Chapter 16 – Age 30
Jule woke up inside a fantasy. He was in his bed, lying partly on his belly and partly on his side, and Tor was curled around him, his face against Jule’s nape, his front pressed to Jule’s back, one of his arms under Jule’s neck and the other draped over Jule’s shoulders and stretched on top of Jule’s arm, their fingers woven together.
“Morning,” he croaked, voice rough from sleep.
Soft lips brushed over his neck and Tor’s hold tightened. “Morning.”
“Feels good to have you here without worrying that you’ll be leaving,” Jule confessed.
“That’s all over now.”
They stayed silent for a while, breathing together with Tor occasionally brushing his lips over Jule’s skin and caressing Jule’s hand with his own.
“Were you scared?” He knew Tor enough to realize that he’d never share details about what he’d gone through during all those years, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it.
“I stayed close enough to John Jones to be sure he didn’t know anything about you, and to make him believe I’d chosen him over my brothers. You were always safe.”
“I wasn’t talking about myself, Tori.”
Tor pressed his lips to Jule’s neck again, firmer that time, longer. “No, I wasn’t.”
Fearlessness, steadfastness, and determination at a level that should have come across as arrogance but instead read as confidence and grit. That had been Tor at six, laughing when Jule punched him and then leading him out of the house to play a game he made from discarded pipes and wood.
It had been Tor at seven, walking into a classroom on the second day of school and whispering that the principal had agreed to transfer him into Jule’s class.
It had been Tor at eight, sneaking into his mother’s room while she slept and coming out with a tiny plastic bag and an explanation that he had to hide it for a while, because if she took too much at once, she’d never wake up again.
It had been Tor at nine, stepping in front of Jule at recess, taking a punch to his face that had been meant for a classmate’s chest without flinching, and saving Jule from a certain suspension.
It had been Tor at ten, jumping into the dumpster behind Safeway on Tuesday nights because that was when they threw out things that said they were expired but Tor explained were still good enough to eat.
It had been Tor at eleven, looking a police officer dead in the eye and insisting that Tyson had been reading him a bedtime story at the time the liquor store on Hatcher had been robbed, which was the day before the electric bill got paid and their power got turned back on.
It had been Tor at twelve, convincing the guy who owned the Food Mart that he’d save money by hiring him because he could pay him in cash and not report it, something Jule hadn’t understood but had been an effective way to get money into the house.
It had been Tor at thirteen, gazing at a confused, bruised, angry Jule and recognizing that what Jule wanted was a kiss.
It had been Tor at fourteen, dragging a nearly unconscious Trey home from a party and sitting next to him all night to make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit.
It had been Tor at fifteen, telling a petrified Travis that he’d be a good father despite none of them having seen an example of one, and making him believe it was true.
It had been Tor at sixteen, explaining to Titan that they could buy a dilapidated trailer and make it habitable and then spending nearly a year learning how to do precisely that.
And it had been Tor at seventeen, hearing shouting and gunfire, understanding exactly what it meant, and running straight to it.
There was no doubt in Jule’s mind that anxiety would prevent him from ever sleeping again if he knew what Tor had actually experienced when they’d been apart, and he was equally certain that Tor had handled it all without wavering or hesitating.
“I’m here, Jule.” Tor slid his hand to Jule’s chest, lightly grazed his fingertips back and forth across his skin, and again said, “It’s all over now.”
He nodded his understanding and gently rocked his hips, skimming his ass over Tor’s burgeoning erection. “Fuck me.”
Tor leaned back, and Jule looked over his shoulder and watched him reach for the bottle of lube.
They’d had sex in so many random places when they’d been young that lube hadn’t been an option or a consideration and Jule was accustomed to sex without it, but Tor seemed to prefer it over spit, so he didn’t argue.
Besides, he enjoyed the view of Tor slicking his thick, veined cock.
“Get in me,” Jule rasped when the scene had his dick throbbing and his hole clenching.
“So impatient.” Tor pressed his face to Jule’s hair and inhaled deeply. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Fuck me, hopefully.”
