “There was this guy I knew in prison.”

 

Brian stiffened unconsciously.

 

Dom looked askance for a second. Brian raised his eyebrows, “Am I sure I want to hear this story?”

 

Dom paused for a second, then chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t think about the, uh…context.” He caught Brian’s eye again and then rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Forget it.”

 

“C’mon, give,” Brian leaned on his hand and stretched his legs out on the lounge.

 

Dom looked dubious and then continued, “A’right. So his name was Luis, he was one of the cooler Pico Locos, from Union Street. Which made us practically neighbors at the L.”

 

“So you were friendly.” Brian surmised.

 

“Yeah, but not really friends.” Dom smiled wryly. “Me not being down with la Eme. He was older. Long bit, not quite life, but up there.”

 

“What was his beef?” Brian watched Dom’s face closely.

 

“I don’t even remember,” Dom shrugged. “Possible he didn’t either.”

 

Dom rubbed his chin. “He helped me out of a couple of jams. There are some guys up there; crazy is too sane a word for them. Sometimes you just get into shit. And he got my back and he didn’t have to.”

 

Brian tried to keep his posture relaxed. Then he did relax. Dom was here, not there. Everything was copacetic.

 

“So, I owed him.”  Dom continued meditatively. “So we’d talk. And he was up for parole around the same time I was. And he got real close to getting out, and I heard he’d gotten real close before, but he kept fucking it up. At the time, I just thought it was bad luck. But after a while I realized he was doing it to himself.”

 

“You know what I mean?” Dom leveled his gaze at Brian. His new t-shirt was almost painfully white.

 

“Spell it out for me,” Brian returned.

 

“He didn’t want to get out,” Dom muttered. “Freedom was just too much responsibility.”

 

Brian just stared, wondering what he was supposed to say. Dom seemed to have drifted away into a thought or a memory. After a few long minutes, he stirred.

 

“Luis was a cold motherfucker,” Dom enunciated. “And he wasn’t afraid of dying, but he was terrified of living.”

 

Brian watched as Dom took a breath that made him seem momentarily a foot wider. “Shit like that is a lot easier to see from the outside. Sometimes it takes someone outside to make you see it.”

 

Dom folded his arms around himself and Brian breathed a silent prayer, please keep talking.

 

And after a moment, Dom continued, “It’s like…God was watching me, watching me fight for what I wanted. And He’s watching and laughing. Because after I’d gotten the stupid shit I wanted…I just…”

 

“You just start wanting something else,” Brian finished.

 

“So…” Dom paused. “I’m not saying this very well.”

 

Brian shook his head.

 

“I…just don’t want…” Dom made a helpless gesture. “To be afraid of what I want.”

 

Brian felt his jaw tightening, his face tightening. He looked away quickly and blinked. His voice sounded rough. “So you came here.”

 

“You’re the bravest person I know.” Dom smiled then, so sweet it ached. “Or at least the most reckless.”

 

“That’s me,” Brian said faintly.

 

Dom pushed himself off the railing and sat down on the lounge chair between Brian’s knees. “So show me that trick.”

 

They drove back to Miami in silence that seemed to get more silent as they got closer to the city. Rush hour was completely entrenched, the last mile before Brian’s exit went at a crawl. Brian lolled over the bench seat, sunglasses firmly in place, savoring choice flashes of why they’d gotten such a late start.

 

Sincerely, all he’d wanted was a shower. He cut his eyes over at Dom and smirked. OK, he couldn’t sell that story to anyone, least of all himself. Brian traced two fingers over the bite mark under his collar. Dom tilted his head marginally and shifted on the seat. His sunglasses kept his thoughts private, but he was still slouched almost too casually.

 

They were about ten minutes away. Brian contemplated turning on his cell phone. He sighed involuntarily.

 

Dom rumbled unexpectedly, “Busy week?”

 

Brian tilted his head side to side. “Could be.”

 

Dom pushed his sunglasses up and looked at him intently. “You should take some time off, maybe. Take a little vacation.”

