Work Text:
‘Of course,’ Mello said, cocking his gun, ‘I would fuck you, Matt.’
Matt licked his lips, worried his hands. ‘I don’t think I’m following.’
‘I’m not looking to date,’ Mello said.
‘You don’t really have to look. I’m, uh, right here.’
Mello shot the lock off the door in front of them. ‘Hands up!’ he called, stepping over the threshold into white noise.
Four men raised their hands.
‘We’re clearing you out,’ Mello said. ‘So get the fuck out. Now! Now!’
The men scrambled past Matt. Four pairs of ratty sneakers, four ugly shirts, four frightened faces. He pressed himself against the stucco wall of the house so they wouldn’t jostle him.
‘I don’t get you,’ Matt said, when Mello gestured for him to follow him into the open concept living area. Graffiti was keeping track of the days on the wall. The stuffing out of a dilapidated couch had been used to insulate under the back door. ‘This is trashed.’
‘Obviously,’ Mello said. He was following his gun into the hall. One of his hands flapped at Matt, indicating that he should fall in behind. ‘You’re attractive, despite yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ Matt said, surprised. ‘That’s... really nice.’
‘Anyone here?’ Mello shouted down the basement stairs. There was a TV on, a DVD menu playing looping music. ‘Check the bedrooms.’
The first bedroom, curtained with Hello Kitty pink comforter and carpeted with burn holes, was lifeless. The second bedroom, furnished with boxspring, had a dog in it. ‘Oh shit!’ Matt cried, stumbling backwards into the hallway. ‘Uh -’
Mello’s boots thundered up the basement stairs. He whipped an arm out in front of Matt, pointed the gun, shouted ‘Hands up!’
‘It’s a dog,’ Matt said. ‘A dog.’
‘Fucking – are you serious?’
‘Everything’s clear,’ Matt said. ‘I’m like, not a fan of dogs.’
Mello stomped towards the swinging, shattered bedroom door. The dog wouldn’t let him grab it. It snarled. All the hairs on Matt’s neck stood up.
‘Don’t get bit,’ he cautioned Mello.
‘I’ll bite it back,’ Mello said. ‘Hey. Pooch. Chschsch. C’mere.’
‘That dog doesn’t like you,’ Matt said, braving a peek around the door frame.
‘It doesn’t fucking like you, either,’ Mello snapped. ‘Leave it for now. Let’s finish up.’
Out of the backpack Mello was carrying, he pulled the new locks and an electric drill. Matt popped the old door handles right off. Mello spun his gun on one finger.
‘Won’t stop some total asshole from shooting it off, but job done, I guess,’ Matt said, straightening up and testing the new lock on the front door.
Mello rolled his eyes. ‘Open the back door, I’ll chase the dog out.’
Matt opened it, hurried to the other side of the room, and listened to Mello’s rough, indelicate cooing. The dog came at full gallop out of the black hallway after Mello started clapping. It slid on the scuffed kitchen tile and disappeared at full tilt out the door.
‘Fucking people,’ Mello swore. ‘Fucking irresponsible.’
‘I still don’t get what’s stopping you,’ Matt said, bolting the back door while Mello crumpled a chocolate bar wrapper and dropped it at his feet.
‘What? Oh – I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ Mello said. ‘Ours is a work relationship.’
‘I think it’s a friendship.’
‘You do. I know.’
‘Are we taking anything out?’
‘No. Someone’ll come; not our problem.’
‘Ok.’
It was sweltering and too bright outside. Matt squinted at Mello while he locked the door. ‘We could be friends with benefits,’ he suggested.
‘I’ve considered it.’
The car had been parked around the block in a spot of relative shade, but the metal door was still boiling when Matt opened it. ‘Christ, I need to fix the AC,’ he complained, quickly rolling down the window while Mello settled into the passenger’s seat.
Mello put the gun into the glove box and took out a warm bottle of water, which he poured into a cupped hand and then splashed into his hairline. ‘My point, Matt, is that I would fuck you -’
‘Uhuh.’
‘I would, but I hesitate, because I don’t usually fuck people who like me. I think it’s a bad character trait. I think it’s insane.’
‘Good fucking speech,’ Matt said around a cigarette. ‘Yeah, woooo. Really good.’
‘348 Glasgow; gas!’
Matt nearly swallowed his smoke: Mello had pressed down on his knee so they shot through a yellow light in an empty intersection. ‘I am so fucking scared of you,’ Matt said.
‘Drive with more purpose.’
