Fight (6 page)

“Sorry,” he called, but he wasn’t sure if anyone heard him, and he couldn’t give a shit. He grabbed his jacket and bolted up the aisle. Nathan pushed his arms into his coat’s sleeves and stopped in his tracks beyond the seats. Left were the vendors, the front door, and a well-lit path. Right were the restrooms, darkness, and a single, glowing red beacon—an exit sign. Nathan aimed for the door beneath the sign. A security guy glanced at him but waved Nathan through without questions. Nathan shoved the cold press bar and stumbled into godsent, frigid night air.

The lot beyond the Bass building’s back door was gravel and poorly lit. There was a line of cars on the far side, probably the staff’s. The interstate droned nearby. Groups of people huddled next to the building, smoking and talking. Nathan moved away from the majority of them, sliding along the rough wall. The beer sloshed in his stomach, and he thought he might be sick.

So maybe Nathan had underestimated how much stress he was under.

Getting set up by Paul had pissed him off. Dealing with people in general had made him tired. The fights had been an amazing distraction that had also roused the hellhound down below, and it wanted to get out, get numb, and get fed. Sex, violence, mayhem—it wasn’t really picky.

Nathan slumped against the wall and huddled in his coat. Breathing seemed like too much work. He glanced around, trying not to grimace or crouch or do anything to draw attention. Nathan spotted a lone smoker facing away from him, and suddenly a cigarette seemed like the best idea ever. He pushed off the solidity of the wall and approached the stocky man.

“Hey. You mind if I bum one?” Nathan asked. The guy turned, and muddy, spacey, bloodshot eyes widened in recognition. Nathan’s insides went cold.

“Nate,” Duke rasped. “My man, Nate!”

It was official. God was fucking with him.

Nathan shook hands with his dealer of all things illegal. Duke’s palms were clammy, and he smelled like a wet dog in an open sewer.

“How are you?” Duke asked, trying for cool and ruining it with the shakes. His lip trembled, making the cigarette hanging from it vibrate, but he got out his pack of smokes and offered it to Nathan.

“Good.” Nathan plucked a cig and took Duke’s lighter when Duke held it out. “I’m good. Here for the fights.”

“Aw, right.” Duke nodded. “That’s happening tonight. Right.”

Conversations with Duke completely sober weren’t exactly coherent. “Yeah,” Nathan said, attempting to sidle away from the tweaking man, but no dice. Duke followed.

“Fights are inside,” Duke pointed out. “What you doin’ out here?”

“Been inside awhile. Just needed some air, I guess.”

“Air?” Duke chuckled and grabbed his dick. “I got your air, man. Got it right here.”

Duke’s voice echoed in the hall of memory: a seedy apartment full of smoke and kids too young to have mastered such apathy, a rotting couch with cushions covered in an afghan that stank of piss, and Duke stroking Nathan’s hair while Nathan snorted a line off a chipped plate. The oxy had brought Nathan to his knees, and in one of Nathan’s infamous, uncontrolled outbursts of homosexuality, Duke’s offer to occupy Nathan’s mouth had seemed fine at the time. He choked on Duke’s cock and rode the high until the night dissolved into fragments of color, sickness, and the stale taste of cum.

“Later,” Nathan said, turning from Duke and from the past.

“Aw, c’mon,” Duke said, tagging along. “I’m jokin’, man. Just tell me what kinda
air
you need.”

It was tempting. Oh hell yes, it was. Bleak voices whispered that God and fate and all the powers didn’t want Nathan sober and healthy. There were no such things as good decisions. There were only choices that were neither smart nor stupid. Some merely delayed the destruction longer than the others.

Nathan took a long drag on the cigarette and slowly let out the smoke. He couldn’t buy shit tonight. If he did, he’d do it all. He’d miss work tomorrow, would probably forget the weekend even existed, wouldn’t answer Laura’s inevitable call, and might very well come to his senses standing on the ledge of a high bridge over a ravine filled with the sharp twigs of trees and the ragged edges of rocks. He’d look down at that fall and think it was the sanest idea he’d ever had to stand there until his toes were over the side, then his foot, then his leg, and then…

Such desperation didn’t occur to Nathan; it seemed promised to him. He didn’t know when the other, realer, crazier Nathan had taken over, but his job and his desire for a better life were distant stars high above the water closing over his head.

“Nah,” Nathan said, dropping the cigarette to snub it out with his toe. “I’m set.”

