A True Gentleman
Title: A True Gentleman (10/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
Billy dropped the final paper he’d graded in the briefcase on the coffee table, rubbing his eyes under his glasses before looking at his watch, finding it a bit later than he’d thought it was. With a sigh, he pulled himself off the sofa and to the bathroom to start the shower warming up. He shivered as he tugged off his jumper and the two t-shirts underneath, the bitter cold unrelenting today, especially in this basement flat of his. He hurried to shuck his khakis and get under the slowly warming water.
His day had not gone well. He was still trying to trudge through grading the midterms for Mort’s two classes, as well as the other assignments piling up in front of it. The HAA 89 class had been so disruptive this afternoon that they were almost aiming to pass Dominic’s group in that area. He’d come home to find an atrociously high heating bill in his postbox, due to the fact that March seemed intent on keeping winter around for a good long while yet, and upon making another call to the proposal committee he’d been told they would not address his case at all if he didn’t stop calling.
Dominic had found him in the library yesterday afternoon. They didn’t talk much, just worked together at their usual table. Even so, Billy kept seeing Dom’s expression when he’d stormed out the previous week. It was nearly as burned into his mind as that kiss, the darkly frustrated cant of his eyes, the rough growl of his voice: I did it because I wanted to. It was very nearly genuine, if Dom hadn’t been the sort of person who got a laugh out of fucking with people.
Billy pushed the shampoo back through his hair, hurrying to scrub before the water got cold. He probably shouldn’t have showered at all, as late as he was running, but sometimes it was the only way to warm up in this godforsaken place.
Drying off, he shrugged into a clean white shirt and the black slacks he’d worn yesterday, grabbed his apron, tie, keys and phone on the way out, shivering again in his old tweed blazer. He made his way around iced-over sidewalks and dirty snow banks from the plows to his sorry old car parked on the curb. It was so cold the door stuck in its frame, taking a kick and a heave to free it. Getting in, he rubbed his hands together and hurried to start the car. At the very least the heater still worked in the bloody thing.
But as he turned the key, the old Pulsar made a sad, grinding noise that spluttered down to nothing.
“Oh no, no, no,” Bill murmured to the steering wheel, tapping the gas and turning the key again, listening to the engine stutter and try to turn over.
“Come on”-the engine tried-“Come on, sweetheart, come on, be good for me now”-and tried again-“Please?”-slowly getting faster until finally-“Yes!”-it chugged to a feasible start.
He blew out a huge breath, tapped on his blinker, turned the steering wheel out of the space and pressed the accelerator… and the car gave a huge, belching, smoky cough, lurched and died completely.
“Oh fuck you, piece of shit!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the dash, then dove in his pocket for his mobile. As he thumbed through the contacts his phone flashed that his battery was about to die, but he hit the number for Morton’s anyway, hearing it ring once, twice, a third time.
“Thank you for calling Morton’s Steakhouse, can I make a reservation for you today?”
“Laura! I-”
The phone died.
“Laura? Hello? FUCK!” he yelled, throwing the phone into the foot well of the dead car.
“Take it easy, Bills,” came the very last voice on earth he wanted to hear.
Billy closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on the frigid steering wheel, hearing footsteps approach, crunching on the snow over concrete, “Go away, Dominic, before I strangle you.”
Dom stood at his permanently open passenger window, wearing gloves with the fingertips cut off and thumbs hooked in his belt below a down LL Bean ski jacket. His tousled hair stuck out from below a cable knit beanie cap, and his ubiquitous shoulder bag sat on his hip, which he dug through. “Aw, but I thought you’d be happy to see me. Mort asked me to give these to you, he said you forgot them,” and he tugged another pile of essays to be graded from his bag, scrunching up his nose. “Jesus, this thing smells bound for a junkyard. You know how bad a clunker like this must be for the environment? Your carbon footprint is probably huge, mate.”