‘I think you’re being a dick, ok? I think that’s, like, such a fucking low self esteem thing to say. I get it, you’re so badass, shit, Mello with the big bitch attitude and like... he doesn’t care about anyone! Wow! And maybe you think you’re being cool, but I think it’s dumb.’
Mello looked out the window. ‘You’re a bad judge of character, and you haven’t understood a damn thing, Matt.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Turn!’
‘I am!’
‘You had the right of way.’
‘Eugh.’
‘I don’t want you to get your hopes up,’ Mello said. ‘You don’t strike me as the casual type.’
Matt put the car in park. ‘Hopes are long dashed, don’t worry.’
‘You’re a drama queen.’
‘Me?’ Matt said, incredulous. ‘Me. I’m dramatic.’
Mello nodded. He was looking up at the windows of a two-story house crouched in a weedbed. A little girl in the window waved. ‘If I wanted a relationship, Matt, I would be in one.’
‘Uhuh.’
‘If you weren’t so intense, I would, of course, just fuck you.’
‘I feel like... you’ve, like, projected some things onto me that are not accurate.’ Matt took the gun from under his seat. Mello took the gun from the glovebox. ‘I literally just asked if you’d ever want to hang out outside of work, and you jumped right to “yeah, I guess I’d sleep with you”, as if I ever goddamn asked. What’s intense about a chill hang between two work pals?’
Mello patted Matt’s cheek as he walked around the boot of the car, bolt cutters under his arm.
‘Would I have made more headway if I had just, like, gone for it?’ Matt asked as they walked.
‘You wouldn’t have the guts. You were trying to make me say that I like you first, which is intrinsically annoying. What were you going to suggest we do for this “chill hang”? Dinner?’
Matt watched Mello mutilate the bars on the bathroom window of 348 Glasgow. ‘You do like me, though.’
‘I’ll hoist you.’
Matt stepped into Mello’s cupped hands and heaved himself through the window. His jeans ripped on a nail, his knee burst with blood. ‘Shit. Shit!’
Mello’s startled white face appeared over the sill. He had jumped, cat-like, and then pulled himself over the lip.
‘Don’t touch there!’ Matt warned, putting his palm near the nail. ‘Fuck, I’m gonna need a tetanus shot.’
Mello landed next to him. ‘You’ve got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, Matt.’
‘I liked these pants.’
‘Why?’ Mello pushed around him to bang through the house shouting for squatters. ‘All the beds are pushed up against the door,’ he said when he came back to Matt, who was limping around the hallway looking at framed photographs. ‘C’mere and help.’
‘Yup.’
They piled the furniture in the middle of the living room. ‘It looks like a bonfire,’ Matt said, tempted.
Mello used the bolt cutter to cut chains off the fridge, and inside was a container of expired soup and a frozen pizza.
‘They stripped the wires all through the house, too,’ Matt said, putting his head under the sink. ‘Thorough.’
Matt changed the locks. Mello stood at the window, head tilted so he could peer down the street. ‘1010 Arbutus, next,’ Mello said.
‘That the other occupied one?’
‘Juan saw activity yesterday when he scouted it.’
‘Juan should have dealt with it; I want to go home.’
‘Why the rush?’
‘Uh... I have hobbies.’
Mello grunted.
‘Done and done,’ Matt announced, straightening up and turning off the drill. ‘Arbutus is like a twenty minute drive.’
In the street, two kids were swapping bikes. A stubby boy pushed the pedals on his friend’s mountain bike with his toes while a leggy girl straddled a squat road bike and ran, pushing it, laughing.
Seeing kids made Matt uncomfortable.
‘This is unprofessional,’ Mello criticised when Matt pulled off into a McDonald’s drive-through en route to the house. ‘I’ll get an apple pie.’
‘Sure.’
Matt ordered ice water, extra ice, and popped a cube into his mouth to suck on.
They parked across the street and down, as usual. Mello took the gun out of the glovebox. Matt put the gun that he kept under his seat in his belt.
Mello kicked the door, kicked it again. Matt looked over his shoulder at the empty street, at closed blinds and blanketed windows.
‘We’re clearing you out!’ Mello called when the door gave in.
‘Fuck you!’ answered someone inside.
‘Hands up!’ Mello shouted.
Matt followed him into the entryway and closed the damaged door after him.
‘Stay behind me,’ Mello hissed. He stalked sideways into the house.
There was one man inside, sitting on an armchair with a hunting rifle in his lap. ‘You can’t take -’
Mello shot him in the belly.
‘Oh, Jesus shit!’ Matt blurted, and then slapped a palm over his mouth.
‘Someone’ll clean it up.’
