12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Henny
T he unkempt disaster who left the kitchen returned a long time later a changed man. I wondered for a brief second what the fuck he’d found to snort or swallow or otherwise ingest that could explain the difference, but one fleeting moment of eye contact before he tore his gaze away told me the demons were still lurking and his mask was firmly in place. The pressure it caused in my chest was fucking uncomfortable. Marco d’Ambrosio was suffering and it turned him into a caged animal.
I examined his features even closer as he paced around the apartment, his tension building more noticeable with every long stride. When I first found him after shamelessly breaking into his home, I'd been relieved until I looked closer. It was rare to see someone so exhausted, they literally passed out sitting up, if I could even call his posture that. His hunched body was visibly crumbled under the invisible weight he carried. He'd flinched and cried out a soft, pained whimper when I pushed him back into the chair. His face, once it was visible, was gaunt and pale. Covering him in a throw blanket brought another whine to his lips before he settled down again. It was the most vulnerable I'd ever seen the stone wall I'd known since middle school.
The Marco in front of me after he had locked himself in his bedroom for over an hour was the more familiar version I’d always known and now that I knew the truth, I doubted every preconceived notion from the last decade. I had distant memories of a happier man, one who still smiled and would occasionally roughhouse with Luca and I, but those memories were few and far between, especially since his return from prison. While that was the culprit for his anxiousness and quick fight response, I realized his smile had faded long before he had been incarcerated.
“How long?” I sank back and let my shoulders rest against the upper cabinets where I was perched on his fancy granite countertop.
“What?” He stopped in his tracks and glared, wariness and tension playing over his face.
“How long have you lived with depression?”
My eyes remained locked on his expression as fear and anger dilated his pupils and made his jaw tick. If he clenched his jaw any harder, he'd break molars.
“I don’t have—”
“Jesus, the denial is strong with this one, folks.” I jerked my chin with a smirk. “Cut the bullshit. I ain't gonna tell anyone.”
“Fuck off. Fuck all the way off.” He pivoted on the balls of his feet and strode aimlessly toward the bookcases in the living room before turning and moving toward the window. The caged animal analogy became more and more fitting as he moved around the space. As cavernous as it was, I had a feeling he felt like the walls were closing in on him.
“C’mon, Marc. You know you can trust me. I'm practically family.” I hopped from the counter and recklessly closed the distance between us. He hawkishly watched every step I took from the corner of his eye. “You don't need to hide this.”
“Fuck you.”
“Gladly,” I quipped back, poking the fire despite knowing I was liable to get burned.
He reeled on me with a look of disgust. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“A lot, if I'm being honest.” I tested the boundaries and lifted my hand to pat his chest, smoothing my palm down the front of his fancy suit.
I blinked and in the fraction of a second that my eyes were closed, my world spun in a circle. It all happened so fast, I couldn't process what had happened until it was over. My arm, the one I'd touched his chest with, was behind my back with his punishing grip holding my wrist between my shoulder blades. His free hand was hooked up under my jaw, and the domineering presence of his body was pressed against me, flush from hips to shoulders as he held me captive against his chest. His words were a feral hiss in my ear as his breath sent a shiver through my core and turned the fear and pain into a macabre thing of sheer pleasure.
“Don’t. Touch.” His hand pressed up higher along my throat, forcing my head back and sending swirly, lightheaded sensations through my brain.
“Yeah… ‘kay.” I swallowed, feeling the pressure of the action against his unyielding grip. His breath hitched, nothing more than a soft gasp and a rush of hot over the whorls of my ear.
“I mean it, Bran.” He forced my arm higher behind my back and tipped the scales too far into the pain territory. I cried out, nothing more than a tiny warble as I tensed, but his response was almost instantaneous. Where he'd once been the scaffolding that held me pinned tight and unable to move, suddenly I was freefalling as he pushed me away. I staggered three steps before I could regain my footing and turned back toward him in time to see him backpedaling. He pressed himself against the floor-to-ceiling window with a wild eyed expression and flushed cheeks. I was the one who had cried out, but he was the one who looked pained, his eyes pinging all over my face as his chest heaved with panting breaths.
