Guns n' Boys Book 1 Part 2 (26 page)

Seth blinked in surprise. “You really are
like from a rom-com, aren’t you?”

Domenico chuckled and pulled him even closer,
nuzzling Seth’s shoulder blade. “When you become the Don, it will
all be in your hands. You could keep me close.”

Seth sniffed and held onto Dom’s hands. “I
will. I’ll try to work something out for us. Maybe an apartment in
Palermo, where we could go sometimes?”

“Can’t I be your bodyguard? This way, I could
keep an eye on you at all times,” whispered Domenico as his arms
tightened around Seth.

“You will be. Only you can guard my body
well.” Seth finally managed a small smile. “But we’d be watched all
the time. I thought if we had a little place somewhere, we could
have weekends away every now and then.” He turned in Dom’s arms and
hugged him close, smelling the spicy aroma of his skin. But
Domenico’s next words chilled his flesh and trapped his heart in
ice.

“If I die before that happens, will you visit
my grave every now and then?”

Seth took a step back, but then punched Dom’s
arm with all the force he had. “Do not say that!”

“I just want you to know I’d like that.”
Domenico cleared his throat and looked out the window, his face
blank. “I won’t have anyone holding my hand when I die.”

Seth dropped to the armchair, struck by a
pain that went through his heart and held his lungs tight. He shook
his head. He didn’t want to think of things like that. For him,
Domenico was made of steel, invincible. “I’d carry a bit of your
hair, so you’d never be lonely.”

Dom stared at him in silence, his strong body
looking otherworldly in the cool light coming through the blinds.
He approached Seth and sat down in his lap, putting his arms around
him. “Thank you.”

Seth swallowed and put his arms around his
lover. “We will find a way to be together.”

Domenico smiled at him, and the shadows on
his face made his features seem softer than they were. He leaned in
and pulled Seth’s head against his chest.

His heartbeat was frantic like that of a
hummingbird.

Sunshine woke Seth up. It was rare for him
not to find himself hugged by Dom in the morning, and he looked
around the empty bedroom. Dom was in the habit of exercising in the
morning. Then, he’d take a shower and go to an artisan bakery down
the street to get them fresh juice and pastries for breakfast. Seth
was getting used to this house. So much so that he bought a few
things to make it more homely. A poster of Marlon Brando for Dom,
and one of Brian Molko of Placebo, just to piss Dom off. Seth also
got a few new dishes the other day, nice brown ones, handmade
pottery. Even though it was well over a month into the New Year,
Lucrezia didn’t put much pressure on him to come back, so the stay
in New York was feeling less like a honeymoon and more like a new
home.

“Dom?” he asked after another yawn.

“You awake?” he heard from the living room,
and within seconds, Dom popped his head in through the door.

“Slowly getting there.” Seth grinned and
stretched in the sheets.

Domenico opened the door wide and strolled
inside in a sleek dark steel suit. He was someone who could con you
into anything thanks to his looks alone. “Did you forget we were
going shopping today?”

“Are we?” Seth rubbed his face and followed
Dom with his gaze. He’d love to grab Dom’s tie and pull him into
bed.

Domenico gave him a tight smile. “Yes, we
are. Shower.”

“Okay, okay. Where are you taking me, sugar
daddy?” Seth grinned and gave him a kiss on his way to the en-suite
bathroom. He anticipated the pat on the ass, but it still gave him
a pleasant shudder.

“Armani. I need a new suit.”

“Do you
need
one or do you want one?”
Seth snorted and looked over his shoulder before walking straight
under the shower.

“Both. A man needs to look smart,” answered
Domenico. “Come on, come on, come on.”

“Don’t waste time and make me breakfast
then!” Seth yelled from under the shower, grinning to himself with
his eyes closed. The water woke him up in no time. He made the
shower a brief affair and put on a pair of pants, trotting to the
kitchen with his hair still wet. He wanted to see what Dom made for
him. The smell of espresso was unmistakable, and while Dom
generally considered cooking a chore not suitable for someone like
him, he was the master of coffee in their house.

When Seth entered the kitchen, Domenico
smiled at him and gestured to a piece of toast covered by a layer
of ham, with a splash of color in the form of a lone cherry
tomato.

