OffsideChanceFormat2 (35 page)

“I
won’t.” Will didn’t like that his voice broke. “I don’t want to leave. I will
if you want me to, but I—“

“Don’t
leave.” He could hear despair in Jude’s voice. “Everyone leaves me.”

“I’m
here, Jude. I’m not going anywhere.” He moved toward Jude and began prying his fingers
from the chair.

“I’m
sorry.” Jude’s hands shook in Will’s grasp.

“There’s
nothing to be sorry for. You were great.”

“I
was scared. I thought he had a gun.”

“It’s
okay, Jude, I was scared too.” Will rubbed Jude’s hands, moving up his arms until
he could pull him close enough to actually see his face. “It’s dark in here. I
should turn on a light.”

“Don’t
let go.” Jude tucked his nose into Will’s neck and wrapped trembling arms tight
around him. “Not yet.” He felt the brush of Jude’s lips on his neck as he
spoke.

“I
won’t. I promise.” Will cradled the back of Jude’s head in one hand and stroked
his back with the other.

“He
cut me. I can feel blood. It’s not deep… I don’t think it’s deep, it doesn’t
hurt.” Jude nodded and winced when Will found the damp spot on his shirt. He
applied pressure and made soothing sounds.

“We’ll
fix it. We’ll go upstairs and fix it.” Will rubbed his chin over Jude’s smooth
cheek.

Jude
nodded again. He squeezed his hands into fists and pressed hard into Will’s
back. “It’s okay, Jude. I’m right here,” he whispered against Jude’s jaw.
Jude’s breath came in short gasps as if he were on the verge of panic. He
squeezed Will so tight that Will could feel the man’s heart beating against his
chest. “It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you.” Will’s whispered words landed against
soft lips, and then Jude’s soft gasp at the contact became a kiss.

*
* * * *

He
drew in a sharp breath at the tentative touch of Will’s tongue to his. The
wavering, almost ragged groan that burst from Will’s throat turned Jude’s
already weak knees to jelly. He tried to breathe normally, he tried to pull
away. Will cradled his head, his thumb gently brushing the patch of skin just
below Jude’s ear. He shivered and opened his mouth. He wanted this, the
pressure

of Will’s mouth on
his, the taste of his tongue, Jude wanted it. The scent of sweat and rain
mingled with the spicy fragrance that was Will. Always Will. He whimpered
against the invasion but welcomed the invader. Fuck, he wanted this.

Rain
pounded the exterior of the townhouse, thunder boomed outside shaking the
windows, and Jude held on to Will. He ran his hands over impossibly broad
shoulders, the skin-tight shirt unable to hide anything from him. He caressed
each defined muscle from shoulder to neck. Will licked inside Jude’s mouth,
over his tongue. Jude licked him back. Desperately. Fuck. He wanted Will to
consume him. All of him. He wanted him… now. Like right fucking now. On the
floor. Yes, on the floor would be good.

Adrenaline
surged through him, he grabbed a fist full of Will’s hair and broke the kiss. “Upstairs
or here…on the floor,” he gasped before closing his mouth over Will’s once
more. Jude threw his arms around Will’s neck and held on tight as big hands
slid down his back and over his ass to part his thighs.

“Upstairs,”
Will growled against Jude’s lips as he lifted him off the floor. He didn’t have
to tell Jude to hold on. Without a word, he wrapped his legs around the big
man’s waist and held on as if he were used to being worn like a jacket.

The
stairs weren’t conducive to maintaining a lip lock, and they were torn apart
when Will jostled him hard, almost dropping him and losing his footing. He
stopped on the second floor landing and pushed Jude against the wall.

“Here
is good.” Jude just fucking needed to fuck. His whole body vibrated with
energy.

Digging
his fingers into Jude’s thighs, Will humped into him, pushing him up the wall
until he was positioned in the right spot. “My bed. Want inside you. Now.”

“Now
is good.” Jude went back in for another kiss. Lips touching, sliding together,
he caught Will’s lower lip between his teeth and pulled gently.

More stairs,
he
lost the prize and settled for the friction of his pants rubbing in the right
spots as Will stumbled toward the top floor. “Your room is closest.” Jude told
him.