Billy put his head back on the crumbling foam headrest and laughed, the psychotic giggle of a man whose day and month and year could not possibly get worse, and covered his face.
“That was a good one, right?” Dom leaned closer to the window, “Bills? You okay?”
“Go away.”
“Yep, you seem fine to me,” Dom grinned cheekily.
Billy heaved a very put-upon sigh. “Car’s dead. Phone’s dead. And I’ve got to be at work in…” he looked at his watch, “Fuck, seven minutes.” His hands tapped on the wheel as he swallowed his pride, pushing open the door and stepping out, looking at Dom across its ice crusted roof. “Dom, could I possibly use your phone? I’ll have to take the subway and that’ll put me a half hour late, at least.”
“Bugger that, just let me drive you,” Dom said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder, “I’m parked right around the corner.”
Billy eyed him sideways, eyebrows pinching. He hated the idea that Dom would do him a favor, as much as he hated that Dom showed up when he was in a state of such exasperation that all he wanted to do was crawl under his covers and stick his fingers in his ears until the world righted itself again.
“Come on, mate,” Dom laughed at his hesitation, pulling his sleek touch screen phone from his pocket and holding it out.
Billy huffed, dove back into the car to grab his apron and tie, and followed Dom across the street and down the next block to where his black Prius was parked.
After he’d rung Laura back and explained that he’d be a bit late, he pulled his velcro bowtie through his fingers while Dom smoothly navigated through the traffic across the river, tapping his fingers to a band Billy didn’t recognize from the stereo. Billy furtively glanced at Dom as he drove, wondering what was going through his head, what he was planning on getting out of doing this favor and what he’d want to be owed for it. The car had the smell of new plastics and carpet, and comfortable seats. It took Billy most of the ride to realize they were heated, and his bum and the rest of him was toasty warm by the time they pulled up to Morton’s.
“Want me to pick you up when you’re off?” Dom asked.
“No,” Billy said quickly, “No, I won’t be off until late anyway, I’ll just-”
“How late?”
“Midnight, usually. I’ll just catch a ride with one of the others,” he buttoned the top button of his crisp white shirt and flipped up the collar to velcro on the bowtie.
“I’ll be out here at midnight, then.”
Billy pushed open the door, noting that unlike his rusty old junker, it didn’t stick or squeak and groan at the movement. “Thanks, Dom, but don’t worry about it,” and closed the door so as not to give Dom a chance to keep playing boy scout, crunching up the steps of the restaurant.
Six hours later, exhausted and reeling from an eighteen top full of financiers who got more picky and rude the more they drank, Billy stumbled out onto the sidewalk, pulling his tips from his pocket to see how much he could spare for a cab. None of the wait or kitchen staff on tonight were going his direction, and the buses were done for the night, and just to top off his evening, he discovered that his subway pass had expired two days ago.
A honk made him lift his head to see a black Prius move from a parking space and pull alongside him, the dusting of snow on its roof telling him Dom had been waiting at least fifteen or twenty minutes for Billy to emerge.
Billy woke the next morning to his alarm, groaning before rolling over and pulling the covers up higher in the chill. Visions and sounds of his dreams still went round in his head of trying desperately to start his car, Dominic in the passenger’s seat laughing and leering, If you can’t make it start, Bills, I might kiss you again.
He’d barely peeled his clothes off before falling into bed the night before after Dom had dropped him off. If only he could blow off work and just be a lump, just for one day, the world would be a better place. At least today was Saturday, and he’d have his evening free to try and figure out what to do about the bloody car.
As if his dream was bleeding into his real life, the sound of an engine struggling to start roused him from his morning daze, a very familiar noise, it sounded exactly like-
He launched himself out of bed and yanked on the first pair of trousers and sweatshirt he found, peeking around the thin curtain to see three people standing around what was definitely his car.
Shoving his feet into shoes, he threw open the door and stormed out.