‘Fuck. Jesus.’
‘He was issued an eviction notice.’
‘Still. Fuck.’
Mello turned. He was still holding the gun, long silencer bumping his leg. ‘He had a weapon.’
It stank in all the houses, but especially in this one, which smelt like dead man’s shit and intestine spill. ‘I’ll check the rooms,’ Matt said, giving the body a wide berth on his way.
He heard Mello making a phone call, low rumble carrying through the thin walls. The other rooms were clear of people, but showed signs of real life. Toothbrush, crack pipe, box of bullets, 50$ in coins in a box in a cupboard. The stove was on. Boiling rice.
‘This is getting dealt with, we’re getting out right now,’ Mello said, coming into the kitchen to see Matt holding what little of value he’d found. ‘You get your way. You can go home to your hobbies.’
‘Oh, yay.’
Mello had a bottle of Everclear in his bag. They each took a pull from it, and then Matt had a notion to pour it on his blood-caked knee.
‘Start a fire,’ Mello muttered when Matt lit a cigarette in the wincing wake of his full body sterilization.
‘I desperately need to wash my hands,’ Matt said. ‘And, like, I just think that if you like me, which – don’t lie – and I like you -’
‘Are we 12 years old?’
‘- maybe we should go for dinner. Which, I will reiterate, was your idea. This is all just... I’m hung up on this, now, because you went on this weird fucking rant about having sex, which I did not bring up, you’ll remember; this out of the blue rant about how much you want to fuck me but can’t because you don’t do relationships and you think I’m the marrying type, and are you seriously trying not to hurt my feelings, or what? I’ve just been sitting here thinking... what the fuck?’
‘Even while we were killin’ that guy?’
‘Yes! Especially then! I was doubly thinking what the fuck when you were shooting up that man!’
Mello put his big sunglasses on. ‘Disrespectful, Matt.’
‘Like you give a shit,’ Matt said, falling in at his side as they returned to the car.
‘We haven’t even slept together yet, and you’re already upset. This is a perfect demonstration of what I’m trying to avoid.’
‘You – holy fuck – you started it!’
Mello climbed back into the passenger’s seat and turned his face this way and that in Matt’s peripheral vision. He looked like porcelain, picturesque; potentially paradise, probably purgatory.
When they separated it was always in a public parking lot. Matt said see you next time and Mello leant into the car to say either goodbye or later.
‘I’ll think about it, Matt,’ Mello said this time, knocking on the roof of the car.
‘Ok, sure.’
When they had another task to do, Mello would get a call and then he would call Matt and tell him that they’d gotten a call. This was how they both knew that Mello, though of a rank with Matt, was the superior soldier; the mob’s version of a teacher’s pet.
‘Grocer on 3rd,’ Mello told Matt 13 hours after they’d parted. ‘Dress like a square.’
‘Got it,’ Matt said. He was chewing on half a ham sandwich. ‘Geek Squad or, like, I’m getting my Masters in Financial Mathematics?’
‘Don’t you have a nametag for Best Buy?’
‘Well, Matthew LeDuc does.’
‘Wear it.’
‘If I show up and you’re just wearing leather half chaps and a biker cap I’ll be so pissed, FYI.’
‘Why? You get to dress like yourself.’
Matt snorted. ‘See you soon.’
Mello hung up.
A half hour later, Matt pulled into the grocery store parking lot. Mello was standing in front of a plant stand in a black button down and steel toed cowboy boots. ‘How much?’ Matt asked, pulling over in front of him and rolling down the window.
Mello flipped him off and pulled open the door. ‘Drive around the back.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
‘You give me fucking whiplash.’ Mello put his seat belt on and took out a folded piece of paper. ‘We’re picking something up for Mad Darcy.’
‘Is it just me or is everyone a lazy motherfucker who should do their own driving?’
‘He wants it dropped in the bathroom at Esso on 7th.’
‘I hate Darcy so much.’
‘That may be why he refuses to meet us in person.’
‘Or it’s because he’s a pretentious asshole who makes everything complicated and dumb.’ Matt put the car in park on the delivery ramp. ‘How do we know what we’re getting?’
‘We don’t,’ Mello said. He got out of the car.
‘No parking,’ said a man in uniform who had been sitting on an upside down bucket smoking a cigarette. He approached the car, stamping his smoke out on the way. ‘Are you mad? Didn’t you see the sign?’
‘Mad.’
The man nodded, left, and came back with an envelope. He scurried away without ever looking at Mello’s face.
‘Don’t see why we had to dress up,’ Matt griped.