 

Rome had said that to him before he’d left. Brian swallowed to keep from saying, ‘Just keep driving’. What he said instead was, “I got some stuff …committed. Parts coming in. They need me.”

 

Dom didn’t say anything, just nodded slowly. He pulled up on the street outside the lot. Lot was already pretty crowded.

 

Brian started slowly, “Hey you got anywhere you need to be? You wanna come in?”

 

Dom chuckled. “I want to….but, uh.”  He shook his head. “Don’t wanna give the man an aneurysm.”

 

“Think you’re overestimating how much he gives a shit,” Brian half shrugged. Some small part of him was glad though…he liked this feeling and he didn’t want it rubbed raw with too much scrutiny.

 

Dom snorted, “That’s a joke, right? If anything, I’m underestimating.”

 

“Then you’re overestimating how much I give a shit,” Brian leaned his head back and tilted his chin up. Unconsciously, Dom mimicked him which made it easy to slide across the bench seat and kiss him.

 

Dom sucked on Brian’s lower lip for a whole second before stiffening and opening his eyes fully. He rolled his eyes pointedly at the busy rush-hour street around them. Dom pulled back, half-kissed. Brian bared his teeth at him and Dom shrugged sheepishly.

 

Brian just looked at him for a long second. Dom rolled his head back on the seat and lowered his eyelids to half-mast. He reached over and hooked a finger under Brian’s string bracelet, tugging on it gently.

 

The temptation to cup Dom’s hand, guide it to his mouth or his crotch swept over Brian like little tongues of flame. He was almost stiff with painful want. It took more willpower than he knew he had just to tease his thumb gently along the back of Dom’s hand.

 

“Right,” Cool. Meal ticket. Brian readjusted his sunglasses, slapped his pockets and creaked the door open. “Later.”

He shut the door firmly and got almost ten steps towards the lot before he realized that Dom was trailing him in the Plymouth and trying to get his attention without yelling.

 

“Yeah?” Brian paused on the sidewalk. Dom beckoned to him and he found himself by the driver’s side door.

 

Dom just looked up at him, searchingly, like he was trying to find a way out of a tight corner.

 

Brian slouched, letting himself be looked at. Dom leaned close for a second and his scent made Brian shove his hands deeper into his pockets.

 

Dom said low, “I got some stuff I need to do. I might get a little ….incommunicado for a while.”

 

Bran nodded. “Well you know where to find me.”

 

Dom stroked his lower lip and muttered. “Yeah.”

 

“You’re fucking late. Where the fuck have you been? What the fuck, Brian?” Say what you would about Roman Pearce: bottling up emotions was not one of his flaws.

 

Every time Roman said the word ‘fuck’ Brian got an exceptionally vivid mental picture from the highlight reel of his weekend. So he stayed silent while Rome’s tirade wound down. Eventually Rome just stood, wetting his lips, obviously weighing whether he wanted to truly lose his shit or play it cool. As Brian had anticipated, cool won out. Rome shrugged elaborately. A customer was framed in the bright light pouring in from the arch at the front of the garage.

 

“Whatever,” Rome grimaced. “Thanks for showing up.”

 

Brian made his stance communicate just exactly how rich that was coming from that paragon of punctuality: Mr Roman Pearce. Rome hissed in annoyance and went to help the customer and Brian went to track their parts delivery online.

 

Rome grumbled at him, on and off for the rest of the morning. Brian found it easy to ignore, adept after almost 20 years of practice.

 

 

“Mia?”

 

“Heeey, Big D.” She sounded happy to hear from him. He could imagine her wrestling bags of groceries past the doorframe of her apartment, hair welling over her shoulders while she balanced the phone precariously between her ear and shoulder. “How’s it going?”

 

“Yeah,” Dom looked down at his feet. “It’s going. It’s okay.”

 

There was a space, a pause. He suspected she might be trying not to let him hear her laugh.