“Oi! What the fuck are you doing, this is my car!” he shouted before he recognized Elijah watching from the sidewalk, a fag hanging from his mouth as he turned to face him.
“No shit.”
“Dom, give her a go again?” called another recognizable voice from beneath the open bonnet, and the car tried again to turn over, again and again until it started, revved and then coughed to a halt, smoke billowing from both ends.
“Nah mate, it’s done for,” Orlando said, then dropped the hood on the whole mess, wiping grease and dirt from his hands on an old gym towel. “Head gaskets are shot, and sounds like at least one of the pistons as well.”
Dom emerged from the driver’s side. “Okay, well, let’s just go get the parts. Head gasket, and piss… thing.”
“You are so metro, Dom,” Orlando laughed, “You can’t just replace shit like that. Unless you want to tow it to a shop and get a whole new engine, and I wouldn’t drop a new block in this beast, it’s not even worth it, man. This thing is barely worth its steel anymore, it’s amazing it didn’t rattle itself apart before this.”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” Billy said sarcastically, waving his hands, “You want to tell me just what the bloody fuck you’re doing?”
Dom chewed his bottom lip. “Well, I was trying to get your car working again, but…”
“You actually thought we were gonna steal it?” Elijah erupted into giggles.
“I didn’t ask you to do this!” Billy yelled, “What is it with you? Why are the three of you always on my arse, doing the best you can to make my life more of a fucking joke than it already is, eh? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
“Billy, relax, mate,” Dom grinned hesitantly, tugging an ear.
“No, I don’t want to bloody relax, how did you even get into my car in the first place? Why-”
Dom tossed the keys over the car’s roof, stopping him mid-tirade to catch them before they hit him on the nose. “You left them in there. Not as if anyone would try to steal it, though I’m betting they’d be doing you a service there. I thought it would be nice if I got someone round to fix it for you, but apparently I couldn’t even do that,” he looked over at Orlando for confirmation.
Orlando continued wiping his fingers, shaking his head. “She’d dead, Jim. Sorry.”
Billy stared at the three of them in turn and then at the old broke down Nissan, pocketed the keys and then just turned and went back to his flat, shut the door and slumped on the sofa.
It took seven and a half minutes for the predictable knock on the door to sound.
“Bills, open up. Please?”
“It’s open, you fuckwit.”
Dom pushed the door open and shut it after himself. He lingered there, shifting his feet, looking a mixture of apprehensive and angry as Billy looked back at him dully.
“You left your mobile in there as well,” Dom said putting the dead phone on the coffee table, twiddling his fingers together in his fingerless gloves and looking at his shoes, speaking quietly, “Look, I was only trying to help, and I obviously fucked that right up. Orli says you could maybe get a couple hundred dollars out of it at a junkyard, at least.”
“Oh, that will do me loads of good, thanks, Dom,” Billy drawled sarcastically, “That will almost cover my heating bill for the month. I’m chuffed. Maybe now I can grow wings and fucking fly to work. Maybe I’ll buy myself a horse and carriage. No, just the carriage, horse would cost too fucking much to feed.”
Dom huffed and shuffled around in front of the door for a moment. “Well… I’ll drive to you work, then.”
Billy snorted, still sprawled on his sofa. “Why would you do that, eh? Go out of your way to take me to work every day?”
“I don’t know, Bill, because it’s a nice thing to do, maybe?” Dom flung a hand out, then strode over and sat himself. “It isn’t that far out of my way, you know, I only live in Kendall Park.”
Billy sighed, fixing his eyes on the phone. “I don’t want your charity.”
“It’s not charity,” Dom chuckled, “It’s what a mate would do for a mate, isn’t it? At least until you can sort out another car or something.”
Billy stood up, scooping up his phone and taking it to the kitchen to plug it into its charger. That’s what Dom thought, then? They were mates? What could Dom be getting out of this, these study sessions that were supposedly insisted upon by Mort, and now out-of-the-blue offers to help him? Billy could not imagine that he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and everything he knew of Dom was that it wasn’t a good one.