Tor chuckled and dragged his cock between Jule’s ass cheeks.
He moaned, dropped his chin to his chest, and closed his eyes.
“You’re warm.” Tor grazed his crown against Jule’s opening, poking and prodding, but not entering him.
“I will murder you,” Jule warned.
“I’d probably enjoy it.” Tor slid one arm under Jule’s waist and rested his palm on his belly and snaked the other over his chest and massaged his pecks. “Put it in.”
With a moan that came from deep in his gut, Jule reached behind himself, gripped Tor’s dick, pressed it against his rosebud, and held it in place as he tilted his ass back, taking the mushroom head past the ring of muscle and into his body.
“Always so fucking tight,” Tor groaned. He pushed all the way into Jule’s ass and then slowly dragged himself out until just his crown remained inside.
“Not sure how considering how hard you went at me last night.” He moved his right hand to Tor’s hip and held on.
“Which time?”
Jule laughed. “Less talking, more fucking, stud.”
With a chuckle, Tor tightened his arms and then increased his pace, thrusting out and burying himself back in at a rapid clip, his hips slamming against Jule’s ass.
“Ungh,” Jule moaned. “So good.” He looked back over his shoulder, lifted his arm behind his neck and grabbed Tor by the side of the head, pulling him forward for a kiss.
The room filled with sounds of heavy breathing, messy kisses, and slapping skin.
“I’m going to come.” Tor wrapped his hand around Jule’s shaft and stroked.
“Fuck,” Jule moaned.
Grunting, Tor fisted his dick and pumped hard into his body, moving faster and faster.
“I’m there.” Jule pushed back hard, taking Tor as deep as possible, and then he lost it. The first shot hit his chest, then his ribs, then his belly. The pleasure went on and on, and by the end, he could barely breathe and the world had gone black around the edges.
Behind him, Tor was kissing and nibbling on his neck and catching his own breath, his arms still wrapped around Jule, holding him close. “That was so fucking good.”
“Mmm hmm,” Jule agreed. “Want to take a nap?”
He felt Tor’s head moving up and down in a nod. Then he gripped Jule’s hand, kissed his cheek, and sighed in satisfaction.
His world perfect, Jule closed his eyes and slept.
Jule walked out of the kitchen, a beer bottle in each hand, and stopped short at the sight of Tor scrolling through his phone. “Did you guess my password, or do you have a way to break into phones?”
“Yes.”
“Uh huh.” Jule sat beside him on the couch. “How many tries did it take?”
Tor grinned. “I was deciding between two and got in with the first one.”
“What was your second guess?” He handed a bottle to Tor and then twisted the cap off his.
“The first time we fucked.” Tor opened his own bottle and took a drink. “But you’re a softy so I started with the first time we kissed.”
He punched Tor’s shoulder. “Call me soft again, bitch.”
Tor cupped his cheek, gazed into his eyes, and kissed him as he whispered, “Motherfucking soft.”
The kiss was too enjoyable to interrupt so Jule didn’t hit him again. When they finally separated, he asked, “You remember both dates?”
“’Course I do.” Tor propped his feet on the coffee table and rested his head against Jule’s shoulder. “I’m almost as soft as you.”
“Almost.” Jule kissed the top of his head.
“I read the texts. It won’t be easy,” Tor said quietly. “With your family.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Tor tilted his head up and looked at him. “Have you really thought about it? Chuck blindsided you yesterday, having me walk into his office like that. It wasn’t fair of him, and you don’t owe—”
“Choose your next words very carefully, Tor.” He could feel his body heating.
Clearly recognizing the spike in tension, Tor sat up and turned to face him, his expression serious. “I’m only saying—”
“I understand exactly what you’re fucking saying and you’re wrong.”
“Jule.”
“No,” he said loudly. “First off, I owe you everything, but that’s not the point. That’s not why I said it.”
Tor rolled his bottle between both hands. “This’ll be much harder than what your father would have faced if he had openly dated Vickie and he…” He sighed and raised the bottle to his mouth.
He didn’t need to finish that sentence. They both knew what his father hadn’t been willing to give up and they both knew what that had cost them and their families.