‘You’ll see.’
They filled up at the gas station, asked for the bathroom key, sent a text, and then peeled out before Mad Darcy had the annoyance of witnessing them, or they him.
‘Think it was cash?’ Matt speculated. Morning commuters were clogging the roadways, making him drive slow.
‘None of our business,’ Mello said.
‘What are we doing between now and whatever we’re doing later?’ Matt asked.
‘Gettin’ lunch.’
‘Oh. Oh. You thought about it. Cool.’
‘Unless you have hobbies to get back to?’
‘Now that you mention it, I actually have knitting to finish...’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. And I think I left my stamp collection on.’
‘Sounds important.’
Matt chanced a long look at Mello’s up-ticked mouth. ‘It’s dire. Hey, aren’t you going to ask me what my hobbies actually are?’
‘I wasn’t planning to, but I’m trapped in this car with you.’
‘Now I don’t want to tell you.’
Mello stayed quiet. He kept the seat back and a little reclined most of the time, so he could prop his knee on the dash and tilt his head back. He closed his eyes.
‘Just nerd stuff, really,’ Matt said. ‘Computers and video games.’
‘Of course,’ Mello said. ‘I guessed that much.’
‘What about you? What are your hobbies?’
‘Gagging men who ask me too many questions.’
‘Huh.’
Matt rolled his window down and lit up. ‘Do you have anywhere in mind?’ he asked. ‘I’m just going with the traffic.’
Mello hummed. ‘Stop when you see somewhere decent. We have to be in Westlane by 15.45.’
‘This is super unprofessional,’ Matt said when he’d parked in front of a diner next to a shuttered Blockbuster.
Mello had been dozing; he hid a yawn behind his hand before swinging languidly out of the car. ‘Do you have a setting other than “defensive”?’
‘What? I’m not defensive: I’m joking!’
Mello shrugged. One of the only pleasures of horrible heat snuffing the city in summer was watching the declension of Mello’s modesty: early morning bare arms; afternoon skin with suggestion of shirt.
‘I’m taking this name-tag off, then,’ Matt grumbled when Mello left the button up in the car so he could cross his arms over a wardrobe change.
Now to ask themselves if they liked each other without stress of purpose. Matt wanted to sit away from a window, Mello wanted his back to a wall.
‘I got promoted,’ Mello said from behind a laminated menu card. The server put glasses of water and a sweating pitcher in front of them, smiled and left. ‘I found out this morning.’
‘Congrats,’ Matt said. ‘About time, really.’
Mello flicked his gaze up. ‘You’ll be workin’ with someone else.’
‘Nah.’
‘What do you mean “nah”? It’s not your decision.’
‘Tell them you want to work with me.’
‘Why don’t you follow your own path, Matt?’ Mello scoffed. ‘This is -’
‘Annoying? What you’re trying to avoid? Admit I’m your friend already. I bet you agreed to do this because you know you’ll miss me.’
‘Split a milkshake with me.’
‘Sure, sure. I want to work for you, at least. You can be my boss. That’s fine by me.’
‘...I’ll make it happen.’
‘Goddamn, you’re already feeling your role, huh?’ Matt smiled with dimples.
‘I’m goin’ all the way to the top, Matt. I will be the boss.’
‘Yeah, I believe you.’
Matt paid the bill as a congratulatory gesture; said Mello could get it next time, hint hint.
‘Laurence Arnold,’ Mello said in the car. He pulled a photo out of his wallet and handed it to Matt, who was still fumbling a lighter. ‘He’ll be working at the Office Supply. You’ll approach.’
‘“Howdy, fellow customer service rep! Fancy paying your loan?”’
‘No. We’re takin’ ‘im.’
‘Oh. Shit. What did this fucker do?’ Laurence Arnold was plain looking: glasses and tribal tattoo. Matt accepted a second photograph from Mello that showed him in plain clothes, holding a red solo cup at a college party.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Mello said. ‘To you.’
Matt handed back the photos and peeled out of the parking lot. ‘Is this our last job?’ he asked. ‘Like, together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where are we taking Laurence?’
‘To Marc at 511.’
Matt nodded. ‘Marc the interrogation guy,’ he mused. ‘Laurence is in deep shit.’
Names - real names - identifying characteristics, personal knowledge – these made Mello uncomfortable. A man is a man is a man. A man needed roughing up.