He sighed again, leaning his palms on the counter. If he was going to be honest with himself, Dom had not been quite so bad lately. He heard Dom moving, the shift of his clothing as he came toward the archway to the kitchen, and turned around to face him. “I can’t afford to give you money for gas.”
Dom shrugged, “It’s a Prius. Anyway, I bet your old car sucked down five times as much gas as mine does, you’ll be saving money.”
Billy sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. “I don’t know, Dom. I can just take the subway. And I’m sure you have other things you could be doing.”
“You’ll lose study time if you take the subway,” Dom countered. “And I don’t have a lot to do anymore, really, with graduation soon. They’ve elected underclassmen to take over duties in the frat and the GSA. I don’t really even have to show up anymore.”
“So how can I count on you to show up for this? On time, every day?”
Dom blinked, “What, because I don’t get to class and to study on time? You really think I’m that unaccountable?”
Billy chewed his lip. Dom wasn’t letting him win, as usual. “Alright,” he relented, shaking his head.
Dom grinned, clearly happy to have won yet another argument, “Seven o’clock, then? Every evening?”
“No, I need to be there at seven. Except today, Saturdays. But I’ll need you to be here by a quarter past six, yeah?” Billy insisted, “I don’t like being late.”
“Of course,” Dom nodded, backing to the door again, pointing awkwardly to it. “The guys are waiting on me. I’ll just… leave you to your weekend, then.”
When Dom saw himself out, Billy expelled a breath, trying to push down the nerves that had come up with Dom here, alone in his house, sat beside him on that sofa again. He went to his bedroom to get dressed properly for his job at the framers, if he was going to make it there on time by foot. He didn’t quite want Dom to be doing him such a favor as to be chauffering him to both of his jobs, and this one at least was only a few blocks away.
Still he couldn’t help but wonder what Dom was getting out of this. And fear what the ultimate price might be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
Billy dropped the final paper he’d graded in the briefcase on the coffee table, rubbing his eyes under his glasses before looking at his watch, finding it a bit later than he’d thought it was. With a sigh, he pulled himself off the sofa and to the bathroom to start the shower warming up. He shivered as he tugged off his jumper and the two t-shirts underneath, the bitter cold unrelenting today, especially in this basement flat of his. He hurried to shuck his khakis and get under the slowly warming water.
His day had not gone well. He was still trying to trudge through grading the midterms for Mort’s two classes, as well as the other assignments piling up in front of it. The HAA 89 class had been so disruptive this afternoon that they were almost aiming to pass Dominic’s group in that area. He’d come home to find an atrociously high heating bill in his postbox, due to the fact that March seemed intent on keeping winter around for a good long while yet, and upon making another call to the proposal committee he’d been told they would not address his case at all if he didn’t stop calling.
Dominic had found him in the library yesterday afternoon. They didn’t talk much, just worked together at their usual table. Even so, Billy kept seeing Dom’s expression when he’d stormed out the previous week. It was nearly as burned into his mind as that kiss, the darkly frustrated cant of his eyes, the rough growl of his voice: I did it because I wanted to. It was very nearly genuine, if Dom hadn’t been the sort of person who got a laugh out of fucking with people.
Billy pushed the shampoo back through his hair, hurrying to scrub before the water got cold. He probably shouldn’t have showered at all, as late as he was running, but sometimes it was the only way to warm up in this godforsaken place.
Drying off, he shrugged into a clean white shirt and the black slacks he’d worn yesterday, grabbed his apron, tie, keys and phone on the way out, shivering again in his old tweed blazer. He made his way around iced-over sidewalks and dirty snow banks from the plows to his sorry old car parked on the curb. It was so cold the door stuck in its frame, taking a kick and a heave to free it. Getting in, he rubbed his hands together and hurried to start the car. At the very least the heater still worked in the bloody thing.
