A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,12

A glint in his eye. A hunger. Rufus could always sense the closet sorts, though. His ability to pick out the desperate guys was what got him any dick at all, even if most of those fucks left something to be desired. But that came with living in the underbelly of New York City, he supposed. This crowd wasn’t much for gay is ok. So if Rufus was feeling a need for a deep-dicking, it was either lower his standards or die from the worst case of blue balls in recent history.

Rufus jumped over some dog shit baking on the sidewalk, snaked around several suited businessmen leaving a bar—probably a late lunch—and sidestepped a vendor unloading his hand truck and passing boxes down to someone inside the cellar of a business storefront. The city ebbed and flowed around him with endless day-to-day activities. Millions of people had no idea his foundation was gone and, once again, Rufus was completely alone.

He stopped outside the door of BlueMoon, briefly closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then he grabbed the handle, looked back, and waited a moment until Sam had caught up with him. Rufus yanked the sticker-laden glass door open and stepped inside. BlueMoon was about as typical an American diner as they came. The air smelled of burned coffee and cooking meat. There was a small bar and stools to the left, a register, and a kitchen window where the cook was piling up plates and ringing the bell. The narrow middle aisle of the diner was packed with two-person tables, and booths lined the right side along the big bay windows that overlooked the street.

The diner wasn’t terribly busy. The lunch crowd had already made their way back to the offices for the second half of the workday, but a few familiar locals remained at the counter, waiting for the afternoon soaps Maddie always turned on, and a table near the front was shared by a group of tourists who looked to be horribly lost.

Rufus was tempted to tell them that Times Square was back east a few blocks, but he let it go and walked to a booth about halfway into the diner.

“Be right with you, Freckles,” Maddie called from the register.

Rufus didn’t answer. He reached his usual seat, tugged off his jean jacket, and threw it into the corner of the booth against the wall with energy akin to a low-key tantrum. He sat down on the cracked vinyl seat and scooted sideways until his shoulder rested against the window. He brought one leg up to rest an elbow on his knee, then stared up at Sam.

Sam was eyeing the diner with open displeasure. He glanced at the front door, now to his back, but reluctantly slid into the seat opposite of Rufus.

Rufus removed his sunglasses, hung them from his T-shirt collar, and then yanked his beanie off once again. He absently finger-combed his hair while staring hard at Sam. He had a lot to ask—about Jake, about Sam, about what Sam was going to do regarding Jake—but instead Rufus blurted out the one thing that’d been chafing him since the apartment.

“I have pubes.”

“I could have gone the rest of my life without walking into a discussion about whether your carpet matches the drapes,” Maddie grumbled as she rounded an empty table and slid up to the booth, pen and server book in either hand. She was black and fortysomething as far as Rufus figured, with that critical glint in her eye unique to mothers.

Rufus felt his neck and face start to warm for a second time. “It does,” he answered. “And mind your business, Maddie.”

“Don’t get testy with me.” She slapped Rufus’s knee with her notepad. “Feet off the damn furniture.”

He obediently shifted position, placed both Chucks squarely on the floor, and leaned against the seat with a frown. But Rufus was not sulking. It’d been a long day. A long week. A long fucking life. He was hangry too, which was never a good state to be in, and Sam with his perfect manly stubble, staring at him from across the table and probably never having someone question the state of his pubes….

“Just a coffee, Freckles?” Maddie asked without missing a beat.

Rufus nodded. “With cream.”

“With cream, I know.” She looked at Sam and asked, “What about you, handsome? Coffee? Food?”

Rufus plucked a single-sided plastic menu from where it was wedged between two displays, one dessert and the other the Sunday specials, and smacked it