“I’m not my fucking father.”
“I know that.”
“Then quit comparing me to him. That’s bullshit. How would you feel if I said that to you?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. His father, for all his failures, hadn’t been a psychopath who killed and threatened the people they cared about. “I didn’t mean that.”
Tor rested his forearms on his knees and swung his bottle between them, his gaze down. “It’s okay if you did. And the answer is that you’d be right.”
He blinked. “What?”
“If you said I’m like my father.” He raised his head and looked at him. “You’d be right.”
Words escaped him.
“Why do you think I was the only person who could bring him down?” Tor asked.
Jule was having trouble catching his breath, but he forced himself to focus. “Because he cared about you. You always said that he wouldn’t hurt you because you’re his only son.”
Nodding, Tor said, “That’s true. And it was enough to get me in the door.
But it wouldn’t have been enough for me to stay alive.
It wouldn’t have been enough for me to rise up in the ranks.
It wouldn’t have been enough to make a case against him and take down the entire Knights cartel.
” He looked into Jule’s eyes. “You have to know that, Jule.”
In truth, Jule hadn’t had enough time to think deeply about everything he had learned the previous day.
“I was able to do it, because I think like him. I could unravel what he’d done.
I could predict what he’d do next. I could operate in a way I knew he’d respect and also in a way I knew he wouldn’t suspect.
I spent almost thirteen years working to take down John Jones and I got to know him pretty well in that time.
” He smiled but it wasn’t a happy expression.
“The two of us had a lot more in common than we had differences.”
Jule snapped out of his shock and found his voice. “That’s not true.”
Tor gave him that sad smile again.
“It isn’t,” he insisted. “Your father may have been as smart as you. He may have been as strategic. He may have been as charismatic. It would make sense with how organized and hard to pin down the Knights were. But those are surface things. He didn’t have your heart, he didn’t have your soul, he didn’t share your moral compass.
” He traced his fingers over the word printed on Tor’s bare chest. Loyalty.
“I know you, Tori. I know you. Where it counts, you are nothing like him.”
Tor dipped his chin in acknowledgement and lowered his gaze again, his expression thoughtful.
“And I’m not like my father either.” Jule reclined into the sofa and stretched his legs out.
“I’m not na?ve. I recognize that we’re in a messy situation.
But hasn’t that been the deal all our lives?
” Jule chuckled and Tor grinned and lay back beside him.
“Life’s been like a hurricane since we were kids, and we were trapped in it, trying not to get torn apart.
And now we’re grown and the storm’s still there because it’s inside us.
But that’s okay because the safest part of a storm is in the center. So that’s where I’m going to stay.”
Tor put his hand on Jule’s knee, and he rested his on top of Tor’s.
“I’m going to plant my feet, stay steady, and stick by your side, and nothing anyone can say or do will stop me.
Not my mother. Not my grandparents. Not your self-sacrificing attempts at martyrdom.
I’m here, in the center of this blindingly bright, breathtakingly beautiful storm of a relationship and I’m not going to let you go again, not for any amount of time, not for any reason. ”
“Wow,” Tor said. “That was impressive.”
“I know, right? I’ve gotten to be a pretty suave speaker. All that courtroom experience is really paying off.”
“I can hear that.” He smirked. “Would’ve been even better if you’d remembered what Ms. Henderson taught us. The eye of the storm being safe is actually a myth. You’re supposed to hide from that shit, not hang out in its center.”
Jule stilled. “You asshole.”
“That’s not news.” He shrugged. “But at least I’m an asshole who remembers eighth-grade science.”
Jule curled into Tor’s side and inhaled his scent.
“I loved you in the eighth grade and I love you now, Tor Dunworthy. That’s why I said I’m going to marry you.
” He looked up and met Tor’s gaze. “And in case you’re confused, that’s not a proposal.
It’s a statement of fact. This is happening one way or another so get on board and don’t bother fighting it.
You’ve been in charge for years; now it’s my turn.
If a psychopath comes after us again, you can have the reins back.
Until then, I get to decide what we’re doing with our lives. ”