But as he turned the key, the old Pulsar made a sad, grinding noise that spluttered down to nothing.
“Oh no, no, no,” Bill murmured to the steering wheel, tapping the gas and turning the key again, listening to the engine stutter and try to turn over.
“Come on”-the engine tried-“Come on, sweetheart, come on, be good for me now”-and tried again-“Please?”-slowly getting faster until finally-“Yes!”-it chugged to a feasible start.
He blew out a huge breath, tapped on his blinker, turned the steering wheel out of the space and pressed the accelerator… and the car gave a huge, belching, smoky cough, lurched and died completely.
“Oh fuck you, piece of shit!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the dash, then dove in his pocket for his mobile. As he thumbed through the contacts his phone flashed that his battery was about to die, but he hit the number for Morton’s anyway, hearing it ring once, twice, a third time.
“Thank you for calling Morton’s Steakhouse, can I make a reservation for you today?”
“Laura! I-”
The phone died.
“Laura? Hello? FUCK!” he yelled, throwing the phone into the foot well of the dead car.
“Take it easy, Bills,” came the very last voice on earth he wanted to hear.
Billy closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on the frigid steering wheel, hearing footsteps approach, crunching on the snow over concrete, “Go away, Dominic, before I strangle you.”
Dom stood at his permanently open passenger window, wearing gloves with the fingertips cut off and thumbs hooked in his belt below a down LL Bean ski jacket. His tousled hair stuck out from below a cable knit beanie cap, and his ubiquitous shoulder bag sat on his hip, which he dug through. “Aw, but I thought you’d be happy to see me. Mort asked me to give these to you, he said you forgot them,” and he tugged another pile of essays to be graded from his bag, scrunching up his nose. “Jesus, this thing smells bound for a junkyard. You know how bad a clunker like this must be for the environment? Your carbon footprint is probably huge, mate.”
Billy put his head back on the crumbling foam headrest and laughed, the psychotic giggle of a man whose day and month and year could not possibly get worse, and covered his face.
“That was a good one, right?” Dom leaned closer to the window, “Bills? You okay?”
“Go away.”
“Yep, you seem fine to me,” Dom grinned cheekily.
Billy heaved a very put-upon sigh. “Car’s dead. Phone’s dead. And I’ve got to be at work in…” he looked at his watch, “Fuck, seven minutes.” His hands tapped on the wheel as he swallowed his pride, pushing open the door and stepping out, looking at Dom across its ice crusted roof. “Dom, could I possibly use your phone? I’ll have to take the subway and that’ll put me a half hour late, at least.”
“Bugger that, just let me drive you,” Dom said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder, “I’m parked right around the corner.”
Billy eyed him sideways, eyebrows pinching. He hated the idea that Dom would do him a favor, as much as he hated that Dom showed up when he was in a state of such exasperation that all he wanted to do was crawl under his covers and stick his fingers in his ears until the world righted itself again.
“Come on, mate,” Dom laughed at his hesitation, pulling his sleek touch screen phone from his pocket and holding it out.
Billy huffed, dove back into the car to grab his apron and tie, and followed Dom across the street and down the next block to where his black Prius was parked.
After he’d rung Laura back and explained that he’d be a bit late, he pulled his velcro bowtie through his fingers while Dom smoothly navigated through the traffic across the river, tapping his fingers to a band Billy didn’t recognize from the stereo. Billy furtively glanced at Dom as he drove, wondering what was going through his head, what he was planning on getting out of doing this favor and what he’d want to be owed for it. The car had the smell of new plastics and carpet, and comfortable seats. It took Billy most of the ride to realize they were heated, and his bum and the rest of him was toasty warm by the time they pulled up to Morton’s.
“Want me to pick you up when you’re off?” Dom asked.
“No,” Billy said quickly, “No, I won’t be off until late anyway, I’ll just-”
“How late?”