“Good
idea.” Will panted against his mouth as he shoved his door open. “Light. I want
to see you.” Will leaned against the doorjamb for Jude to flip the light
switch. Light flooded the room and, Will’s gaze shifted to take in the now
illuminated bedroom, and with shock forming in his features, Will dropped Jude
to the floor.

“Fuck!”
Jude groaned upon being released. Ice seemed to race along the same veins that
had two seconds ago sparked with fire. The mayhem that was Will’s usually
almost tidy room stunned him.

Jude
turned and raced from the room down the hall to his own. He leaned against the
door, his arms and legs suddenly too heavy to move. While Will’s room looked as
if he’d forgotten to clean in the last couple of years, Levi’s room was
destroyed. The doors hung from his antique armoire. The vanity bench thrown
through the mirror. The posters on the bed hacked down like tree trunks, the
canopy shredded.

“What
the hell did he use… my mother’s jewelry box!” The tiny ballerina lay on the
floor in front of the fireplace, the box in splinters around her. Jude backed
out of the room, numb. He was so numb he couldn’t think.

 
“Call Levi, he has to be told,” Will cried,
sounding as if he were in a tunnel somewhere far away. Jude tried to focus on
him but couldn’t.

“What
do I tell him? I don’t even know what to tell myself.”

“Tell
him Aaron… just tell him it was Aaron, he’ll understand.”

“And
what are you going to do while I’m killing my brother?”

“I’m
going to check the rest of the house and call the police.” Will swiped his hand
through his hair. “He stabbed you, Christ. Why didn’t we call earlier?”

Jude
had forgotten that little detail; he lifted his bloody shirt, and twisted to
see the damage. “It’s not so bad. Not deep, just a cut, not really a stab. It’s
mostly stopped bleeding.”

“He
still hurt you, the son of a bitch. He’s my fucking cousin, Jude. I don’t…”
Will turned toward the stairs, but stopped at the bathroom and shook his head
and turned back. “If I get my hands on him I will fucking kill him.”

Will
pounded down the stairs leaving Jude alone in all the chaos. He pulled his phone
from his pocket. He touched Levi’s name in his contacts and slid down the wall
to sit on the floor while the phone dialed out. Waiting for Levi to pick up to
break this news was almost as bad as the time he’d called to let him know their
mother had tried to kill herself by sleeping on the railroad tracks.

Almost…
Maybe this was worse.

“What’s
wrong?” Levi answered breathlessly and Jude’s brain went blank.

*

Jude
lost track of time having to recall the events of the afternoon to the NOPD
detectives, telling his story over and over again.
He’d come home to find a man standing in the hallway near the
downstairs bathroom, just standing there as if he were at home, he told them.
The man had said that he was a friend of Will’s and that Will would be right back.
Jude hadn’t known Will’s schedule for the day, so it was possible that the man
was telling the truth and Will would return shortly. Will had hired women to
come by and clean the house before, so it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of
possibility that the man indeed was invited by Will. That’s when the man,
Aaron, told him he had a gun and not to do anything stupid. The man corralled
Jude into the kitchen with the threat of a gun and started demanding the rings.
He would not believe him when Jude told him he wasn’t Levi and that he didn’t
know where the rings were. They had argued for maybe ten minutes when Will
entered. The man had seemed to know Will, called him ‘Guillermo’ in a bad
Spanish accent. The man had picked up one of the kitchen knives while demanding
the whereabouts of the rings, but he didn’t seem to have a gun after all. He
had seemed panicked at the sight of Will and his gun. And that’s when he cut
him and ran off
.

Will
was in the kitchen while Jude talked with the detectives in the parlor. Jude
knew that the only reason a petty B&E like this was getting the attention
of actual detectives and not beat cops was because of who Will was and because
this was Levi Brody’s house. “Did he get Mr. Brody’s Super Bowl rings?” the
detective asked again.

Jude
shook his head. “Levi has them with him in Alabama. He said the jewelry he’d
left here was cheap stuff, the Rolex was the only thing of any real value. He
hated it, said it looked like an old man’s watch.”