 

“So, Tia Mia,” Nostalgia tightened his throat. She’d been such a grown-up little girl all full of confiding advice. “Wanted to see what you thought about…”

 

*********

 

Monday got stacked up with work and then Rome wanted his help repo’ing a Hummer. Tuesday saw the entire male half of an extended Cuban clan come in wanting chrome headers and clear Makrolon hoods. Wednesday, Brian dumped the work orders into a shoebox and left at five. He picked up food on the way home, enough for two dinner and lunch the following day. Sun was still out, but low…the endless Miami summer was slowly inching into fall. He ate up on the roof of the houseboat, contemplating his cell phone.

 

Dom’s number was in there. He could just call.

 

He frowned at the phone and it looked back up at him, innocent and blank.

-

“You got any more of those?” Rome slid into the other chair and grabbed the other tightly-wrapped medianoche out of the bag. He was chewing before Brian could open his mouth to protest. Brian sighed and passed over the bag of banana chips.

 

“Tej n’ Suki and the crew are going to Orlando this weekend,” Rome laughed like Eddie Murphy. Brian wasn’t sure quite what was funny.

 

“Why?” Brian took a sip of his soda and tried to ignore his non-ringing phone.

 

Rome shrugged, “Suki’s got it in her head that she’s gonna find some artistic inspiration at the Magic Kingdom.”

 

“Well,” Brian dug his straw deeper into his drink and slurped the last of it. “It is the happiest place on earth.”

 

“Yeah,” Rome said dryly. “Maybe I should take you. They can show you how it’s done.”

 

“Sweet of you,” Brian batted his eyelashes and grinned tightly.

 

Rome gave him a long look. “Yeah, you got everybody fooled. But not me.” He chewed for a while, unimpeded by Brian’s silence. “Not me.”

 

“That so?” Brian said dryly.

 

“Oh yeah,” Rome nodded slowly. “Where’s your boyfriend? Ain’t seen him around in a while.”

 

Rome was just joking. But something about the casual way he said it, sliced across Brian’s heart like a razor. Brian almost snorted with the sudden sting.

 

“Dunno,” Brian soaked his words in sarcasm. “He’s probably off fucking some other dude.”

 

Rome stopped chewing. Brian froze too. For some reason, that hadn’t come out sounding as throwaway as he’d meant it to.

 

“Huh,” Rome said, looking down at his half-eaten sandwich. When Rome set the sandwich down carefully on the cooler they were using as a coffee table, Brian’s stomach contracted so hard he could almost feel the edges of the food he’d just eaten.

 

“Oh, shit,” Rome’s face was completely blank, but his eyes were just flashing. Brian could see him putting two and two together and getting twenty-two. Rome pushed himself up from the chair bobbing his head slightly.

 

“Rome,” Brian said low and full of warning.

 

Rome was shaking his head now. His breath was getting deeper and faster.

 

“Rome,” Brian said again, urgently. He stood up, bracing himself slightly.

 

“I just….” Rome looked up at Brian. Now his face was blank and lost. “I can’t…”

 

“Rome!” Brian flung the word at Rome’s back. Rome was halfway down the stairs before Brian could unfreeze enough to react. Brian leaned on the railing and watched Rome whiz down the gangplank. Brian watched stonily as Rome reversed with a screech and his headlights flashed up, piercing the indigo dusk with fierce halogen white.

 

It rang four times, long enough for Brian’s guts to twist into a pretzel.

 

“Hey!” Dom’s voice was unexpected loud in his ear. There was music in the background but it cut out abruptly.

 

“Hey,” Brian drawled. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

 

“What’s going on?” Dom’s voice kept changing volume. Brian realized that he must not be actually holding the phone. He heard the muffled blare of a horn.

 

“You on the road?” Brian listened harder. If this were some forensic mystery, he’d be able to pinpoint Dom’s location by listening to the background noise. Sounded like Dom was on a freeway. Which narrowed down Dom’s loc to just about anywhere.

