OffsideChanceFormat2 (19 page)

Will
moved closer to Jude as the football cake was wheeled out from the dressing
rooms by a couple of their former teammates who’d flown in for the night. On
top of the huge football was a gold man on a stripper pole with a tiny football
in his hand and a
fleur di
lis
topping the pole. Levi covered his
mouth with both hands, his muscled arms seemed to glimmer in the lighting.
“He’s wearing body glitter, isn’t he?”

“It’s
Livy. Why wouldn’t he be?” Jude tapped his glass to Will’s and drank it down in
one gulp.

“Yeah,
well, six months ago—“

“Six
months ago Levi was miserable and kept that part of his life under lock and
key. I’ve watched him struggle to even let me see him like this. The fact that
he’s standing up there in front of your team and being the person he hid for so
long says a great deal to me,” Jude said signaling a server for another drink,
but instead of taking the champagne flute that was offered on the tray, he
beckoned for the young lady to bend down. “Is there any way I can get a gin and
tonic?” Jude asked. She nodded and went off toward the bar they had passed on
the way in.

“And
Slayer is down there getting my brother drunk and not listening to a thing I
just said,” Will heard Levi say as his voice came across the PA system, cutting
through Jude and Will’s conversation at the VIP table.

 
Will moved hastily away from Jude as the
spotlight fell on the two of them. Levi’s eyes glimmered with an evil that Will
had never noticed before. “As Bo was saying, Slayer is the one I need to thank
for such a beautiful cake. Love you, Seventy-Four.”

 
“Yeah, yeah, 501. Love you dearly but not
queerly, my friend.” Will wanted to make sure no one got the wrong idea about
him and Levi. Levi kissed his middle finger and blew him a kiss with it. “Cut
the cake so we can get this party going, or do I need to come up there and hold
the knife for you?”

A
chorus of “cake, cake, cake” rang out around the room. Servers moved from table
to table taking and delivering drink orders. Levi picked up the knife but
stopped. He took the microphone from Bo, his face suddenly serious.

“There
are a couple of people I don’t talk about. My brother Jude Brody. He’s my pain
in the ass little brother, but without him I’d probably be broke. He takes care
of me when he doesn’t have to. I owe him more than I can ever repay. And since
I’m here handing out the love: Love you, Judah. In case you’ve never heard me
say it before.”

Jude
held up his newly arrived gin and tonic. “Back at you, Levi.” Will noticed that
he stuck to Levi’s real name.

Levi
just nodded, his gaze shifting to the next person at the table. The room went
deathly silent as if everyone collectively had been waiting for this moment.
Levi shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet as if he were on the field
just before an imminent sack. “I guess it’s something… I know it’s out there, I
know it’s something you all know. I spent so many years hiding… even when Bo… I’m
gay. I know it’s changed how some of you look at me.”

“That
would be the eyeliner, Five,” Will shouted to break the tension. “It’s supposed
to go on the cheeks not around the eyes.”

“Fuck
you, Slayer,” Levi said. As a ripple of laughter followed, his shoulders lost
the coiled tension they’d held most of the night.

“Not
while your big mother fucking boyfriend is sitting near enough to kill me,”
Will shouted back, giving him the opening he wanted.

“He
is damned big. And pretty. I think I’ll keep him. If he’ll have me…” Levi
paused and drew in a deep breath. He looked terrified. Will looked over to
Tracy to see him rise from the chair, as if he were getting ready to come to
the rescue. “I think what I’m trying to say is… Tracy Wright will you… marry
me. Please.”

The
music stopped, and not a soul in the room seemed to breathe. Will couldn’t take
his eyes off Levi as Tracy remained silent. Fear entered Levi’s eyes. Levi
didn’t know the meaning of fear. Not the Levi Will knew.

“I’ve
been waiting for you to ask.” Tracy walked to the edge of the stage and
effortlessly jumped onto it to meet Levi, towering over him instantly. “That
would be a yes.”