“Is
there anything else missing?” The detective was just doing his job, Jude knew
that, but damn, he’d already been over this a dozen times.

Jude
shrugged this time, he didn’t know for sure. “He didn’t have anything big on
him, so if it’s missing then it was in his pockets. I didn’t have any jewelry
here for him to steal. My computer is still upstairs in the den. Without Levi
here, I couldn’t say for sure. He says if it’s missing, then he won’t miss it.
He’s angry about the destruction of his furniture and clothes. How much longer
is this going to take? I’d like to change out of this bloody shirt.” Will had
dressed the small wound before the detectives arrived, not that the cops cared
because they had made him remove the bandages so they could see the wound.

“You
should probably go to the hospital and have that looked at, it could need
stitches.” The detective flipped his notebook closed. “And I think we’ve got
everything we need. We’ll issue a warrant for Mr. Slater’s arrest… the other
Mr. Slater. If we can find him. Meanwhile, you should change the locks,
especially on the balcony doors. You and the other Mr. Brody will need to go
through the house and make a list of damage and stolen property for your
insurance company. After that, we’ll be in touch.”

“Ok,
of course.” Jude leaned back against the stiff backed antique sofa. He never
came in this room for fear of hurting the furniture. The sofa seemed to be the
only piece that had survived Aaron’s rage. Because that’s what this had been—rage.
His rage had destroyed every room except the kitchen. Jude had interrupted him
before he’d gotten to the kitchen. “Why Levi’s house?” Jude

wondered out loud to
the detective as the man prepared to leave, “I mean, I get that he’s a junkie
looking for money to fund his addiction. I’ve seen it enough to understand
that. I don’t understand why he destroyed the furniture. Levi’s clothes. His
memorabilia. I mean, what the hell did Levi do to him?”

The
detective sighed and tapped the closed notebook with his pen. “Off the record,
the guy seems seriously unhinged. Maybe he holds a grudge against your brother
and Mr. Slater. Hard to say. Or it’s just the drugs. Anyway, if he comes back
call 911 immediately and try not to engage him.”

As
if Jude would want to get near the bastard again. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Not
a problem.” The detective patted Jude’s knee in reassurance. The other
detective and uniformed officers entered the parlor, and the detective rose
from the couch to join them in preparation to leave. “And seriously, you should
go have that wound looked at, it could become infected.”

“I’ll
do that,” Jude said. He was so tired he’d agree to anything at this point.
“Thanks for coming out.”

“Not
a problem,” the other detective said as Jude rose to shake their hands and see
them out.

He
bolted the door behind the police and went upstairs. He needed to lie down. But
his bed was full of wood splinters, and he had no energy to clean up the mess
tonight. Will’s door stood open, his bed was free of debris at least. Jude
pushed clothes and footballs and other bits and pieces of Levi’s career to the
side as he cleared a path to the bed. The idiot could have taken either of the
two signed game balls and made a fortune selling them, but he hadn’t. This
seemed personal. Jude wondered if maybe Levi and Aaron had once had a… What the
hell did you call it when a couple of guys hooked up? What the hell would he
call this thing with Will? A fling? A midlife crisis?

Not
even bothering to pull the comforter back, he fell into the bed and laid an arm
over his eyes to block the light from the fixture overhead. The lamps he’d
bought while still in law school were now in pieces on the floor. His side
burned like a mother fucker, but there was no blood. He’d be fine with a little
sleep. God, it was barely seven o’clock, and here he was exhausted. The bed
dipped with the weight of another body a couple minutes later, could have been
longer than that, he might have drifted off.

“For
a three hundred pound gorilla you are exceptionally light on your feet,” Jude
mumbled without looking. He didn’t have to; he had Will’s scent memorized.

“I’m
only 275, thank you very much.” Will settled beside him, his arm pressed
against Jude’s.

“But
you don’t deny the gorilla part?” Jude teased. He wanted to smile, but
remembered the conversation with Levi earlier in the week. He wasn’t in denial.
He just didn’t know the name of the river he was drowning in. Yes, he did
actually—the river Slayer.