Matt dropped Mello outside a coffee shop in the same strip mall as the Office Supply, where he ordered a coffee for himself and an iced tea for Matt. He had a good view of Matt pretending to back into the target’s red Honda. Friday at 16.00; Laurence would have clocked out at 15.30 and then picked up Chinese from the takeout place two buildings down. Any minute, he would turn a corner and see Matt scribbling a note on his windshield. It shouldn’t look suspicious to anyone catching a glimpse of them for Matt to find a parking space while Mello ordered their coffees, to have an accident, to amicably offer to pay for the damages, to lure Laurence to his car to get his information upon realising that he’d left his wallet and phone in the glovebox, to open it and show Laurence the gun, tell him “get in”.
Mello walked briskly back to the car and jumped in the back, pulled his own gun so he could kiss it against Laurence’s rib cage, and handcuffed him while Matt slowly drove out of the lot.
‘I put his keys on the front tire,’ Matt said.
‘This is a mistake!’ Laurence wailed. ‘Please, I’ll do anything!’
‘Good. I couldn’t remember if you liked fruit tea or black,’ Mello said, reaching forward and putting Matt’s drink in the cup holder.
‘This is great. Thanks.’
‘You can have everything in my wallet, it’s in my pocket!’ Laurence offered.
‘Can he shut up?’ Matt asked.
Mello put a sleep mask over his eyes. ‘Shut up,’ he said.
Marc’s at 511 was on the other side of town. Matt turned the radio on and merged onto the highway. They drove in relative silence; small talk was all that was appropriate in front of the target, and neither of them were particularly adept at it.
‘Keep it idle,’ Mello instructed when they pulled up to the curb of a closed restaurant kitty corner to respectable suburbia.
‘In a hurry?’
‘I have a feeling.’
Matt watched Mello accompany Laurence down a short stairwell. He fidgeted, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘A feeling,’ he muttered, staring resolutely at the doorway where they’d disappeared. ‘Fuck he means a feeling?’
Minutes passed before Mello emerged again. He stomped to the passenger door and jerked it open. ‘Well? Let’s fucking go!’
‘Jesus, ok.’ Matt pulled onto the street and made a series of random turns. ‘What happened?’
‘There’s a sting operation nearby. Marc got in my face,’ Mello spat. ‘He wanted us to park at the Arby’s and walk over. Fuck that! I’m not marching a mark three blocks with my face out in the blistering fucking sun so Marc can keep his gaudy fucking basement hovel.’
‘Well, fuck! I bet they got my plates!’
‘Probably.’
‘Well... fuck!’
‘Sayonara to Marc’s at 511.’
‘Why’d we leave Laurence if he’s getting raided?’
‘Oh, he tried to pawn him off on me; I said “fuck you, I’m your boss now. We’ve done our part. Deal with it.”’
Matt snorted. ‘He’s going to be resentful, don’t you think?’
‘He’s gonna learn to be less conspicuous so he doesn’t get fuckin’ ghost cars patrollin'’ his goddamn place. Anyway, we just cleared some new houses for him; he can take the ugliest of ‘em.’
‘Sure he can.’
‘It’s too fuckin’ hot in here,’ Mello groused. He wrestled his shirt off and tossed it in the backseat, so he was naked from waist to rosary chain.
‘I’m definitely dropping this car,’ Matt said. ‘Next one will have working AC.’
‘I got time; I think I can get you something now,’ Mello said, pulling out his phone. ‘Get onto Broadview.’
‘Ok. Cool.’
‘I shouldn’t really sleep with subordinates,’ Mello mused over the muted music from the stereo.
‘I’d say this job isn’t done until we’ve disposed of the evidence,’ Matt said. ‘Tick tock, though.’
Mello laughed, and then sobered. ‘How would you feel, Matt, if we fucked once and never again, seeing me everyday?’
‘Think I’d just feel like I’d gotten laid.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, maybe don’t tell me what I’m like in a relationship when you don’t know.’
‘It wouldn’t be a relationship. Seriously, every time I start to think it’s a good idea, you talk me out of it with your word choice.’
‘And then you take your shirt off, let me buy you lunch, tell me you think I’m hot – like, yeah, talk about my word choice, let’s talk about your actions. You’re fucking confusing.’
‘Let’s just get these fuckin’ plates off the road.’
‘Literally it is always you bringing it up out of the blue. I swear, you think about it more than I do.’
‘I think almost constantly about sex,’ Mello admitted. ‘I don’t think, ever, about settling down.’
‘I think almost constantly about taking a nap, point blank. Stop making me out to be some sort of Christian white bread two and a half kids missionary position loser.’
‘I’m Catholic.’
‘I know; I was insulting you.’
Mello crossed his arms. He had the unfair advantage of being able to watch Matt’s face steadily, see the twitches, see his knee bounce.