“Whoa, hey…” I held my shaking hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey, just breathe, baby.”
I took a step forward and his head started shaking side to side, subtly at first but with more frenzy for each additional step I took. I had two choices—I could push a little further or I could retreat and leave him to his crisis. Basically, it wasn't even a choice at all. I'd already barreled my way through a dozen boundaries in the course of a few hours, starting with the classic breaking and entering.
“Bran,” he rasped, his breath coming out in short puffs that had to be making him dizzy. Fuck if it didn’t hit me square in the chest.
“What's going on in that head of yours?” I telegraphed my movements in slow motion, carefully adjusting his tie with only the barest brush of my fingertips over the material of his shirt.
He flinched, his jaw hardening and his lips pressing together into a thin line. The smallest shake of his head continued as I pushed the boundary further, letting a sole finger trail down the length of the tie. The moment hung on a hair-trigger as his fists clenched at his sides. Marco d’Ambrosio would likely be the cause of death on the certificate one day, but no one ever said I made good life choices.
“I'm coming in, baby. You need another hug.” One last step brought me as close as I could get without bringing our bodies flush. The sea green of his eyes was nearly eclipsed by the size of his pupils as his gaze darted back and forth, never leaving my face but never resting in one spot for more than a microsecond. “Tell me no…”
His jaw relaxed enough to let his lips part, but he surprised me with silence. Even as I spread my arms and rose up on my toes, he said nothing. Simmering tension met my palms as I rested them on his shoulders and the tension grew as I slid them further before finally enfolding him in my arms, but never did he utter the word I expected him to. Just like earlier in the kitchen, he froze before gradually melting. The mask of his anger fell away as his arms looped around my waist and with a heavy exhale, Marco let himself relax, just a bit, as I hugged him.
“Hate you,” he mumbled, maybe more to himself than me, especially considering his arms tightened around my waist as he said it.
“You keep telling yourself that, Sad Panda.” I tucked my nose against his jaw, just under his earlobe, and inhaled. Cologne and aftershave and a tiny hint of black coffee mingled with the smell of his clothing. I took another greedy inhale as my fingertips toyed with the shorter strands of hair at the nape of his neck, rewarding me with a shiver that ran through his still too-tense body.
“Don’t touch,” he murmured with absolutely zero intention.
“Why not?”
“I don't like it.”
“Sure. If that’s the story you want to go with.”
“Brandon?”
“Mm?”
“Get the fuck off me.” He let his arms fall to his sides with a huff.
“Spoil sport.” I brazenly pressed my lips to the supple skin beneath his ear and pulled away, only far enough to put some room between our chests. I left my hands on his shoulders to maintain the connection, though. It felt important. Necessary, even. The idiotic crush I’d harbored on my best friend's older brother was back in full force, compounded by a strangely intense desire to drag him out of the shadows he hid himself in. Even if I had to do it kicking and screaming.
“We have shit to do.”
“Yup. You good?”
He half heartedly pushed at my chest. It was barely a nudge and his hand lingered there for a beat longer than it needed to. “I'm fine.”
“If denial were an Olympic sport, you'd take home all the medals, baby.”
He was still trembling, his eyes were still wild and filled with too much strain, but the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth gave me hope. I considered this a major win and finally stepped outside the perimeter of his very large bubble of personal space. The mystery of Marco was no clearer, but I wasn't prepared to stop trying to figure him out yet.
The small progress I had made was erased completely over the course of the day. Even I was at the end of my tether dealing with Moretti’s assholes. We had the whole crew with us, much to Marco’s audible disgust and my own chagrin. I'd been avoiding Poncho, Gramps, Molly, and Big Red for well over a week and they made sure I knew how much of a little bitch I was for it. Jericho had nearly set his dog on them all within ten minutes of us meeting up in the garage, which set the atmosphere for the rest of the day. Every time we stopped somewhere to exert our influence or ask for the money we were owed, the tensions rose even higher.
