Polished (6 page)

“
Please.
Can you just see if there are some open manholes under the water?”

The officer looked at her and seemed to consider the desperation in her pretty face, half covered by small fingers laced tightly in front of her lips. He reached for his radio. “Officer Peters here. Possible search and rescue. ESU required on site.”

A tear escaped Rory’s eye. She wanted to hug him. “Thank you, Officer.” Looking around, Rory found a window ledge jutting from the bank behind her, and settled onto its cool stone surface. She waited, holding her breath and wringing her hands as each minute ticked by a little slower than the last. Suddenly she was frightened beyond measure. It would have almost been better if the officer had told her she was crazy to think Spencer could be trapped underground…underwater.
Drowned.
She was half hoping he’d tell her that they’d already checked and she should go home because her boyfriend was probably just an inconsiderate boob out drinking with his buddies. That would have been a hell of a lot better than seeing the look on Officer Peters’ face when she’d raised the possibility.

They hadn’t checked. Spencer could be dead.

* * *

“Fuck, it’s cold down here,” Jack said, bringing Spencer back from his sour memories into the bitter present.

“Yeah, I know. You’d never guess how blistering hot it is up there.” Spencer could still feel the cold water penetrating his bones. His clothes stuck to him like an unwanted second skin. So far he’d managed to keep a stiff upper lip, making sure he didn’t let on how terrified he was. Soaked, miserable, and with no clue about when or if this nightmare would ever end, Spencer was starting to lose the battle.

Without much warning, Jack shifted closer to him, edging his body against his back. Spencer froze. “Dude, are you spooning me?”

“I’m freezing my nuts off,” Jack responded. “Sorry, it was just a reflex.” He eased away again.

Spencer had stiffened with the sensation of Jack’s frame curling against him, stiffened in more than just his shoulders if he was honest with himself. He reasoned that it was necessary, that it would be stupid not to take advantage of each other’s body heat. That made it OK—nothing weird or wrong about that. Spencer tried to sound unaffected. “It’s cool. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

“I can’t seem to stop my teeth from chattering.”

“Come on, get closer.” His ankle was sure to complain about it, but Spencer scooted back toward him. The pain burned bright as he made contact with Jack’s broad chest and also something undeniably hard in his pants. Spencer froze again. Jack cursed softly under his breath.

There wasn’t a thing odd about two men trying to keep warm, but Jack’s erection pressed firmly against Spencer’s ass…and it made him want to press back against it.

“Sorry, stress does weird shit to me,” Jack said finally.

Jack’s stress was doing weird shit to Spencer too. “Dude, just don’t start humping me.” He said this mostly because he didn’t think he had it in him to tell him to stop.

Jack snorted a quick, stunted laugh that seemed practiced. Then they were silent for a long minute.

Jack shifted again, with what Spencer thought was a move to bring them just a hair closer. “Hey, you ever been trapped someplace before?”

Spencer grimaced at Jack’s question. “I thought we were supposed to be distracting ourselves.”

“I know, but this whole thing kind of reminds me of the time I got locked in the basement at my family’s summer house.”

“Not exactly the same thing.”

“No, it’s a good story, though. You see, I had this raging crush on our new neighbor’s daughter. We were about the same age; she was a year older, a senior at a private school upstate. I was just a junior at Stuyvesant. It was the end of the summer and I finally got the courage to ask her to come over the night our parents were all at the big charity gala at the yacht club.”

“This is some real Norman Rockwell shit, isn’t it?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, you think? Just wait.”

Spencer could imagine the smoky grin on Jack’s lips. He heard it in that little taunt.

“I tell her to come over around ten. Plenty of time to get the parents out of the house. She shows up with her cousin, a sophomore sorority girl home from college.”

“Cock block,” Spencer said with a knowing chuckle.

“That’s what I thought. Great! Now I’ve got to find some way around her cousin. So, like a polite host, I gave them the tour which ended up in the semifinished basement of our old house. Elle, my neighbor’s cousin, closed the door before I could tell her the lock was broken.”

“Why would she close the door?”

“Turns out Cindy had brought her for a reason. Elle pulled out three long joints from her purse.”

