Brian’s setting down the wrench, picking up a beer, two of them, necks held together by his practiced grip, sweat on the bottle, iced up inside. “Corona?” he’s saying, the heat of his hand, letting the bottle drip as he offers it. There’s a matching sweat ring on his t-shirt, damp around the collar, around the pits, stain of it spreading up his back as he turns for the opener.
Something trembles deep inside Dom. It shifts in his gut, dries his mouth until he can only reach for the beer, open his mouth and his throat to it. Let it sit cold inside him, chill for a moment until he warms up around it. Jesus, Jesus and it’s unsaid, unheard. There’s a long line of tradition inside Dom, half of it his own creation. Most of it says in clear cut terms, these are the things you can’t have, these are the things you can’t be. Shit that belongs in the showers, in the dark.
A perfect little coda, full of tension you could cut with a knife…