‘And,’ Matt said, ‘I don’t care what you want to call it – we’re friends. I like being around you. I’m into dudes and whatever. I’m really into you. I don’t care what happens. Just, we’re friends and I want to be with you. Why does it have to be some macho... like, anti-familial shit? Why can’t we just do what we want and forget the rest? I don’t need you to be my boyfriend. I just think we might as well do what we want. You’re into labels, that’s cool. Call it an informal sexual acquaintanceship for all I care. I don’t know why you think I’m so fucking sensitive and like, attached or like, I don’t know.’
‘It’s largely because every time I annoy you, you reward me with these emotionally charged rants.’
‘You’re a fucking bastard.’
‘It’s on the left, up here. First left, get behind the RV park.’
‘Got it.’
There was a used car dealership and a corrugated metal building that looked to have been hammered together by a coked out extraterrestrial trying to imitate an airplane hanger. Matt parked in front and they both climbed out.
‘Erne!’ Mello called, leading Matt around the lot.
A stout man in a wifebeater and board shorts materalised from behind the building, holding a Miller Light. ‘Got it here,’ he said, shuffling forward to shake Mello’s forearm. ‘Hullo.’
‘Hey,’ Matt said. ‘What’s the model?’
‘Keys,’ Erne said, pulling two identical keys with a Sandrun Racetrack keychain out of his pocket and offering them to Mello. ‘Lexus ES 300. It’s the blue one.’ He pointed at a line of cars parked just to the right of a cluster of cars with For Sale signs.
Matt shrugged. ‘Are you taking my Cadillac?’
‘Sure,’ Erne said. ‘Yeah. Let’s get the plates off.’
Mello watched Matt and Erne buzz around the cars, silent except to double check that Erne had given Matt something with a working AC.
‘Blue’s alright,’ Matt said, getting behind the wheel.
‘Thanks, Erne,’ Mello said out the passenger window.
Erne waved in the rear-view mirror. ‘He not one of us?’ Matt asked.
‘Tangentially. He’s my own contact.’
Matt fiddled with the radio, turned the bass up and the cold air on, put a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Take a minute,’ he muttered. ‘Where am I leaving you?’
Mello was rifling through the insurance and registration, scoffing and humming. ‘North Shore. This thing’s been totaled, refurbished, and resold twice.’
‘Doing some shopping?’
‘Just ask me if you can come, Matt.’
‘Yeah, ok. Can we hang out?’
‘I’m going to Delar Chocolatier and the liquor store,’ Mello said. ‘Both open to the public.’
‘Cool. That’s cool, but sounds pretty boring. What’s after that?’
‘I’m drinkin’ the tequila and eatin’ the chocolate.’
‘Now that is a chill after-work hang. Yeah, I’ll tag along for that.’
‘Matt - ’
‘I’m being incredibly cool about this, by the way, so don’t worry,’ Matt interrupted him, snubbing his first smoke and starting another.
Mello rolled his eyes.
‘No, really, that’s all I ever wanted. You’re the one with the hang-ups.’
‘Matt, promise me something.’
‘Totally; of course.’
‘If you’re ever arrested, don’t represent yourself.’
‘Oh, fuck you.’
Mello lived near a Middle School, not far from North Shore Mall. Inviting Matt into his private life, unmasking the humanity behind grimy mob mud mask, was to Mello like disembowling or skinning himself. All to sate Matt’s curiosity, Matt’s want. Here the bed for vulnerable sleep, here the couch for defenseless slouch, here the vanity for careful coiff of controlled outward face. Matt couldn’t understand this because he was soft on the outside.
Tequila, milk chocolate truffles, a bag of barbecue Lays, and a vodka Rockstar were put on the coffee table.
‘You’re into Jesus,’ Matt said. ‘A lot.’
‘I have one cross.’
‘More than I have.’
Matt in the apartment was astronaut adrift. He perfectly played the part of nervous nerdy new boyfriend. Too jarring. Mello moved into the kitchen and put shot glasses on the counter. ‘I have bourbon, too,’ he said.
‘Just what you’re having is fine.’ Matt leant against the exposed side of the fridge to watch Mello pour. ‘Can I smoke?’
Mello grunted. ‘Use this,’ he said, getting a glass jam jar out from a lower cupboard.
‘Cool, thanks. You have a wok.’
‘I have most of the essential things for human life. Do you want to comment on the taps or the light switches, too?’
‘I want an MTV cribs tour.’
Mello passed him a shot and they knocked it back. He poured another and offered it and they knocked it back. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Welcome to my crib.’