“Not a cock blocker after all?”

“Not in the least. “

Spencer imagined a younger Jack Rothman, gangly at seventeen with his lean lines and tall stature. He imagined him tan and golden haired from hours at the beach, fiddling with his sailboat. “So what happened?”

“We got high. It was my first exposure to marijuana. I was a shy teenager. Didn’t do much socializing. By the time we tried the door to leave, all of us were so fucked-up, the fact that it wouldn’t open just seemed really funny.” He paused. “That is, until the paranoia set in on Cindy. She started freaking out that her parents were going to find out.”

“Not fun.”

“I put my arms around her, just to calm her down. She grabbed my collar and started kissing me. I’d never gotten high before, and I’d never kissed a girl before. It was turning out to be a hell of a night.”

“And her cousin?”

“Elle seemed mad about it and told us to cut it out.”

“Back to cock blocking.”

“Not for long. We all sat on the couch, Cindy on one side of me and Elle on the other. It was the most natural thing to do, hold them both against me as we nodded off to sleep. I awoke to Elle kissing my neck and Cindy licking my earlobe. I guess they’d worked it out between them. Anyway, they had no complaints from me.”

“You’re telling me your first kiss was a threesome?”

“Well, technically it was my second kiss. But there were plenty of other firsts that night.”

“Wow, that’s like every teenage boy’s fantasy.”

“Those were the days. Everything was new, you know? Super exciting.” Jack shifted against him. Spencer shifted back; part reflex, part compulsion. “I barely knew what I was doing. Girls had all that new equipment, you know what I mean? Fuck it, I just let my instincts guide me.” Jack’s cock nudged against Spencer’s ass through both of their pants. “Sometimes you gotta do that.”

Spencer cleared his throat.

“Sorry, dude. That memory kind of gets me going.”

“It’s OK. I won’t hold it against you.” Spencer bit the inside of his lip and rolled his eyes at how that sounded. “I mean, I get it. Not a problem.” Only Jack wasn’t the only one threatening to burst through his zipper. The way Jack felt prodding against his ass cheek, rock hard and solid, was a surprising thrill. He also knew Jack had been hard before he even started to tell that story.

Spencer tried to refocus. “So how long were you down there?”

“Our parents didn’t even know we were missing until the next morning. I yelled out for my father when we woke up and he opened the door for us.”

“What did he say when he found you there with two girls?”

“I’ve never seen him more proud, slapping me on the back and guffawing like an ass.”

Spencer thought about his first kiss and how his father had also flashed him a knowing look when the two young teens had emerged from the back of the public bathrooms at Forrest Park one dusky Fourth of July evening. Only the look had been of sheer malice. Spencer had been with a fast-talking proverbial bad boy named Lucas Wells.

He shivered suddenly, remembering that look of pure hatred. It had stung him in the chest and made him wish he could be anyone else. They had left the park swiftly, Spencer and his mom in tow behind a fuming Tom Hartley. Back at the house, his parents had a big fight, their shouting heard well over the fireworks breaking joyously in the sky. His father left in a fit, saying he needed to go for a walk. Tom Hartley went for a lot of walks in the wooded Forrest Park, located only a block away from their front door. Dad would go for walks while Mom cried into her gin and tonic and Spencer counted the days until he could leave that god-awful place and never look back.

Now he was miserably cold, racked with pain, and scared shitless of drowning, but the warm strength of Jack’s body behind him meant more than just warmth; he would have killed to keep Jack right there.

* * *

Officer Peters returned to Rory’s side. “Ma’am, we have a dive team prepping as we speak. There’s an open manhole over there, near the corner. They’ll check it out.” He looked pointedly at her, his furry eyebrows raised earnestly. “You have anyone to wait here with you?”

Rory started to speak, but just a sob came out. Oh God, what if he
was
down there? His mother should be contacted. Only Rory had no idea how to begin to do that. She caught her breath between lurches of her diaphragm. “His mother’s name is Grace. He doesn’t talk about her much, but I think she might still live in Queens.” Another harsh realization and she suddenly felt enormously guilty for not trying harder to get to know her boyfriend’s mother. “I’m sorry, I don’t have her phone number though.”