“Okay.
Good. I thought you would say—” Levi didn’t say another word. Tracy lifted him
off the floor and kissed him. Levi wrapped himself around the giant of a Viking
and held on. “Love you so much.” He seemed to forget he still had the
microphone. “Love you.”

Bo
seemed paralyzed. He looked down at the VIP table and found the silent Marine
still sitting on the other side of the two empty chairs. Will couldn’t tell
exactly what Bo was thinking, but he did a slight nod and picked the microphone
up. “I guess a little thing like the Super Bowl is pretty much inconsequential
now.” Will didn’t have to know what Bo was thinking, though, to know he was
barely keeping it together. His eyes glimmered with what looked like tears. He
wouldn’t look directly at Levi. “The buffet is open in the next room. The
pre-game show starts in a few minutes. We have big screens set up in the back.
Music and dancing in here if football isn’t your thing. There’s an open bar.
Y’all just enjoy yourselves and hang around after the game for the
after-party.”

The
music picked up where it left off. Bo turned off the microphone and took the
knife from Levi who had forgotten everything except Tracy. Tracy wiped at
Levi’s eyes. Will noticed Dylan leaving the table as silently as possible, but
he didn’t make his way back stage where Bo had disappeared to.

 
“They had a thing. They fucking had a thing,”
Will said to no one in particular, angry now realizing that he’d missed
something like that.

“Even
if they did, it’s over now.” It wasn’t Jude who answered but Dale Shannon. He
looked like a proud papa. “Tracy is a better fit for him. Let it go, Slayer. It
was a long time ago.”

“How
long ago?” he asked, unable to let it go now that he knew. Levi had lied to
him.

Jude
left the table and headed in the direction of the bar, but that didn’t matter
to Will at that moment; all that mattered was that Levi had fucking lied to
him.

Shannon
didn’t answer his question, but said instead, “You should see to your friend, Will.
Jude… he looks as if he could use someone to talk to.” Shannon clapped him on
the shoulder and left him sitting at the table all alone.

“Well,
fuck me sideways.” He lost sight of Jude in the crowd. Not that he gave a fuck
where Levi’s cold fish of a brother had gotten off to. What did he look like?

A
fucking babysitter?

Hell
no.

He
followed the first set of flashing blue eyes that came near, he didn’t care who
she was here with as long as there were tits involved. Jude could just go fuck
himself.

Chapter
Twelve

Six
hours of watching football players party was about all Jude could handle. The
game had ended a couple of hours ago with Green Bay taking the title again.
While they all claim to loathe the team, Jude was impressed that they supported
their NFC mates there at the end. And just as Levi promised, after the game
when everyone was already liquored up and stuffed full of food and cake there
were strippers.

Jude
had found a quiet place in the back of the main room away from the noise and
the testosterone to watch and quietly get shit-faced drunk.

After
Levi’s engagement, he’d found his brother and his future brother-in-law back in
a dressing room, Levi sat on a stool in front of a line of brightly lit mirrors
while Tracy wiped away his smudged eyeliner and reapplied it for him. They were
so lost in each other that they hadn’t noticed Jude standing there.

His
brother really was in love, he realized while watching them. This wasn’t just
some post-football crisis. He’d never seen Levi smile like that. Ever. His eyes
had shone with love and… it wasn’t just sex.

The
other couple, Bo and Dylan had hardly been in the same room together the whole
night. Jude didn’t know them well, but he had nonetheless sensed some tension
between them the few moments they had been together throughout the evening—a
vast difference from the last night Jude had seen them together. That night
they had seemed to fit together like a pair of gloves, and or an old married
couple, set in their ways. Maybe they’d been together so long that it was
beginning to come apart… or Dylan wanted Bo to be the one to pop the question.

Hell
if Jude knew nor did he care. He’d asked that same question once before, and he
had no plans to ever ask it again.