We could barely function as a unit, let alone get the wild cards under control, so it was no surprise at all to me when Marco lost his cool at the last location. My adrenaline was still pumping twenty minutes later as I navigated the midtown traffic at quitting time. The chilling sound of a safety disengaging as Marco whipped out a gun I didn't know he was packing still echoed in my ears. My reckless disregard for my own life as I intervened and placed myself between him and his intended target only added more anxiety to the mix.
“Jesus fucking Christ, man. That was close. What the fuck were you thinking?” I glanced toward the passenger seat as we idled at a stop light, speaking for the first time since the incident.
“Mn,” grunted my scowling boss.
“Nah, you gotta give me more than that.” I kneaded the steering wheel.
“Fuck you.” Marco barely shifted in his seat, still staring out the passenger window with vacant eyes.
“Not good enough. You could have gotten us all killed back there. Killed or tossed in prison. What the fuck?”
He answered with a shrug that just pissed me off even more. I eased the car forward in the slow crawl of traffic and swore under my breath as we caught the same stop light for a second time in the near gridlock of the evening. Jericho’s vehicle and the second car carrying the rest of the crew disappeared further down the street as more cars filled the road between us.
“This is fucking bullshit. Absolute fucking bullshit. Fuck you, fuck those guys, fuck all of it!” I slammed my palm on the horn in frustration.
A weighty sigh parted Marco’s lips and before I could figure out what he was doing, the locks disengaged, and the passenger seat was empty, the door left ajar. I scoffed and spluttered before my brain kicked back into gear.
“Marco! Marc! Get the fuck—god fucking damn him!” In full temper tantrum mode, I kicked and smacked and flailed uselessly in the driver's seat as the light turned green and Marco’s imposing frame disappeared into the tangle of stop and go traffic. I made a mental note of the cross streets and unclicked my belt to reach over and close the door before any more drivers laid on their horns. More colorful swearing left my lips as I continued with the flow of traffic and searched for the nearest parking garage.
It took a full fifteen minutes to finally find a garage with a vacancy two blocks down the road. It took another ten to actually park the car underground and make my way back to street level. We were nowhere near Marco’s building, so when I finally reached the corner where I lost him, I stumbled to a stop and stepped out of the flow of pedestrians to figure out where the fuck to go from here. Thankfully, or not so much, I didn't have to search far for my target. He was hand-delivered to me courtesy of two waiters at a restaurant not even two doors down the street from where I stood gawking like a lost tourist.
“Don't fucking touch me!” Marco’s bellow was loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the traffic around me.
“Jesus—”
“I'll fucking kill you!”
“Josh, call the cops!”
“No, no! No, I've got him!” I sprinted the short distance, shoving my way through the circle of nosy onlookers before once again throwing myself between Marco and the target of his impending violence as he cocked an arm back. “Stop!”
He stumbled two steps to the left and one to the right before dropping his arm and staring at me in confusion. I don't know how much he managed to drink in the half hour he was out of sight, but judging by the smell emanating from him and the fact that he could barely maintain his footing, it was enough to down a fucking elephant.
“He didn’t pay,” said a slender blonde who suddenly appeared between the two waiters still puffing their chests at the door. I risked tearing my eyes away from Marco long enough to reach my hand out.
“I'll cover it.” I fluttered my fingers toward the slip of paper she wielded alongside her accusation.
She warily approached and I snatched the receipt from her fingers with an eye roll. I nearly choked on my tongue when I skimmed the list. “Why the fuck would you give one person seven shots in half a fucking hour? Are you fucking insane?”
“I… it… um…” She floundered and glanced toward the man to her right with wide-eyed fear. “It's not… maybe I miscounted. I can correct the—”
“Wait, seven shots?” The other waiter snatched the paper from me in a flash. Marco growled and lurched forward, stopping only when I slapped my palm to his chest before balling his shirt in my fist.