Officer Peters took out his memo book. “Grace…?”

“Grace Hartley,” she said, regaining some composure. “If you can find her number, I’m sure she’d want to know what’s going on.”

“We’ll get to work on it. Sit tight, I’ll keep you updated.”

Rory nodded in a daze at the officer’s matter-of-fact tone. He probably dealt with matters of life and death all the time. Rory had no idea what she would do if she found out her beautiful man was lying lifeless in a tunnel under her feet. She stumbled to the corner garbage can. Her stomach was suddenly very queasy.

* * *

Spencer’s whole leg was numb. As long as he remained completely still he could be thankful for that, at least. “Where were we?”

“Best vintage Bond flick,” Jack said. They’d already run through best garage band, best Super Bowl, best swimsuit cover model, and best way to eat a hot dog.

“That’s got to be
The Man with the Golden Gun
,” Spencer answered.

“Roger Moore? Really?”

“What? That was like forty years ago. Not vintage enough for you?”

Jack laughed. “Guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

Spencer would have jabbed him in the ribs, the way guys do when they’re yanking each other’s chain. He would have caught him right in the solar plexus with a playful tap of his fist if they’d been hanging out over beers on his back deck. He could see them chilling out, shooting the shit with a full belly, gazing out over the valley. He could see it clear as day in the dark and murk of the tunnel.

“Wait, do you hear something?” Jack said, calling Spencer back from the daydream.

Spencer held his breath and listened. There was splashing some way down the tunnel. Spencer clicked on the light and twisted his body to shine it toward the sound. The nerves that had been on shutdown sprang back to life with sadistic enthusiasm, making him grind his teeth. He saw nothing.

“Maybe it was some rats.”

Jack struggled onto his side to see for himself. With bated breath, Spencer bit back pain, praying for any sign of rescue. There was a soft glow in the dark water. Nothing could have been a more welcome sight, except maybe Rory’s face when he finally got home. How long had they been down there? Two hours? Four? Fuck, he couldn’t wait to see her, swallow her up in his arms, and make love to her all night long. He grimaced at the thunderous throbbing in his ankle and yelled out at the top of his lungs toward the light.

* * *

Rory clutched her purse strap in both hands, holding on to it as if it were tethered to Spencer’s fate. If Spencer
was
trapped down there, how could he have possibly survived? She prayed he was OK, but the water main break happened hours ago; it was such a long shot. Her heart stopped in the moment the first diver climbed back out of the hole. Her fingernails dug into her palms and left tiny little cuts in the soft pink flesh.
Please, please, please…

“We need two more air regulators and two cylinders! Now!”

And then he descended back down the hole. Rory tore past Officer Peters, who’d been standing as sentinel since the divers went down. She needed to be closer, needed to see with her own eyes the moment they brought him out.

Officer Peters didn’t try to stop her. She thanked him with a swift glance over her shoulder, mouthing the words. He was busy with the gathering crowd and winked at her in response. It took longer than forever for the divers to resurface. One had his arms around somebody’s chest; the other had the man’s legs in his hands. The rescued man roared out in agony several times before they got him onto the waiting stretcher. Rory peered over him, willing her eyes to see Spencer.

“Hey,” the man said, smiling up at her with a crooked sort of grin. “You must be Rory.”

* * *

Spencer waited for the rescue team to return. It was easy to insist that Jack be the first brought to the surface. He wasn’t looking forward to getting back in the water.

“We’re going to brace your ankle before we make the move,” one of the rescuers informed him upon returning. He set his waterproof torch down and took off his diving mask. Then he gave Spencer a guarded smile. “I won’t lie to you; this is going to hurt. And we won’t be able to give you anything for the pain until we have you out of the water.”

“Thanks for breaking it to me easy,” Spencer replied, managing the right amount of saltiness in his tone to mask the terror swelling deep down.

The rescuer gave him a nod. “You’re going to be all right. They’ll get you all patched up at the ER and you’ll be good as new. But first we have to get you out of here.” He showed him the brace, which consisted of two plastic and foam wedges and several straps. “Are you ready?”