NINETEEN

 

This was it. The right time. Judah had always known that he would know it when it happened, and he had been right. The time was now, and even the fact that everything was so uncertain between them couldn’t change it. Maybe it made him even surer because if he was about to lose Will, as he was starting to think that he might, he wanted to know what this was like first.

He could never allow this to happen with someone he didn’t love, and he couldn’t see himself being in love with anyone but Will. He had gone so many years, getting close to thirty, and this was the first time he had ever had even the faintest shimmer of romantic love. It could be thirty more before he felt it again. If ever.

So yes, he was going to do this. He was going to give himself to Will, and if Will did walk away, if Jack was more of a threat than Will had suggested, at least Judah could have this.

He lay under Will, and he knew that he had made the right choice when he saw how Will thought about it when he heard him ask if Judah was sure. This man, he would think of this as a big deal. Which was good, because to Judah, it was huge.

And then Will was doing it. He was going for it, pushing apart Judah’s legs, and Judah fought down the natural surge of nerves. It wasn’t as important as the desire, the determination to see this through, and if it hurt, he could take it. Not that it had seemed to hurt Will very much when Judah had taken him.

The knock was loud, too loud, after midnight as it was. Will uttered a curse that Judah, as a pastor, probably should have chastised him for, but instead, he felt like heartily agreeing. With it being so late, Judah knew that Will couldn’t just ignore it, because it could wake the neighbors, not to mention Stephen. Besides, for someone to be knocking this late at night, it had to be fairly important.

It was just pretty much the worst timing in the world. In a second, Will’s slender body, his weight, was gone from between Judah’s legs, and he had never felt so empty, so unfulfilled. He had given himself and been accepted, and yet, he was still a virgin.

Will stalked down the stairs, wearing just a pair of jeans that he had hastily thrust his long legs into, and at least he seemed put out by the whole thing. His irritation was very clear, and Judah sighed as he rolled over, his dick throbbing and leaking a trail of precome onto his own flat belly.

The seconds passed, and the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock told him in pitiless detail when they had turned into minutes. Two minutes, to be exact. If Judah listened very, very hard, he could hear the rising and falling cadence of two voices, Will’s familiar one and one other that he didn’t recognize.

Which was odd, he would have sworn that he knew each and every voice of everyone in town, at this point. It was, after all, a small town, and he had made it his business to get to know as many of the people as possible. This wasn’t someone that he knew.

And it was a man. The voice was too quiet to make out any words, but it was a beautiful, silky, deep voice, one which Judah knew that he would have recognized anywhere if he had known it.

Something clenched at his stomach, some surge of nerves that he tried to tell himself wasn’t any sort of premonition. For a while, another ten seconds or so, he fought with himself, because he was, after all, not supposed to be here at all. He and Will were supposed to be a secret, which could hardly be the case if Judah did what every instinct in his body was telling him to do.

But so what? So what if they got found out? Maybe that had been inevitable from the start. Besides, he had already noted that he didn’t recognize the voice. It might not be anyone from town, even. The more he thought about it, the more he justified it, and less than half a minute later, Judah was jumping out of Will’s lush, soft bed, fumbling for his clothes, and tugging them on.

Dimly, he was glad that he had thought to come over not wearing his clerical clothing. Maybe that would save him. Because without the Roman collar there was far less chance that anyone could place him as a minister. Slowly, he dressed himself, because whatever was going to happen next, he wanted to prepare for it.

As he pulled his clothes on, he was accompanied by the sound of the voices. Will’s, so quiet but with the undeniable tone of irritation still echoing through it. And the stranger’s, speaking slightly louder, but still too quiet to hear. But passionate. Determined.

It was Jack, wasn’t it? It had to be Jack. Who else could it be?

He knew then, really, though he tried to deny it. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t being logical, that there was no way that he could even know that, but really, he did. Something inside of him had known from the moment that the knock had sounded through the house.

“Please,” he whispered, a nearly silent prayer in which just that one sound came from his lips. Please, let this not be what he thought it was. Please, give him just a little bit longer with Will before it all fell apart.

Please, let it not be Jack.