Duke cackled. “You ain’t ever set, friend. Known you.
Know
you. Ain’t set. You just need something a little different.” Duke crowded Nathan until Nathan was against the wall. They were mostly hidden in shadow. Dumpsters and trash were off to Nathan’s side, and he caught a whiff of rotting food before Duke’s dank breath rushed in and made Nathan’s stomach lurch.

“Got in good with some new guys looking to play in town,” Duke said. Motherfucker was so high, he could say hello to the space station. “They got pretty things. Real pretty things.” Duke’s smile involved too much yellowed enamel. “And they got H. You know what you can do with a pretty thing and some H, man? Have a good goddamned
week
.”

Nathan shook his head. “Nah. I’m okay. Got a pretty thing at home, you know?”

“Ain’t like these pretty things.” Duke was practically on top of Nathan, and the proximity had Nathan’s fight-or-flight instincts in fifth gear. He shouldered Duke and shoved the man away.

“Said I’m set, Duke,” Nathan growled through clenched teeth. “Back off.”

“All right, all right.” Duke held up his hands. “Nobody shoot the messenger. I’m only tellin’ you what is, man.” Duke sucked on his cigarette, smiled around it at Nathan, and rushed in so fast that Nathan didn’t even have a chance to get an arm between them. Duke’s palm bit brick next to Nathan’s head, stopping Nathan from jerking away as Duke plastered himself against Nathan. Though it was a familiarity bred by bedroom games, it had nothing to do with sex. Nathan had seen Duke in action plenty of times. In an hour, Duke wouldn’t remember this or what he had said or even seeing Nathan, most likely, but Duke was a good salesman, and he knew how to make a hard sell to the likes of closet-queer Nathan.

Sickness burbled in the back of Nathan’s throat, burned and churned, and he was dizzy from trying to hold out and hang on to any last shred of conviction.

Duke tapped Nathan’s cheek, almost affectionately. “But you know, man, you always can come to me for any ol’ thing you need.”

Nathan wanted to say
fuck it
and suck the taste of smoke out of Duke’s mouth. He was weak, willing, falling fast. Red, seething anger boiled up inside Nathan. He hated everything in a moment of furious clarity, and he braced, ready to try to tear Duke’s head off. He snarled and grabbed Duke’s jacket, about to sink a knee into Duke’s nuts and toss the fucker into the gravel. Maybe stomp on Duke’s skull until it was smashed flat and empty, and Duke was more mangled meat than mirror.

Nathan registered the look of dulled shock in Duke’s eyes, and a presence manifested next to them. Nathan shoved Duke away but didn’t do anything else. He was too busy staring up at Fury and fighting for control.

Fury leveled a gaze on Nathan but didn’t say a word or lift a hand. He had on jeans, a checkered shirt, and a long coat that was stretched taut across his shoulders.

“Oh, hey…hey, Fury.” Duke straightened his clothing, but he was the rabbit cornered in the hunt. “Didn’t… Man, I didn’t see you.”

Fury swiveled his head and glowered. Duke backed up, smart enough to read a cold trail. “We cool, man. We all cool, here. Nate? You know where to find me if you need me, right?”

Nathan struggled to make his vision stop bleeding red and didn’t answer.

“Cool. It’s cool.” Duke smacked his lips and jogged off in the other direction.

Nathan would have sighed in relief and slumped against the wall, but Fury returned his focus to Nathan, who suddenly had sympathy for those insects pinned to boards for display.

“Ah…” Nathan cleared his throat. He wiped his palms on his jeans and tried to think straight. “Um…hey.”

Fury still said nothing, and Nathan tensed so he wouldn’t squirm. “You had a great fight. Earlier, I mean. Inside…in the…not out… Right.”

Fury blinked. Slowly. His eyelashes were so dark and thick, it looked like the guy wore mascara. He wasn’t exactly an attractive man in the traditional sense. Too much forehead, eyes too close together, big, crooked nose…

“Duke’s an asshole,” Nathan babbled. “Harmless, usually. Just fucked up tonight.” Nathan had no idea why on God’s green earth he was defending Duke. Or maybe he was defending himself. Trying to be smooth after a tweaked-out piece of shit cornered him in a parking lot, and Nathan had to tamp down the urge to kill Duke with his bare hands? Christ, what was wrong with him? Nathan took anger out on himself, not others.

“He sells some decent weed, if that’s your thing,” Nathan tried to joke, laughing feebly. Fury only had three inches of height on Nathan, but Fury might as well be the size of skyscrapers.

“It’s not,” Fury said in his characteristic growl. “My thing.”