“Lacey, get back inside. Gentlemen, we need you to leave before we call the police.” The man who spoke, upon closer inspection, wore a stupid ass name tag that claimed he was the manager and that his name was, of all things, Chad. I smirked despite my better judgment.
“Yeah, right. So am I paying for that or can we go, Chad ?”
“I think this was all one big misunderstanding, right?” The other guy, Josh I thought, pocketed the receipt and gave his partner a sidelong glance.
“I don't think someone can accidentally serve a man that much liquor in such a short period of time, so you can take your misunderstanding and shove it. No charges and I won't call ATF. Sounds like a good deal, eh? You keep your liquor license and we head on our merry way.”
“Hmph,” Chad huffed and turned on his heel. Josh followed behind him with a scurry more suited to a mouse than a man. I snickered as the door swung shut behind them before turning back to my charge.
“What the fuck, Marc?” I grabbed his chin and turned his face toward me before he could launch himself at the door to the restaurant again. “What happened in there?”
“Don’t… touch.” He tried to squirm out of my hand and the movement caused him to sway dangerously to the left. It was only then that I noticed the fact that his right eye was already starting to show signs of swelling.
“Hey, he left this.” My eyes snapped toward the voice of a man around my age as he stepped closer, holding out a wallet.
“Jesus, Marc. Thank you. Mind telling me what happened?” I let go of Marc’s face and grabbed the outstretched wallet from the Good Samaritan.
“He was pounding shots like water. Some drunk idiot stumbled and fell and damn near knocked them both to the ground. Your boy here went buck wild throwing hands.” The man eyeballed Marc with a smirk. “You should see the other guy, though. Shit was wild.”
“Right. Great. Thanks for this.” I waved Marc’s wallet and shoved it into my back pocket.
I glanced one way and then the other as I worked through my options. I wasn't the best at math, but I figured with that much liquor on an empty stomach, we were in for a long ass night and I was about to get a front row seat to Marco drunker than I'd ever seen. I gave his shirt a tug and set a course to the glowing Golden Arches in the distance that would hopefully save us from more shit so long as I could get the idiot to eat some fucking grease.
The fact that he followed like a docile puppy surprised me, to be honest. He was always so full of fight, but mercifully, that seemed to be gone for the moment. I didn't know how much longer we had before the liquor bomb in his gut exploded, so his malleability was a godsend.
“You eat Big Macs, Sad Panda?”
“Mnn. Yah. An’ Pep-si.” He popped the Ps and slurred the -si.
I glanced back and found him with a little smile on his face, his eyes damn near closed as he stumbled and swayed behind me. What a fucking mess.
“Water for you. You're cut off and I ain't dealing with the effects of carbonation, dead ass.”
“Fuck… you.”
“Later. I doubt your whiskey dick will be functional for the next twenty-four hours.”
I hoisted the door to the fast food restaurant open and maneuvered Marc through it, swearing as I walked in to find the line standing ten deep. I manhandled him to the nearest wall and propped him up with my shoulder so I could pull out my phone for a mobile order. There was no way he'd manage a line without causing more issues. I damn near jumped out of my skin when his head thunked against mine while I was busy fucking around with the app. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled it just as slowly.
“You sstink.” He inhaled again, humming softly on the exhale. “I like’t.”
“Kinky. Now shut up.” I nudged his gut with my elbow.
“Not gay.”
“For fuck’s sake, I got the memo the first thirty-five times you said it. I don't give a rat’s ass what color of the fucking rainbow you are.”
“Mmkay. S’blue.”
“What?” I pocketed my phone with a scowl and shifted my body to grab him by the shoulders.
“Blue’s m’favorite… color.”
I stopped for a microsecond before continuing my backwards walk to the nearest free table. “Right. Cool story, baby. You gonna sit like a good boy or do I gotta break out the belt and strap you down?”