 

“Yeah, let me just….Christ, that was fucking…” Dom growled half into the phone. “Beautiful.”

 

“Safe for you to talk?” Brian tried to sound suitably indifferent.

 

“Yeah, I’m just gonna…” Dom paused. The ambient noise seemed to mute slightly. Dom muttered something that sounded like, “Move it or I’ll move it for you.”

 

“Vehicular manslaughter’s three to five years,” Brian chimed in and the muscles in his chest expanded when Dom chuckled. “Just saying.”

 

“I’m good now,” Dom’s voice got crisper. “Safe on the shoulder.”

 

“Shit, I could just call back…” Brian offered. His heart sank.

 

“Drive can wait,” Dom said gently. “So how you doing?”

 

“Outstanding,” Brian lied easily. “Work’s kind of shit though.”

 

Dom chuckled. “’S the price of being good.”

 

“Yeah, whatever,” Brian snorted. “So how are you doing?” 

 

“Better now,” Dom said simply and Brian’s stomach tightened again, but it was good this time, it was golden.

 

“Good,” Brian muttered. The conversation plateau-ed into silence. Brian mulled the best way to ask Dom where he was going and (if) when he was coming back without actually saying anything that sounded like he actually cared.

 

“Shit,” Dom sounded like he was stretching. “I hadn’t realized how late it was. Been pretty busy.”

 

“Yeah?” Brian let the pause lengthen. Do tell?

 

“Yeah, non-stop,” Dom said, refusing to be drawn. “What are you doing now?”

 

“Nothing much,” Brian lay down on his rumpled bed. “Thinking about sacking out. I’m beat like a drum.”

 

“So you’re in bed?” And Dom’s voice dipped down into a register called ‘purr’.

 

Brian stopped trying to make himself comfortable and gripped the phone a little tighter.

 

“Yeah,” Brian drew the word out into a sentence.

 

“You already showered?” Dom’s voice seemed to take those innocuous little words and put them into bondage gear. Brian shivered. He had showered, but it had been brief, cold and functional. He wiggled his shoulders deeper into the covers and breathed, “Yeah.”

 

“Are you still wet?” Dom gave the question an edge of tease.

 

“Yeah,” Brian said in a very small voice. His head (both of them) was suddenly pounding with blood.

 

“Where?”

 

Brian blinked. Maybe it was the sudden lust haze descending, but that question didn’t make much sense. He repeated stupidly, “Where?”

 

“Where   are   you   still   wet?” Dom asked very slowly, putting spaces between each word.

“uhm,” Brian looked down at himself. “Backs of my knees.”

 

“Yeah?” Dom prompted.

 

“My stomach,” Brian touched himself almost involuntarily. “Anywhere there’s hair.”

 

“And where’s that?” There was no mistaking the tease in that question.

 

“I think you know,” Brian teased back. He reached into his boxers and gave himself a firm tug.  No shame. None at all.

 

“I’m just trying to imagine it,” Dom voice had gotten not deeper, but rougher.

 

“Try harder,” Brian knew he could only say short sentences now. Anything longer and his voice would shake.

 

“C’mon,” Dom cajoled. “It’s already pretty hard.”

 

Instead of laughing at the goofy innuendo, Brian just closed his eyes. He made a little hollow in the pillow so he could have both hands free. He traced his left hand over his ribcage and tapped his sternum with his thumb. “Yeah, well…”

 

“You’ve stopped holding the phone,” Dom almost whispered. Brian sucked a quick breath in. Dom must’ve been holding his phone very tightly…Brian could hear him breathing. Dom continued in a half-whisper, “What’s that other hand doing?”

 

“Nothing,” Brian tilted his chin up coyly.

 

“Liar,” Dom made it an endearment.

 

Brian grinned to himself. His breath was making his stomach tremble. Or maybe it was Dom’s voice. “I’m touching my stomach.”

 

“Fingers or hand?”

 

“Fingers,” Brian wondered if he sounded shy. Oddly, he felt shy.