And
then there was Slater. The first dancers of the evening had been of the variety
traditionally known to rev Will up, and tonight was an R rated affair as far as
the strippers were concerned, wherever the dancer with the biggest tits and the
blondest hair was, that’s where he found Slater.

After
the wave of ladies finished, Levi came to the microphone dressed in his satin
black pants and gold tuxedo vest, his eyes burning a bright amber flame that
Jude could see all the way from the back. “And now something for the ladies,”
he said with some fanfare into the microphone as the lights went dim. Suddenly,
the male waiters stripped down to just pants and white vests, showing what
their true occupations were.

Squeals
erupted all around him, and Jude had to cover his ears at the piercing
intensity, a testament to exactly how much Levi’s surprise was appreciated by
the ladies of the crowd. Jude surveyed the crowd and found Slater sitting on an
armless seat with two female strippers in his lap.

Jude
needed another drink.

As
the dancers worked the room into a frenzy from the stage, one of them separated
from the group and found the microphone. “Liv St.
Cinq
,
get your ass up here! I know you’re here,” he beckoned.

The
spotlight fell on Levi, his body wrapped around Tracy out on the dance floor.
“There you are! Bring that sweet ass up here, we’ve been waiting years to dance
with you. Come on Livy. This is your party and we want to—“

“Liv
St.
Cinq
is retired,” Levi shouted back but his face
lit up like a kid at Christmas at the possibility.

“Not
yet he isn’t!” interjected Tracy, who then pulled Levi up to the stage before
Levi could utter another word in protest. “I’ve never seen you dance. You can
retire Livy later. But dance for me tonight. ”

“Anything
for you, baby.” Levi Brody slipped away in that moment. Jude had known Levi his
entire life, but he nonetheless watched in amazement as the music came up and
his brother disappeared and Livy took over. His whole demeanor changed.

His
athletic body moved in ways that Jude never knew it could. He fell into the
dance routines with very little effort. Grinding with one man while he stripped
his tie and vest away, he leaned over the side of the stage and handed them off
to Tracy, taking a moment to brush a kiss on his lips.

Drunken
cheers drowned out a couple of slurs. Jude watched as Slater unencumbered himself
of his seat mates and stalked to the back, a minute later he had a huge drunk
man lifted off the floor Jude couldn’t hear what Slater said to the guy, but
the look on his face spoke volumes. After that, the mood in the room lightened
and no one else dared disrespect the guest of honor.

He
lost sight of Slater after that, not that it mattered where the man was or who
he was with. Not to Jude. Not even a little. Time passed as the throbbing dance
music drifted from one song to the next with very little change in beat.

He
jumped as someone slapped him on his shoulder and shouted over the music, “This
is turning out to be a pretty damn good Super Bowl party. Though the time we
won here in New Orleans, fuck man, that party… I can’t even remember that
party. Levi was so fucking drunk I think maybe we might have seen him dance
with the DJ. I seem to remember him singing karaoke.” Slater fell into the
lounge seat beside him, and Jude had to move his arm so as not to spill his
drink. “I was so fucking drunk I can’t remember the next couple of days.”

“I’m
happy for you,” Jude grumbled and leaned back in his seat just as Levi sidled
up to the stripper pole on stage. He ran one hand up it in a suggestive way. “I
think my brother is about to redefine the term blow out.”

“Oh
fuck, Levi, man, no. That is not what you do with one of those.” Slater sat
forward in the seat, his feet planted wide apart, his knee actually brushing
Jude’s leg. He held a bottle of water in his meaty hands. His jacket was gone,
shirt sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned most of the way, and he was yelling
at Levi to stop before it was too late. It was too late, Levi used the pole in
a way that made Jude blush. “Holy fuck, Five.” Slater leaned back, covering his
eyes with one arm. “He isn’t is he? How is that even possible?”

 
“He is most definitely hanging upside down
from that pole.” Jude couldn’t decide which was the better train wreck, the one
on stage, or his new friend reacting to the show. “At least he’s using his left
arm to hold himself up.”