‘Yes!’
Matt followed him into the bathroom, peered behind the shower curtain to investigate tidy conditioner bottles; followed him into the hall where Mello had a framed watercolour he’d bought off a tattoo artist at a penthouse get-together; shuffled into the bedroom. ‘You have slippers,’ he said, pointing under the bed.
‘Do you want a pair?’
‘Uhhh... ok.’
Mello opened the closet and tossed a pair at Matt, who put them on over his blue striped socks. ‘Might as well get comfortable,’ Mello said.
‘Thanks. I like it. Your place, I mean. You have cool style.’
‘That can’t possibly surprise you.’
‘No. I mean, everything else you do surprises me; it’s nice to catch a break.’
Mello crossed his arms over the skin of his chest. ‘Do I need to invite you over the threshold?’ he asked. ‘Or drag you?’
‘Both sound fun.’
‘I don’t want to wait too long while you decide.’
‘Maybe I’ll just...’ Matt took four long strides across the white carpet, put one hand on Mello’s pec and the other on a jutted shoulder blade and kissed him. ‘Just because you said I couldn’t yesterday.’
Mello snorted.
‘Ugh, you’re mean as shit,’ Matt said, before leaning in again. He traced the shape of Mello’s lips with the stud on his tongue, let Mello suck on it.
‘You talk a lot,’ Mello accused when they parted.
Matt moved his mouth down, licked the muscle down Mello’s neck, sucked at the skin on his collarbone. ‘Mmhm,’ he agreed against Mello’s skin. His hands had traveled down, touching hard tanned stomach, flattening both palms flat on Adonis belt.
‘Take your shirt off,’ Mello said. He was holding Matt by the hair, tugging gently. His nails were long, scratchy like massage.
‘I’ve never done a push-up,’ Matt warned before stepping back and pulling it over his head.
Mello’s voice, low and commanding, had gone soft. ‘C’mere.’ He kneaded the pads of his fingers down bumps of spine, grabbed Matt’s hips, and kissed him hard. Matt’s stomach was soft when he pressed it against Mello’s abs; he had pale freckled skin on his shoulders. It was intimate to see him and feel him, since Mello had never seen him before. He was also hard on Mello’s thigh, so Mello pushed his knee between his legs to encourage it.
‘Can you - ?’ Matt rested his forehead near Mello’s ear, breathing heavy on his neck. ‘Uhuh.’
‘What?’ Mello asked. He mirrored Matt and bit him, lightly, pulled on his earlobe with teeth. ‘Tell me.’
‘Can we sit or something?’
‘Yeah.’ Mello sat on the bed, keeping a finger looped in Matt’s belt. The fucking Best Buy uniform.
Matt, disheveled and flushed from chest to red hair, sat next to him and kissed him again. His hand found the fly of his jeans, hesitated only a moment before unzipping it and dipping inside. He palmed Mello through his briefs with one hand and squeezed his thigh with the other.
‘Here...’ Mello said, interrupting him by shuffling up against the pillows, ‘here, go here.’ He guided Matt mostly by the hair to lie on top of him, hip to hip, and Matt rested his cheek on the pillow next to Mello’s so his mouth was in his hair. Mello could feel when Matt’s breath hitched, when he’d thrust up in a way that excited him. He pulled the belt off and threw it somewhere, shucked Matt’s khakis so he could grab the swell of his ass and push it down in a rhythm he liked.
Matt came with Mello’s arms wrapped around his back, the sound of his cursing in the air, and his cock in his hand, pressing himself into the delicate skin of Mello’s inner thigh. He finished Mello off while he was still orgasm-dazed and then flopped next to him, one leg hooked around one of Mello’s.
‘That it?’ Mello said, propping himself up and leaning over to look down at Matt’s half-lidded expression.
‘Oh, fuck off. For now.’
‘Mm.’ Mello kissed him again, lazily. ‘You want some sweatpants?’
‘Sure.’
Mello got up and left the room. He returned with a tissue and a pair of grey pants neatly folded.
Matt pulled the Best Buy pants off his ankles properly and let them fall to the floor, tucked himself back into his boxers, and sat in awkward appreciation when Mello wiped his stomach and legs clean. ‘So... benefits,’ he said, and then wanted to die.
‘You were right,’ Mello said. ‘We should be fucking.’
‘I never said that, but that’s fine. Agreed.’
Mello shrugged.
They moved back into the living room so Matt could get his smokes from the counter, open the bag of chips, and pour himself a third shot. ‘I’m staying over, right?’ he asked.