 

“Ah,” Dom said like it was significant. “It’s getting cool out here. All this breeze. Is it cool there?”

 

“It was,” Brian swallowed. “Now it’s not.”

 

Dom chuckled appreciatively. “Where’s it warmest?”

 

“Where my hand is,” Brian returned.

 

“Mmmmmm,” Dom paused. “Wish I was there.”

 

Brian took a deep, luxurious breath. “Oh yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Dom gave one syllable enough sincerity for a paragraph.

 

Brian stroked himself gently until his breath evened out and he could dare a sentence. “That’s a fast car you’ve got.”

 

Dom’s breath stopped echoing in his ear for a second. “Very true.”

 

“And you know where to find me,” Brian could purr too, when the spirit moved.

 

Dom chuckled with a hint of regret, “Don’t wanna make you wait up for me. You do sound tired. And I’m a couple of hours out still.”

 

 “I could wait,” Brian rolled onto his side, pressing the phone into his ear painfully hard. He thought of all the places that could be a couple of hours away.

 

“Yeah?” Dom sounded so warm and sweet it made Brian relax completely.

 

“You bet,” Brian breathed.

 

“Maybe I should…” Dom cut himself off. “Oh shit.”

 

“What is it?” Brian clutched the phone and twisted into a sitting position.

 

“Highway patrolman.” Dom sounded tense. “Thinks I’ve broken down, I guess.”

 

“Shit,” Brian’s brain started scrolling through his memories, struggling to remember if there were still warrants out for Dom. “Is it gonna be cool?”

 

“Ah.” Dom sounded a little out of breath. “Well, if he stops to run my plates, I won’t get arrested for public indecency.”

 

Brian’s mind was working so furiously, it took him a second to grasp the significance of that. He bit his tongue to keep from laughing hysterically. “But it’ll be cool, right?”

 

“Oh yeah,” Dom started to sound more relaxed. “I’m clean.”

 

A professionally neutral voice in the background said, “Good evening, sir. Having problems with your vehicle?”

 

Dom whispered quickly, “Like you.”

 

Then his voice projected. “No problems, just stopped to make a call.”

 

Before the phone clicked off, Brian heard the cop say earnestly, “Sir, if only every motorist would take a page out of your book, we’d…”

 

Brian lay back and laughed until his chest hurt. Then he went and took a longer shower. This time, he savored it.

 

 

Rome didn’t show up the next day. At 10 A.M., Brian considered calling him. Then he shrugged and went back to work. Every customer who showed up seemed to sense that this wasn’t Brian’s day for idle chit-chat. Mercifully, walk-in traffic was light. But Friday would be a beast without a second pair of hands. By mid-afternoon, Brian felt done in, sheened with grease and sweat.

 

Brian sighed to himself. He was going to have to go find Rome and they were going to have to talk and maybe yell and it was all just too…

 

His cell phone rang. Gingerly, he fished it out of his pocket. Tej.

 

“What up, Tej?”

 

Tej sounded dryer than normal. “Can you come and get your boy here?”

 

“Where’s here?” Brian said instantly, thinking which boy?

 

“Over at my place,” Tej paused and Brian could practically hear him frowning. “He’s had a few.”

 

“It’s four o’clock,” Brian said flatly, looking up at the clock.

 

“Exactly,” Tej said. “If I had to estimate, I’d guess he started around four. AM.”

 

“I’m coming,” Brian sighed again. He quickly scrubbed the grease off his hands, flipped the sign over and rolled the doors down. Even being in the Skyline didn’t take away the faint sense of dread. He really didn’t want to have a knock down, drag out fight with Rome in front of Tej and everybody.

 

The crowd was relatively light over at Tej’s and they all looked relieved when Brian showed up. Brian paused and bumped fists with Jimmy, Nejo and Saskia. He didn’t want to be too obvious about his mission.

 

While he was making conversation, a faint caterwaul bounced across the canal.