Very quietly, with a deliberate sort of slowness, Judah pulled on his shoes and made sure that he had everything and that he was presentable. With that done, he walked down the stairs, as sedately as he could manage, because somehow, this was all going to be okay. He was going to see Will, and maybe it was a police officer that he was talking to, someone who wanted to know about a criminal in the area. At one in the morning. In a small town with so little crime that …

He shut his brain off, didn’t let himself think, as his feet padded over the wood floors Through the living room, into the entryway, and then he saw Will’s back.

The other man was tall, taller than Will, anyway, so Judah saw it all in the clearest, most excruciating detail possible. He had, so to speak, a front row seat.

The man, who Judah was now absolutely certain was Jack, leaned forward and lowered his head. There was the gleam of eyes, looking right at him, widening briefly in surprise and then narrowing with determination. Judah watched, his heart seemingly stopping, frozen in time, his lungs burning with the need to breathe, but for a moment, he actually forgot to.

This stranger, who really could only be Jack, leaned down and kissed Will, and at that moment, Judah realized that it was over. How could he ever compare to the first man that Will had loved, and the man that Judah knew Will still thought of as the other father to his child?

He couldn’t, that was how. And they had always known, both of them, that this couldn’t work. His eyes burned, but they were as dry as the desert, and felt just as sandy, as he pulled himself together. His heart restarted with a lurch, and it didn’t feel so much like it was breaking as it did that it had shattered into a million little needle-like shards, each of them stabbing deeply into his muscles, his very bones.

It was the hardest thing that he had to do to walk towards, and then past, Will and Jack. It felt like walking into a raging inferno, and he noticed everything. He had heard that when someone was on the brink of death, time slowed down, and that person saw everything, and that was how it felt.

Jack was taller and broader than either Will or Judah. His arms were stronger, thick with muscle, and they closed around Will and pulled him close. It was harder to see anything about Will, and that was a small mercy because the other man’s back was to Judah.

Utterly quiet, Judah walked toward them, past them, his shoulder brushing against Will’s. The whole time, Jack was looking at him, a smug sort of satisfaction on his face. And why shouldn’t there be? Jack had won. Judah had barely even put up a fight.

“Judah, wait!”

By this time, Judah was past Will and Jack both, standing on the front stoop, but he didn’t look back. It had been hard enough to see them entangled the first time, and he simply didn’t have it in him, he wasn’t brave enough, and his heart was too battered, to see this again.

“For what?” Judah was surprised. His voice came out so normal, like this was an everyday thing for him. Like he normally fell in love and then watched the man that he loved kissing someone else.

“Don’t go,” Will asked, and Judah closed his eyes. He would have killed to hear those words before. But it was a little bit too late for them now.

“We both knew that this wasn’t going to work,” Judah spoke, his words calm, measured. Logical, at least in the way they sounded. Will should appreciate that. “You don’t have to say anything, Will. I knew it was over before it even started.”

What was he supposed to do? Scream? Throw things? Cause a scene? He was tempted, but it just wasn’t his style, and anyway, he was very aware of Stephen, who was miraculously still sleeping through all of this. Any scene he caused would only potentially hurt Stephen.

“Let him go, baby,” Jack told Will, and there was this tone of satisfaction, of pleasure, in his voice, like he was enjoying the pain that Judah was feeling. Which was probably all Judah projecting, because his feelings toward Jack could hardly be said to be charitable. “It’s better this way.”

It’s better this way.

It probably was. It would have been nice if Jack hadn’t been the one to say it. It would have been better if Will had been brave enough to tell Judah the truth. Because Judah couldn’t help but remember that Will had been the one to ask him to come back tonight. That Will had been willing to take Judah, though he had to know what that would mean to him.

But it didn’t matter, he supposed, ultimately. It was over, and that had been inevitable for so long. He didn’t need to hear the words, and, in fact, he thought if he did he might scream, Stephen or no Stephen.

No. He couldn’t compete with Jack, with the man that Will had fallen in love with. With the man who held Will’s past. After all, the chances had never been good that Judah would be the one to share Will’s future. It had never really been in the realm of possibility.

His eyes were still dry as he walked away, and this time, Will didn’t try to stop him. Judah didn’t so much as glance back as he got into his car and drove away because he already knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle what it was that he saw if he did.