Mello was reading the print out inside the truffle box. ‘Of course you are.’
‘Awesome.’
‘Drink some water.’
‘Sure.’
Mello led the way in sitting on the couch, still only in his underwear. ‘Have you tried these?’ he asked, shaking the chocolates at Matt when he sat next to him.
‘Nope.’
Mello offered him the box and rose his eyebrows.
‘I’m looking around,’ Matt said, chewing and talking, ‘and I’m seeing a lot of stuff that isn’t really giving me any information about what you do when you’re not working.’
‘Read, mostly,’ Mello said. ‘Watch movies. Workout.’
‘Cool.’
‘You do computers.’
‘Oh, yeah. I do 0-day exploits for extra cash, too. That’s my bag.’
‘Is it lucrative?’
‘Depends.’
‘What does it depend on?’
‘Who you sell it to,’ Matt reached for another chocolate.
‘It’s criminal?’
‘Well, it’s only lucrative when it’s criminal.’
‘Huh.’
‘Can we watch something? Your favourite movie or something?’
Mello nodded and turned the television on. They shifted together on the leather couch until they were kissing again, inspired to grab at each other as soon as the conversation lapsed. Languidly, Mello moved his fingers over Matt’s skinny back while Matt felt his eyebrows, eyelashes, elevated cheekbones with a gentle thumb.
‘You fucking like me so much,’ Matt teased when Mello straddled him and tipped Matt’s head back over the back of the couch. ‘Fuck you like me – you fucking like me, say you like me.’
Mello yanked his hair a little hard. ‘Tell me what you like, tell me when it’s too much,’ he said.
‘We’re fucking friends at least,’ Matt babbled while Mello bit his nipple. ‘Fuck! We’re friends!’
‘Stop saying that,’ Mello said. ‘It makes you sound pathetic.’
‘Ugh, maybe I am.’
‘Hmm.’ Mello sounded pleased. ‘Are you?’
‘Yeah. Please say you like me. Seriously.’
‘I like you like this.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Let’s shower,’ Mello said.
‘I’m not really dirty.’
‘I want to put my fingers in your ass in the shower,’ Mello said.
‘Oh. Ok, then.’
Mello brought the tequila into the bathroom and made the water too hot.
‘This is hotter than Hell,’ Matt said, standing awkwardly at the far end of the tub.
Mello fiddled with it and then put his head under, bent down so Matt could stare. He was beautiful, inhumanly beautiful, with his hair dark and dripping long and clinging to his face. Matt wanted to fuck him under the shower spray; he was hard thinking about it, thinking about how many next times there would be and all the ways they could fuck each other.
It was dreamlike that Mello was reaching for him again, wanted him more. He felt Mello’s hand touch between his legs, the two short nails on his pointer and middle finger brush against him and then slowly push into him while Mello jerked his cock and made him desperate for it.
‘I want you to blow me,’ Mello said. ‘With that fucking tongue ring.’
‘Sure,’ Matt panted. ‘Whatever you want, whatever – Jesus.’
Matt came harder than he had in a long time, tilting his hips away from and then into his hand in delirious pleasure. He slipped a little on his way down to take Mello’s balls in his lips.
‘Can I fuck your mouth?’ Mello asked breathily.
Matt pulled away to say, ‘yeah, whatever you want, seriously.’
Mello warned him when he was coming, and Matt sucked on him and swallowed it. When he’d let Mello’s cock slip out of his throat, he felt hands smooth up and down his arms and then pull him to his feet.
‘We have a lot to talk about,’ Mello said.
‘Totally.’
They dried off in comfortable silence. Mello offered Matt his toothbrush.
They turned the movie off, went back to the bedroom. Mello slept nude with wet hair. Matt jumped onto the mattress, kissed him, and rolled over to smoke again, tapping his ashes into the jar.
‘When do you wake up?’ Mello asked, turning the bedside lamp off when Matt was finished his cigarette.
Matt shrugged. ‘I’m not a heavy sleeper.’
‘I’m a good cook,’ Mello said. ‘Stay for breakfast.’
‘Sure, boss,’ Matt said, kissing him again. ‘So, casual sex friends, huh?’
‘Go to sleep,’ Mello said, rolling over and closing his eyes.
‘Say we’re casual sex friends,’ Matt whispered into the darkness. He tucked his nose into the base of Mello’s spine and threw an arm over his waist.
‘Goodnight, Matt,’ Mello grumbled, sighed. ‘...We're friends; I like you. Happy?’
Matt contentedly stroked Mello's side until he snored, and fell asleep warm. Happy.