 

Jimmy winced, “Man, he’s too drunk to rap, that’s for sure.”

 

“Oh fuck,” Brian rubbed his eyes. “He’s at rap stage?”

 

“Been there for about an hour,” Nejo confirmed unhappily. “Can you do something?”

 

“Dunno,” Brian said honestly. Just then Tej strode out of the houseboat and made a beeline for Brian.

 

Tej said only, “He falls into the canal, he might not be able to get out, yo. Don’t want him to hit his head.” Tej stopped and listened to what was unmistakably Rome trying to rap. “Or maybe I do.”

 

Brian just looked the question, so Tej jerked a thumb back at the boat.

 

When he got a little closer, Brian could see Rome tottering around on the houseboat’s roof, straddling the railing and bobbing dizzily in time with the waves. When Rome saw Brian he started a fresh riff, “Here comes Blondie, all James Bondie….cool like Fonzie…”

 

“Man, you suck,” Brian stood with his hands in his pockets. The boat kept swaying so he had to keep balanced on the balls of his feet.

 

“Yeah, so do you,” Rome had peeled off his shirt and his tats looked fierce and angry in the bright sun. “Difference is, I ain’t making it a lifestyle.”

 

Brian almost cast a glance back to see if they had an audience, but then his fury made him indifferent. “That’s what this is then? Little homophobic meltdown? How fucking boring.”

 

Rome bounced on his heels like an angry jackhammer. The boat shook.

 

“Why the fuck have you gotta be doing this to me, man?” Rome’s face had twisted, he almost looked ready to cry. “We have it so good here and things are getting…right, for the first time in, like, a long time and you’ve just gotta…”

 

“Be happy?” Brian asked flatly.

 

Rome stopped and swallowed. He seemed to notice the bottle he was holding (it was clear, so Brian was guessing it was rum) and took a big gulp. “You do this and things are gonna fuck up right, left and center.”

 

Rome swayed a little. Brian moved closer so he could grab Rome if Rome started to slide into the canal. Rome recoiled, “Don’t fucking touch me.”

 

Supercharged fury made Brian feel like he was going to pop. He wanted to shove Rome into the water and hold his head under. Brian snarled, “I forgot, you’re the one who likes to do the touching.”

 

Rome flared his nostrils. “Don’t go there.”

 

“Why not?” Brian said softly. “You almost always do.”

 

Rome bit his lower lip and shook his head. That twisted look was back on his face. Brian wondered what he would do if Rome actually shed tears. “I can’t do this, man.”

 

“Why not?” As quickly as it had come, Brian’s anger seeped away. “What do you think I’m asking you to do?”

 

“It’s just…” Rome took another swallow of liquid courage. He mumbled, “Gonna get all complicated.”

 

“It’s not,” Brian insisted. “I think you’re imagining things.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Rome spread his arms to the sky. “Say something then! To fucking God and everybody!”

 

Brian shook his head at Rome. “Thought you knew me better than that, man.”

 

Brian called over his shoulder. “Tej?”

 

Tej’s voice filtered up. “Yeah, Bullitt?”

 

“I like cock,” Brian pitched his voice so it would carry across water. “More than a little bit.”

 

After a medium-sized pause, Tej yelled back, “Uh, OK!” There was a short silence where Brian heard Nejo say very clearly to Saskia, ‘Wow, that will never stop being hot.’  Brian’s mouth twitched.

 

Rome blinked. He squinted at Brian. After a second, he tried to step down off the railing, misjudged it and nearly nailed himself in the balls.

 

“You clumsy ass,” Brian sighed, catching him before he compromised his fertility.

 

“Hey, I been drinking all day,” Rome had managed not to drop the bottle and he took a long swig.

 

“Yeah, I can smell.” Brian said.

 

Rome grinned. “I hadn’t been…impaired. I’d’ve remembered not to double-dog dare you like that.”

 

“Dare’s my middle name.” Brian slung an arm around Rome for support.

 

“Your middle name is Michael,” Rome groused.