Seth lifted the ham and noticed there was no
butter under it either. “Impressive,” he said, and when he picked
up the toast, the cherry tomato rolled off to the floor. The bread
wasn’t even toasted.

“It’s so late.” Domenico sighed, making his
intentions clear. “We could eat something else on the way if you
don’t like it.”

“Yeah. I suppose you gave it your best.” Seth
snorted and gave Dom one more kiss before running off back to the
bedroom. He put on a T-shirt with a skull and quickly blow-dried
his hair. He hated hats and with the New York winter outside, his
hair would freeze if he didn’t dry it. He needed a haircut anyway,
as his hair was getting too long on the sides. He put on an extra
hoodie under the leather jacket to keep himself warm and topped it
with a thick black woolen cowl Dom got him the other day. It was by
some brand Seth couldn’t pronounce. It sounded French, but Dom
assured him that the garment itself had been made in Italy.

“Ready!” He came back to Dom sipping coffee
and reading news on his phone. He gave Seth a sunny smile and put
an arm around him, pulling him to the door. They chose to travel by
subway to get to Manhattan as quick as possible. After picking up
croissants from the local bakery, they walked down the street, and
Seth couldn’t help but glance at the stores they were passing by at
the reflection of himself and the handsome beast in a tailored coat
walking beside him.

He wished he could put an arm over Dom’s
shoulders just to stake his claim, tell the world that the man next
to him was his, body and soul, suggest to anyone with an
imagination that they had sex. Lots of it. But it seemed risky, so
in the end, Seth just stuffed his face with a croissant and warmed
his fingers with a cup of coffee.

“Getting just a suit or something more? Can
we go somewhere normal later too?” Seth asked. There was a light
snow that kept falling to his face, and he caught some of the
flakes on his tongue. They melted into cool drops in his mouth.

“What do you mean by ‘normal’?” asked
Domenico and did just what Seth had stopped himself from doing. His
arm was heavy but oh-so-comforting across his shoulders.

“You know, like, just regular stuff for me.
Not super-expensive.” Seth instantly leaned closer and brushed his
hand over the front of Domenico’s woolen coat. “You think it’s
safe? I mean, what if someone saw us like this?”

“We’re in the street. People
will
see
us like this. Fuck them.” Domenico grinned at him and leaned in to
kiss Seth’s nose.

Seth smiled, all warmed up inside. “Domenico
Acerbi doesn’t care for the opinion of
peasants
.” He slid
his arm around Dom’s waist. It was nice to have only a slight size
difference, Peter was so small they could never have walked down
the street like this.

“Exactly. I know what’s right better that any
self-righteous prick we could encounter,” he said and poked Seth’s
cheek with a gloved finger.

Seth wanted to lean down for a kiss, but
before he could reach Dom’s lips, a snowball hit the side of his
head so hard, he wobbled to the side. “Hey!” His eyes instantly
spotted a small boy, who was already making another snowball,
laughing as if he had just made the funniest joke ever.

A woman in a colorful jacket, who had to be
his mother, was standing next to him and loudly pleading for him to
stop without actually touching her child. It was so surreal Seth
wasn’t sure what to do.

“Hey, boy,” called out Domenico with that
cool, authoritarian tone that sent chills down Seth’s spine. “You
will put that back and apologize, or I will be forced to discipline
you.”

The boy’s mother looked up at Dom with an
expression that mirrored Seth’s. Eyes widened, lips open without a
word.

“You will not be disciplining anyone!” she
finally choked out. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m a Catholic. Strict discipline makes a
man out of a boy,” said Domenico, straightening up.

Seth stood back, interested how this would
play out.

“Discipline your own kid then, Mr. Catholic!”
the woman hissed and held her boy closer, but he wrestled out of
her grasp and ran at Domenico, sending a snowball straight at his
face. It was a game lost before it even started. Domenico ducked so
that the snowball would miss him, and ran up to the kid in three
strides. Seth didn’t know whether he should laugh or fake anger
when Dom grabbed the kid at the ankles, moved him, head-down, over
a low fence, and stuck him into a fresh pile of dirty snow, which
was still soft enough to give. The kid barely had the time to
squeak, and Seth decided it was in fact laugh-worthy. He couldn’t
believe Dom did that, but loved how he had the balls to do what
everyone else wanted to but never did.