“Oh.” Nathan coughed. Of course, he would try to push weed on a teetotaler. That was Nathan’s style, right there. Smooth. “Well. Sure. Not with what you do for a living, right? Can’t be good for the—”

“I got other things.”

Nathan shut his mouth with an audible clack of teeth. Fury still studied Nathan, hands loose at his sides, shoulders at ease, expression neutral. If the fighting thing ever failed, Fury had a bright future in poker. “That right?” Nathan asked.

Fury nodded, and again, it was slow. “Yeah.” Fury looked Nathan up and down, just like he had after Nathan had spotted him on the weight bench. Must be trying to place him. No way was it anything else.

“You were at the gym,” Fury said at last.

With the threads of recognition in Fury’s tone, Nathan’s logic died, and he got sucker punched by hope. Stupid, untimely, insipid, teenager-with-a-crush hope. “I…uh, yeah, I was. I think.”

“You think?” Fury asked with what might have been amusement.

“I do. Think,” Nathan replied with more assurance. It was easier to come by when he told himself this conversation wasn’t really happening.

Fury finally quit inspecting Nathan and glanced around the parking lot. “You headin’ back inside?”

“I…I don’t think so.”

Fury stared at something far away. “You interested in some more action?”

“Always.” The answer flew from Nathan’s lips before he could catch it. The symptoms of the panic returned, but they hurt a little less. “What you got?”

Fury shoved his hands into his pockets. “I got somewhere to be.” He took a few steps toward the row of cars, and he paused, raising his eyebrows at Nathan. “You comin’?”

“Am I…” Nathan trailed off, gaping at Fury, who was doing a fantastic imitation of the patron saint of patience. By all things reasonable, Nathan should go find Paul, make excuses, and go home.

But being responsible and reasonable weren’t going to shut off the need to escape. Nathan knew at some point soon, he’d have to finish what the fights started. He needed a fix. The drugs had never been more than the fast lane to escapism or the way to ease guilt long enough for Nathan to break free and cut loose. Nathan needed to get off on feeling alive, and if Fury had a way that Nathan could do that without destroying more brain cells, then that seemed smarter than finding the bottom of a pill bottle. Besides, this was freakin’
Fury
, the force of nature himself and object of one too many forbidden fantasies, asking Nathan to go somewhere. He really didn’t give a shit if they were going to AA, Disneyworld, or the fucking moon. He’d be with Fury.

Instead of a verbal reply, Nathan made to follow Fury. Satisfied, Fury led Nathan across the lot and to a deep blue Ford truck with a covered bed. The side windows on the cover were tinted so darkly that Nathan couldn’t see inside, though he kept trying until Fury unlocked the doors. There was a stuffed, round bag in the cab’s floorboards, bottles of sports drinks in the cup holders, and a wooden cross hanging from the rearview mirror. The cross looked hand-carved.

Nathan buckled his seat belt, and Fury started the truck and pulled out of the lot, heading north under the freeway. They didn’t speak, but the silence wasn’t strained. Fury acted as though having Nathan in his truck was a common occurrence, and Nathan kept going over the events of the night. It was a new level of reckless, heading off to destinations unknown with a man Nathan wanted. Really, really wanted. He didn’t know if this was masochism, a lucky break, or jail time waiting to happen, but come what may, Nathan settled in for the ride.

They turned onto Blackstock Avenue and passed under a series of overpasses so dense it may as well have been a tunnel. People shuffled along the sidewalk that wove past old buildings, run-down houses, and fenced industrial lots full of trucks and heavy equipment. Nathan knew this part of town reasonably well because there were some creative agencies hidden in renovated lofts between condemned buildings. They weren’t that far from the Old City or downtown, but the Keep Our Town Beautiful Society or whatever it was called hadn’t quite made it over here yet.

Fury turned onto an unmarked side road, and the truck bounced over railroad tracks. They swept left and onto gravel instead of broken pavement, and ahead of them was a squat, dingy, commercial building. There was one visible door, and next to it sat a man in a suit and hat on a stool underneath a single light. He was reading a magazine.

Fury parked the truck at the end of a line of cars. “Keep your mouth shut and stay close,” Fury instructed, climbing out of the Ford. “You’re with me.”

“Ooh-kaay,” Nathan said to himself. Wandering after strange men on dark nights into unmarked buildings was a lot harder to do when sober. There was a lot more time to question one’s judgment. This place struck Nathan like the Old Faithful of mayhem, but Nathan didn’t know when it was supposed to go off.