 

“So you can remember something,” Brian nodded. “That’s good.”

 

Rome whapped him. “I think I’m really drunk now.”

 

“Really?” Brian asked sweetly.

 

Rome tried to whap him again and missed. “You gonna take up with that dude from LA?”

 

“Dom,” Brian said. “His name is Dom. And…maybe.”

 

“If he…” Rome hiccupped and rolled his head. “…When he comes back are you gonna be happy?”

 

Brian winced. “Yeah, I….jeez, Roman I don’t know.”

 

“C’mon, brah,” Rome leaned on him heavily. “No bullshit.”

 

Brian finally nodded. “Yeah, I guess….if he stays.”

 

Rome slumped down like a rag doll. “Shit man. Now I gotta, like, make all nice...”

 

Brian slapped Rome on the back of his head. “Oh yeah. Please don’t do me any favors. You turn on the charm, he’ll be out of here like a scalded dog.”

 

“S’cool, brah,” Rome slid and slurred around the words. “Gotta say though, I still doan like him. He’s kinda a dick.”

 

“Then you have a lot in common,” Brian said gravely.

 

“Mmmhmmm,” Rome grinned, brilliantly white. “I guess so.”

 

By Saturday, Rome had slept it off enough to go back to his cot at Tej’s. He’d grumbled about staying with Brian, but Brian had pointed out that Tej was more than willing to dump his worthless self in the canal and Maria wouldn’t hesitate before breaking up with his sorry, hungover ass, so Brian was really the last best hope.

 

Brian was taking what felt like his first peaceful breath on Saturday evening, when a distinctive rumbling echoed three blocks away. He slouched down further in his deck chair, not really daring to hope. That could be any old Plymouth. They all had that deep throaty growl. By the time the rumble started shaking the bungalows that skirted the marina, Brian had already run his fingers through his hair twice.

 

He stood up and watched Dom’s chassis glide down the street. Dom pulled up and scanned the houseboats and Brian realized with a faint sense of unreality that Dom had never actually been here. It was nice to watch Dom unobserved. Dom looked so focused and intent. He was wearing a collared shirt that had the words ‘Da Costa’ printed in fancy script across the back. Brian stiffened. What the fuck?

 

“Hey,” he called from the deck. “You looking for me?”

 

Dom followed his voice and grinned up at him, “You order a pizza?”

 

“Nah, I ordered the salami sandwich,” Brian raised one eyebrow. “Plus, Da Costa don’t make pizza. They mod engines.”

 

Dom nodded as if he was hearing this for the first time. “Is that a fact?”

 

“Yup,” Brian pursed his lips. “Any particular reason you’re working for my biggest competitor?”

 

“Permission to board, Captain?” Dom made his expression particularly winsome. Brian found himself cynically wondering what Letty would have made of that face.

 

“Explain first,” Brian made a stop! gesture.

 

“Maybe I could come in and explain?” Dom rumbled. He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

 

Brian blew out his breath and shrugged. Dom leaped aboard happily. When he stepped up to the deck, Brian was waiting.

 

“So what’s the story?” Brian plucked at the crisp edge of Dom’s sleeve where it clung to his bicep for dear life.

 

“Well…” Dom started.

 

“And where the fuck have you been?” He was so glad to see Dom, it really made him kind of frightened and angry. “I mean, is that your usual M.O.? Fuck my brains out and then just fade?”

 

 Dom’s mouth had fallen open momentarily. He shut it.

 

“Why have a cell phone, huh?” Brian was on a roll. “You son of a bitch, why the hell didn’t you just…”

 

“Whoa,” Dom spread his hands placating. “Don’t you think you’re kinda being a little harsh? It's been less than a week.”

 

“No, not really.” Brian folded his arms. “I mean…I really…”

 

Brian brought himself up short. Finish that sentence, he thought, and kiss your ‘cool’ rep goodbye.