“How dare you!” The woman yelled. “I’ll call
the cops! Don’t you dare touch my baby!” She seemed torn between
wanting to hit Dom and running to help her son.

“What’s going on here?” An onlooker came
closer, bristled up like a charging badger.

“Much needed lessons,” said Domenico,
adjusting his gloves like a man proud of the job he’s done.

“Fucking faggot’s gonna teach others
lessons?” the guy growled at him from under his furry hood, as the
mother pulled her son close and started cleaning him with her own
scarf. The child wouldn’t stop crying.

“Please, sir, there’s no need for this,” she
quickly said to the stranger.

Domenico didn’t stir. He didn’t step back, or
even raise his voice. He just stared at the guy. “What did you call
me?”

“You heard me. I saw you kissing the other
fag. You think the street is a place for this? Where kids can see?”
He pointed to the young boy clinging to his mother’s leg. “That was
a well deserved fucking snowball.”

Domenico moved like lightning. The guy
reacted, immediately sending his fist toward Dom’s face, but he was
at least half the speed of the professional killer that was
Domenico. In the strangest of dances, Domenico grabbed his
opponent’s hand, kicked his legs from beneath him and, in a
graceful pirouette, pushed him into the same gray pile where he’d
deposited the kid before.

Seth bit his lips in quiet satisfaction. This
was exactly the kind of bodyguard he wanted. The mother looked to
them with her eyes wide open, grabbed her howling child, and walked
away so fast she had to haul her kid behind. Seth walked over to
Domenico and put his arm over Dom’s shoulders, just like he wanted
to in the first place.

“So how does it feel to have your ass kicked
by a
fag
?” Seth cocked an eyebrow at the guy, who pulled
himself free and moaned, holding onto his nose. Dom grinned at him
and kicked the guy’s butt with the wet, dirty sole of his shoe,
making him fall down to his side.

“This, my dear disciple, is how you use your
surroundings to your advantage when you fight,” Dom told Seth,
already leading him away toward the subway station.

“I’ll try to remember.” He laughed and gave
Dom a kiss on the cheek. No one could fuck with them. Literally and
metaphorically. “What was up with the kid though? It was no big
deal.”

Domenico frowned. “No big deal? He was out of
control. His mother wouldn’t move a finger to make him behave.
That’s not how you raise a decent human being.”

“Why do you care though? Except that it’s
annoying.”

Domenico grunted, turning his head toward the
staircase as they started descending to the station. “I will never
have a son of my own, and it’s just so fucking upsetting when
breeders can’t get their kid right.”

“You never said you wanted kids.” Seth
followed him farther along and gently touched the endings of his
hair.

Domenico stopped, looking at a tiled wall as
they were passed by a group of Amish women. “Every man wants a son.
Don’t you?”

Seth swallowed, unsure of what he wanted. “I
don’t think I’m ready for kids. Or if I even want one. Why do you
want a son? Can’t you just plant an oak or something?”

Domenico spread his arms, slowly tagging
along to the stairs leading to the platform. “I can’t
want
a
son when I know I’m never going to sleep with a woman. It’s out of
my reach.”

“But why? What would you do with him?” Seth
continued, baffled. Dom didn’t strike him as the eager daddy
type.

Dom shrugged as they made their way along the
platform, past two chatting grannies in colorful clothes. “I think
it’s just something within me that calls out for me to leave a
legacy. A young man, beautiful, smart, well-educated, strong. A
proper man that I would shape.”

Seth cocked his head to the side and finally
looked into Dom’s face when they stood in place. “But what if he
didn’t end up being the way you wanted him to? As much as I claim
otherwise, you’re not God, you know.” He stroked Dom’s fingers
through his leather glove.

Domenico sighed, closing his fingers around
Seth’s. “I know, but at least he would be equipped with everything
he’d need in life. He’d be loved wisely, know discipline. I’d give
him all I never got.” Domenico looked up with a tiny, oddly shy
smile.

“I’m sure you’d make a good father,” Seth
said and leaned over for a kiss as the subway train rolled onto the
platform with a deafening rattle.