“Tha’s kinky,” he giggled. Hand to God, Marco giggled like a fucking kid. I grunted with the exertion needed to get him into the narrow, hard plastic booth seat before giving his head a little bump with mine.
“You're full of surprises. Literally don't move, Marc, or I swear to God, I'll push you into traffic.”
“Mmkay. S’do it.” He shifted to climb out of the seat with another chuckle. “Boop, all gone.”
“No. Nope. Forget I said that.” An uncomfortable queasiness settled in my stomach as he tried to muscle himself out of the chair at the promise of being pushed into traffic. I cursed myself in my head before gathering his cheeks in my hands. “Baby, look at me.”
His blood-shot sea green eyes jerked all over as he tried to focus on my face. Close enough, considering what I was working with.
“Big Mac. I'll even share my Pepsi.”
“Mm. Mmkay.” He nuzzled his cheek into my palm and shut his eyes with a sigh. “S’nice.”
A frisson of something warm and molten and forbidden crawled over my skin as I reluctantly let go and took a step back. There was still a chance he could bolt for the door, but at least now, he wouldn't get far. With the amount of alcohol still left to metabolize, I wondered if he would even last as long as it took me to get to the counter and back.
I kept him in the periphery of my vision as I waited for our food, tapping my foot with every second that passed too slowly. My nerves were dancing on a razor’s edge the whole time, and once the kid called out my number, I grabbed the shit and darted. As I suspected, Marco was more melted than mobile, but his eyelids fluttered open as soon as I slid into the seat across from him.
“Hungry, Sad Panda?” I dug around in the bag, pulling out cartons and boxes and napkins galore. I'd probably gone a bit overboard, but he needed to fucking eat.
“Mn.” He reached for a fry, missed, tried again, and then slumped in frustration.
“Right. Jesus, Marc. The fuck am I gonna do with you?” I grabbed the fry and held it up, stifling a chuckle as he chased it with an open mouth like a baby bird.
“Ionno.”
It took me a hot second to decipher “I don't know” from the jumbled syllables he slurred. Sighing to myself, I opened the box for the Big Mac, straightened out the buns, and then carefully situated his hands around the mess.
“Eat.”
“Mmkay.”
And boy, oh boy, did he eat. If he weren't drunk off his ass, I would have assumed the sounds he was making were intentional, but I knew he wasn't trying to sound like a B-rate porn star. He was just completely consumed with his food and clearly enjoying it. He didn't scarf it down, he fucking shoveled it. There were grunts and groans. Moaning and humming. The Big Mac disappeared in four massive bites before I slid the ten piece nuggets under his face. Those were gone just as fast. By the time he was done with that, his body was hunched over the table and his head was held up by one palm as he mechanically shoved fries into his mouth, audibly sharing his enjoyment with each and every damn bite.
“Baby, water.” I uncapped the water bottle and pushed it into his line of sight. “Slowly… if you drink as fast as you eat, you'll drown.”
He scowled at me with bleary, unfocused eyes and grunted before swiping the bottle up. He was still drunk as a skunk, but the glimmer of the Marc I knew best of all was starting to shine through the fog of his liquor. With any luck, we had gotten ahead of the worst of it. I watched as he leaned back slowly with the motion of draining the bottle, his throat bobbing with each long swallow. He had absolutely no right being this fucking sexy while he was such a God damn hot mess.
“Will you be a good boy and stay in the fucking car this time?” I collected our trash and eased out of the seat. “I'd like to get you home before midnight. And hopefully before you yack all this shit back up.”
“M'not gonna ya-rf.”
Yack. Barf. Yarf. I found that far more entertaining than I should have. He didn't appreciate my laughter one bit.
“Come on, big guy. Time to go home.”
“Mn. Mmkay.”
Miracle of all miracles, the atomic bomb Marco reached out for me and followed me like a gentle giant without a care in the world except for holding my hand down the street, into the parking garage, and to the car. He even let me buckle him in. I had to get my head checked because the second he conked out and snort-snored, I think I fell ass over tea kettle in love with him.