 

But he didn’t need to finish it. Dom was smiling now, so wide it looked like it kinda hurt his face a little and while it was adorable, it wasn’t cool in the least.

 

“Yeah?” Dom cleared his throat. “I really…too.”

 

He leaned forward eagerly, ardently, but Brian took a long step back.

 

“Hey,” Brian caught Dom’s eyes and held them. “Explain.”

 

Dom rolled his lower lip under his teeth. “It’s pretty simple really.”

 

“Awesome,” Brian leaned on the railing. “I’m all ears.”

 

Dom sighed. “Job’s just a temporary thing. I took it to get that space filled on the credit application.”

 

Brian nodded, confused. “Credit application.”

 

“For the mortgage loan,” Dom nodded back at him.

 

Brian kept nodding. “Mortgage loan.”

 

“For the house?” Dom cocked his head at Brian. “Get how that works?”

 

“House, right,” Brian stopped nodding. “Wait, you’re buying a house?”

 

Dom shrugged, “It’s a bungalow. Not too far away.”

 

While Brian stayed blank and silent, Dom said uneasily, “It has two bedrooms.”

 

“Why are you buying a house?” Brian asked around the saliva in his mouth.

 

Dom actually looked down at his hands and started twisting his keys. “Dunno. Thought maybe you’d like to come to dinner sometime.”

 

“You got a job and found a house and bought it in less than a week so you could invite me to dinner.” Brian said without any inflection at all.

 

“Yeah, well.” Dom shifted his weight. “Say it like that and it does sound….”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Brian stepped inside. “I’m tired of talking.”

 

Dom stood uncertainly on the threshold. “So, uhm…” He peered around the pass through into the bedroom.

 

“Are you fucking coming?” Brian projected around his shirt. He’d already lost his Tevas somewhere.

 

“You gonna be nice to me now?” Dom muttered. He almost tripped on the surfboard, it was kind of tight with both of them on the houseboat. Dom obviously wanted to look around, but Brian shucking off his board shorts drew his eyes like a magnet.

 

“I didn’t say that,” Brian hooked his fingers over Dom’s waistband and tugged.

 

Dom got the picture without much more chitchat. He snaked out of most of his clothes while Brian sucked on his tongue. The bed groaned when Brian turned and shoved him, but Dom just laughed and snatched at Brian’s knee until he toppled down next to Dom. For a second they were in accord, one mind in two bodies; they could be nice, talk, eat, do everything later, but right now they needed to get close and get off.

 

Brian drew two fingers over the long muscle that curved over Dom’s thigh. When he reached Dom’s crotch, he fanned his fingers and pressed firmly. Dom jerked and moaned deliciously. Dom rolled over onto him and Brian gasped. Dom’s thigh was hot and heavy over his cock, Dom’s kisses burned a chain down his chest and Dom was squeezing and clutching at him and it was melting hot, he was melting.

 

Brian gave himself up to the heat of Dom’s hands and mouth. He scraped the back of his knuckles against Dom’s nipples, clutched Dom’s hip with one shaking hand and canted his hips up to get more of that warm weight. He sucked in a couple of deep breaths of steaming, Dom-scented air.

 

The hot pressure of Dom’s cock in the crease where his thigh met his groin made Brian shut his eyes. Sweat was making the slide easier. Dom was mouthing his ear, his neck, gently licking until he really sank his teeth in to bite and Brian gasped and came on Dom’s chest. Brian’s eyes fluttered shut and his skin fizzed with too much sensation, but he could still feel Dom shudder and spurt. Their bodies made a hot and sticky and uncomfortable canyon in the bed, but somehow it still felt perfect.

 

After his breath had slowed a bit, Brian felt Dom pull back a foot. When he opened his eyes Dom was looking at him, with eyes so warm that little drops of sweat prickled all over Brian's body and he shuddered.

 

Then Dom pursed his lips and blew gently over Brian’s cheekbone and for one long, sweet moment, everything was cool.

 

 

 

 

 

The end.

 

(aaaaaiiiiieeee)