“Midnight, usually. I’ll just catch a ride with one of the others,” he buttoned the top button of his crisp white shirt and flipped up the collar to velcro on the bowtie.
“I’ll be out here at midnight, then.”
Billy pushed open the door, noting that unlike his rusty old junker, it didn’t stick or squeak and groan at the movement. “Thanks, Dom, but don’t worry about it,” and closed the door so as not to give Dom a chance to keep playing boy scout, crunching up the steps of the restaurant.
Six hours later, exhausted and reeling from an eighteen top full of financiers who got more picky and rude the more they drank, Billy stumbled out onto the sidewalk, pulling his tips from his pocket to see how much he could spare for a cab. None of the wait or kitchen staff on tonight were going his direction, and the buses were done for the night, and just to top off his evening, he discovered that his subway pass had expired two days ago.
A honk made him lift his head to see a black Prius move from a parking space and pull alongside him, the dusting of snow on its roof telling him Dom had been waiting at least fifteen or twenty minutes for Billy to emerge.
Billy woke the next morning to his alarm, groaning before rolling over and pulling the covers up higher in the chill. Visions and sounds of his dreams still went round in his head of trying desperately to start his car, Dominic in the passenger’s seat laughing and leering, If you can’t make it start, Bills, I might kiss you again.
He’d barely peeled his clothes off before falling into bed the night before after Dom had dropped him off. If only he could blow off work and just be a lump, just for one day, the world would be a better place. At least today was Saturday, and he’d have his evening free to try and figure out what to do about the bloody car.
As if his dream was bleeding into his real life, the sound of an engine struggling to start roused him from his morning daze, a very familiar noise, it sounded exactly like-
He launched himself out of bed and yanked on the first pair of trousers and sweatshirt he found, peeking around the thin curtain to see three people standing around what was definitely his car.
Shoving his feet into shoes, he threw open the door and stormed out.
“Oi! What the fuck are you doing, this is my car!” he shouted before he recognized Elijah watching from the sidewalk, a fag hanging from his mouth as he turned to face him.
“No shit.”
“Dom, give her a go again?” called another recognizable voice from beneath the open bonnet, and the car tried again to turn over, again and again until it started, revved and then coughed to a halt, smoke billowing from both ends.
“Nah mate, it’s done for,” Orlando said, then dropped the hood on the whole mess, wiping grease and dirt from his hands on an old gym towel. “Head gaskets are shot, and sounds like at least one of the pistons as well.”
Dom emerged from the driver’s side. “Okay, well, let’s just go get the parts. Head gasket, and piss… thing.”
“You are so metro, Dom,” Orlando laughed, “You can’t just replace shit like that. Unless you want to tow it to a shop and get a whole new engine, and I wouldn’t drop a new block in this beast, it’s not even worth it, man. This thing is barely worth its steel anymore, it’s amazing it didn’t rattle itself apart before this.”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” Billy said sarcastically, waving his hands, “You want to tell me just what the bloody fuck you’re doing?”
Dom chewed his bottom lip. “Well, I was trying to get your car working again, but…”
“You actually thought we were gonna steal it?” Elijah erupted into giggles.
“I didn’t ask you to do this!” Billy yelled, “What is it with you? Why are the three of you always on my arse, doing the best you can to make my life more of a fucking joke than it already is, eh? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
“Billy, relax, mate,” Dom grinned hesitantly, tugging an ear.
“No, I don’t want to bloody relax, how did you even get into my car in the first place? Why-”
Dom tossed the keys over the car’s roof, stopping him mid-tirade to catch them before they hit him on the nose. “You left them in there. Not as if anyone would try to steal it, though I’m betting they’d be doing you a service there. I thought it would be nice if I got someone round to fix it for you, but apparently I couldn’t even do that,” he looked over at Orlando for confirmation.
Orlando continued wiping his fingers, shaking his head. “She’d dead, Jim. Sorry.”
Billy stared at the three of them in turn and then at the old broke down Nissan, pocketed the keys and then just turned and went back to his flat, shut the door and slumped on the sofa.
It took seven and a half minutes for the predictable knock on the door to sound.
“Bills, open up. Please?”
“It’s open, you fuckwit.”
Dom pushed the door open and shut it after himself. He lingered there, shifting his feet, looking a mixture of apprehensive and angry as Billy looked back at him dully.
“You left your mobile in there as well,” Dom said putting the dead phone on the coffee table, twiddling his fingers together in his fingerless gloves and looking at his shoes, speaking quietly, “Look, I was only trying to help, and I obviously fucked that right up. Orli says you could maybe get a couple hundred dollars out of it at a junkyard, at least.”
“Oh, that will do me loads of good, thanks, Dom,” Billy drawled sarcastically, “That will almost cover my heating bill for the month. I’m chuffed. Maybe now I can grow wings and fucking fly to work. Maybe I’ll buy myself a horse and carriage. No, just the carriage, horse would cost too fucking much to feed.”
Dom huffed and shuffled around in front of the door for a moment. “Well… I’ll drive to you work, then.”
Billy snorted, still sprawled on his sofa. “Why would you do that, eh? Go out of your way to take me to work every day?”
“I don’t know, Bill, because it’s a nice thing to do, maybe?” Dom flung a hand out, then strode over and sat himself. “It isn’t that far out of my way, you know, I only live in Kendall Park.”
Billy sighed, fixing his eyes on the phone. “I don’t want your charity.”
“It’s not charity,” Dom chuckled, “It’s what a mate would do for a mate, isn’t it? At least until you can sort out another car or something.”
Billy stood up, scooping up his phone and taking it to the kitchen to plug it into its charger. That’s what Dom thought, then? They were mates? What could Dom be getting out of this, these study sessions that were supposedly insisted upon by Mort, and now out-of-the-blue offers to help him? Billy could not imagine that he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and everything he knew of Dom was that it wasn’t a good one.
He sighed again, leaning his palms on the counter. If he was going to be honest with himself, Dom had not been quite so bad lately. He heard Dom moving, the shift of his clothing as he came toward the archway to the kitchen, and turned around to face him. “I can’t afford to give you money for gas.”
Dom shrugged, “It’s a Prius. Anyway, I bet your old car sucked down five times as much gas as mine does, you’ll be saving money.”
Billy sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. “I don’t know, Dom. I can just take the subway. And I’m sure you have other things you could be doing.”
“You’ll lose study time if you take the subway,” Dom countered. “And I don’t have a lot to do anymore, really, with graduation soon. They’ve elected underclassmen to take over duties in the frat and the GSA. I don’t really even have to show up anymore.”
“So how can I count on you to show up for this? On time, every day?”
Dom blinked, “What, because I don’t get to class and to study on time? You really think I’m that unaccountable?”
Billy chewed his lip. Dom wasn’t letting him win, as usual. “Alright,” he relented, shaking his head.
Dom grinned, clearly happy to have won yet another argument, “Seven o’clock, then? Every evening?”
“No, I need to be there at seven. Except today, Saturdays. But I’ll need you to be here by a quarter past six, yeah?” Billy insisted, “I don’t like being late.”
“Of course,” Dom nodded, backing to the door again, pointing awkwardly to it. “The guys are waiting on me. I’ll just… leave you to your weekend, then.”
When Dom saw himself out, Billy expelled a breath, trying to push down the nerves that had come up with Dom here, alone in his house, sat beside him on that sofa again. He went to his bedroom to get dressed properly for his job at the framers, if he was going to make it there on time by foot. He didn’t quite want Dom to be doing him such a favor as to be chauffering him to both of his jobs, and this one at least was only a few blocks away.
Still he couldn’t help but wonder what Dom was getting out of this. And fear what the ultimate price might be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN