9.11 - 73. Chapter 73

As I mentioned in the forum, I put the story on hold to consider some comments from reviewers.  The irony is that I've done that, and I'm posting this chapter way earlier than normal.  So "In Hold" translated to "Accelerated".  Go figure. 

November 9, 2001

Escorial

I’d gotten up early with a specific task in mind, but even as I stood in front of the door and knocked, I felt nervous about disturbing people so early in the morning. I was a bit relieved when Frank opened the door to their bedroom and was obviously awake and fully dressed. He was normally an early riser, but you never knew. He was pretty surprised to see me there. “You wanted something?” he asked gruffly.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Fine,” he said, and opened the door to let me in.

Grandmaman was at her writing at her desk, probably planning her day. “Good morning, Will,” she said pleasantly.

“Good morning,” I said, and then focused on Frank. “I wanted to apologize to you for how I treated you at dinner. You’re not responsible for what Wally and Clara do, and you’re not responsible for what Matt does. It was wrong of me to treat you like you were.”

That really shocked him. I watched him think about that for a few seconds. “This is hard on all of us,” he said gruffly, his way of forgiving me.

“Yes it is,” I agreed, then tilted my head to look cute. “So you forgive me?”

He scowled at me, a fake scowl, while I could see Grandmaman hiding her grin as she pretended to ignore us. “Yes,” he said simply.

“I want you to prove it.”

“You ask me to forgive you, I tell you that I do, and then you want me to prove it?” he asked, getting pretty annoyed.

“It sounded reasonable to me,” I said in a chipper tone, to tell him I was kind of messing with him.

“What do I have to do to prove it?”

“Come with us this weekend,” I said.

“I thought you didn’t want me to come along and ruin your relationship with Zach,” he said, being nasty. I could sense Grandmaman getting ready to jump on him, so I responded quickly.

“I changed my mind,” I said. “He’s really an amazing running back. I mean, I know you don’t know much about football, but I thought even you might be able appreciate his talent.” Frank was totally into football, and was an armchair coach on the weekends during football season.

“Right,” he said. “When do we leave?”

“You leave here at 2:30, and I’ll leave from school at 3:00 to meet you all at the airport,” I said.

“Can I bring a date?” he asked.

“Is she hot?”

“Very hot,” he said, glancing over at Grandmaman.

“Then you can bring her.”

“What are we doing besides going to the game?” he asked.

“Stef and JJ are going too, and we’re going shopping on Saturday,” I said. “Maybe you can come along.”

Grandmaman giggled. “I’m not seeing that,” Frank said.

“I’ll see you at the airport,” I said. I made to leave but he stopped me.

“Will.”

“Yeah?” Then he did something he didn’t do all that often. He pulled me in and gave me a big hug. I felt tears flowing because I was a fucking emotional basket case, because the hug was meaningful, and because when he hugged me, he reminded me of Robbie. We didn’t say anything, we just hugged for awhile, broke apart and smiled at each other, and then I left and went to eat breakfast.

“Good morning,” Stef said, and looked at me with his worried expression.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully, even though my eyes were red.

“We are meeting you at the airport,” he said, telling me something I already knew.

“Frank and Grandmaman are coming along too,” I said.

“I thought they were not joining us?”

“I talked to Frank, and convinced him to come along.”

He eyed me carefully. “You did not want him along, and now you do?”

“I’m a freakazoid. That’s how I roll,” I said. He rolled his eyes at me. “Your job is to make sure JJ is ready on time.”

“You save the biggest challenges for me,” he said. I chuckled. JJ was not the easiest person to motivate unless he wanted to go somewhere.

“Is Grand coming along?”

“He is not. He has opted to stay here and enjoy the peace and quiet provided by an empty house.”

“This house is never empty,” I said, and that was true, since at least some of the staff members were always here.

“I know that, but he likes to imagine that it is,” Stef said, cracking me up. “We will meet you at the airport.”

School seemed to drag on. Austin gave me shit at lunch for being gone and missing some party this weekend, but I didn’t really care about that. My heart was in New Jersey. I had all of my books and homework for the weekend packed up in my backpack, so as soon as school was over, I all but bolted out of my last class. Pedro was driving me, and opted to pick me up in the Ferrari.

“Good choice,” I told him, referring to the car.

“I know you are anxious to get to the airport quickly, especially since the others left early,” he said.

“They left early? Even with JJ?”

“They say the wonders never cease,” he said, cracking me up. We got to the plane and everyone else was loaded up already. I handed my backpack to the co-pilot and hurried up the steps.

“Thanks for being early,” I said to everyone.

“We did not want to risk your wrath,” Stef said. He was being pleasant, but he was upset. Our eyes met, and I could tell that whatever was bugging him, he didn’t want to talk about it, so I left him alone. Since he, Frank, and Grandmaman were up in the front, I went in back to hang out with JJ and keep him company.

“Sup?” I asked.

“I’m here,” he said, being bitchy.

“I thought you wanted to come?”

“Whatever,” he grumbled. We didn’t say anything for a bit, we just kicked back until the plane was airborne. “How was it?”

“How was what?” I asked, since that question came out of the blue.

“How was being in New York?”

Then I got where he was coming from. “It was hard at first, but it was good for me. It’s a great city, and it’s nice that it reminds me of Robbie, Mom, and Hank.”

“I don’t want to be reminded of them,” he said. “I want to just forget the whole fucking thing.” And then I got where JJ was. He had totally immersed himself in skating, and zoned all the other shit out. He hadn’t made the journey that I’d made, that Dad had made, or that Darius had made. I felt bad for him, because it’s like a race, where we’d already done a few laps, and he was still at the starting point.

“You can hang with me this weekend,” I offered.

“You’ll be busy with your boyfriend,” he said rudely.

“JJ,” I said, and waited until he looked at me. “I’ll always be there for you if you need me.”

He bit his lower lip. “Thanks.” He sat there, wanting to say something, but he didn’t, so I looked at him until he did. That strategy usually worked with JJ. “I’m really bummed about Matt.”

I so did not want to talk about him, or think about him. “You should talk to Frank about him,” I suggested.

“I want to be pissed off at you, but it isn’t your fault,” he said, in his bitchiest tone. That actually made me laugh.

“You’re mad at me because you don’t have any reason to be mad at me?”

He gave me a nasty look, but it was hiding a grin, as he realized how ridiculous he was being. “Fuck you.”

“Can’t,” I said, winking at him. “I’m taken.”

“You mean you’re only with Zach?”

“We don’t have any commitment, or anything,” I said. “But that’s how I feel. He’s really the only person I want to be with.”

He looked at me intently, like I’d stared at him before, only I didn’t have any major issue burning inside me that I was reluctant to let out. “I don’t think I’ve seen you as into someone as you are with him.”

I nodded. “Kinda scary.”

“Dude, be careful,” he warned. He saw my brows narrow. “I’m not talking about all that shit Gathan says about him, about how he’s the fucking devil. I’m just talking about getting too involved and getting hurt.”

“I was already hurt,” I told him. “He can’t hurt me worse than that.”

“I guess not,” he agreed. “So we’re staying at the condo.”

“Are you alright with that?”

He shrugged. “If not, I can always go to a hotel. I’m going to crash.” He got up and went into the bedroom, so I went up and hung out with the others.

“JJ decided to take a nap,” I said, then looked at Grandmaman. “If you want to rest, I can kick him out of the bedroom for you.”

“I think that instead, I will just enjoy the charming company,” she said with a smile.

“A wise choice,” Stef observed, making us laugh.

“Zach asked Dad about Aaron,” I said to Stef. “Dad told Zach to talk to me about him. I brought a copy of the diary with me, but I wanted to know how much of it I could show him.”

Grandmaman didn’t really care that much about it, but Frank and Stef did. Their reactions were interesting. Frank got really angry, but said nothing, while Stef started crying. He wasn’t sobbing, but there was a stream of tears pouring down his face. I looked at Grandmaman with a confused expression, and she gave me a slight shrug to show me she was as clueless as I was. “I am sorry,” Stef said, and grabbed a tissue to wipe his eyes.

“Dude, I do that all the time,” I said, with a combination of a smile and a grimace.

“I would like to think about that for a bit, if you do not mind,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I agreed, totally unwilling to argue with him.

He sighed, then seemed to have an epiphany and decided to vent to us. “Your question caught me off guard. It is an ironic coincidence.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I received word just a few hours ago that Aaron is dead,” Stef said.

“Good riddance,” Frank growled, and seemed happy with the news. “Piece of shit.”

“We are all flawed beings, and we all make mistakes,” Stef said evenly. “It is my experience that carrying a grudge does much more damage to the person who is angry, than to the person to whom it is directed.” He gave me a look, which pissed me off, since he was trying to tell me he was referring to Matt too.

“And sometimes people are just assholes, and you should write them off,” I said firmly.

Frank looked at Stef. “See, I told you he’s smarter than you.”

“Do not get cocky because you are right once every twenty years,” Stef said acidly, cracking us up.

I leaned forward and took Stef’s hands in mine. “I’m sorry. I can wait to talk to Zach about this if you want me to.”

“I will let you know,” he said, then sighed again. “I like to trust my own instincts in these situations. It is not that I do not trust yours, but this is very personal to me.”

“That’s fine,” I said, to tell him it wasn’t a big deal.

“I am conflicted about Zach,” Stef continued. “From you, I hear what a wondrous young man he is. And as I tend to be partial to young men who are handsome, that also biases me in his favor.” Frank rolled his eyes at that. “On the other hand, I have other people railing at me about his flaws, and advocating he is a dangerous person. I would like to draw my own conclusions before I give him access to something so personal.”

He was nervous, worried this would upset me, so I smiled. “He’s definitely hot, and it’s possible that he’s wondrous, but since when do you discard men who are flawed and dangerous? Aren’t we all?”

“So you are suggesting that it is important to give handsome and flawed men a chance?” he asked, another oblique reference to Matt.

“Some of them,” I said coldly, to let him know he was pushing my buttons. “What did Aaron die of?”

“Skin cancer,” Stef said. Frank chuckled and shook his head, seemingly amused that a pale skinned guy would meet his end by getting skin cancer after fleeing to a tropical island. Stef ignored him. “He is being buried on Los Negros.”

“Are you going to the funeral?”

“I did not plan to,” Stef said. “How is your father? I have not talked to him for a few days.”

“He works, and he sleeps, and probably masturbates,” I said, then remembered Grandmaman was there, and blushed three shades of red. “I’m sorry,” I said to her. She giggled.

“A bit crass, but it is probably accurate,” Stef said, like he was always the model of decency.

“I’m going to go knock out my homework, so I don’t have to worry about it this weekend,” I said, and went back and did just that. I had just finished up when the pilots let us know we were landing. I went and woke JJ up, then spiffed my appearance up in the bathroom. The plane landed, and I was completely on edge, so anxious to see Zach. We taxied up to the FBO, and as soon as the plane stopped, I saw Zach’s Durango drive out onto the ramp, along with a limo.

“Perhaps you should get out first,” Stef suggested with a smile.

“That way you won’t knock the rest of us down,” JJ said.

“Thanks,” I said. As soon as the door was open and the stairs were down, I charged down the ramp, and there was Zach at the bottom, smiling at me. He threw caution to the wind and just enveloped me in a major hug, and just being in his arms made me feel so safe and so loved. “I missed you,” I said.

“I missed you too,” he said, and winked at me. I moved aside so he could greet the others. “Welcome to New Jersey!”

“Why thank you,” Grandmaman, said, and kissed him on the cheeks in the French fashion. “How nice of you to come meet us.”

“I’m looking forward to your game,” Frank said. It was only at that moment that I realized how much like Wally he sounded.

“I hear you like football,” Zach said, pouring on the charm.

“I watch a game here and there,” Frank said, which made Grandmaman and I chuckle.

“You are looking as handsome as ever,” Stef said to Zach.

“I was going to say the same thing to you,” Zach said, being the flirtatious beast that he could be. “I’m wondering if you’d be willing to stop by the locker room tomorrow and meet the team.”

“You’re letting him loose in the locker room?” I asked.

“Most of those guys are underage,” Frank said. “Better call the lawyers.” We all laughed at that.

“I am not going to chase them around the locker room,” Stef said. “Besides, they are faster than me.”

“I’ll bet some of us are pretty slow,” Zach said with a leer.

“I will be happy to meet your team,” Stef promised.

“Hey JJ,” Zach said, and raised his eyebrows to flirt with him.

“Zach,” JJ said coldly.

“You’re not happy to see me?” Zach asked, being a total wolf.

“Not really,” he said, and then turned to Stef. “You ready to go?”

“The limo will take you all to the condo,” I told them. “You can come with us,” I told JJ.

“I’ll just go in the limo,” JJ said. “I’ll meet you there.” I got them situated, then hopped into the Durango with Zach.

He pulled off the ramp and found a secluded spot to pull over. “Alone at last,” he said, then gave me a major kiss. I’m not sure how I managed to do it, but I pushed him away.

“We need to beat the limo to Tribeca so I can make sure everything’s ready for them. Think you can do that?”

“No problem,” he said, and tore out of the airport.

“Then we’ll spend some time alone,” I said, winking at him.

“Awesome,” he said. “Your brother hates me.”

“That’s because he thinks you’re hitting on him,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not hitting on him,” he said, getting all defensive. “Dude, I would never do that to you.” And once again, he’d read me perfectly, getting that the last thing I needed in my life was another guy who wanted to sleep with my brother.

“I know. I said he thinks you’re hitting on him, not that you are.”

“I don’t get it. He’s really cute and he’s super-talented. I figured he’d be used to people flirting with him. I thought he’d appreciate the attention.” Zach knew he was hot, so he assumed that by flirting with JJ, JJ would take it as a compliment. His arrogance was endearing.

I laughed. “You know, as good as you are at reading me, you’re bad at reading him.” He gave me a dirty look. “That means you’re really bad at reading him.”

That got me a smile. “Alright, what’s his deal?”

“He’s totally focused on skating. He was a pretty late bloomer, so he’s kind of freaked out about sex, and his body.”

“You’re telling me he’s a virgin?” Zach asked, stunned.

“More or less,” I said. “So quit trying to show him your dragon.”

“He liked my dragon,” Zach said, cracking me up, and then got serious. “Dude, I must have totally pissed him off.”

“He’s usually pissed off anyway,” I said, which wasn’t true, but he usually was bitchy. “And there’s more bad news.”

“What?”

“We need to hang out with him a lot this weekend.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “He’s dealt with 9-11 by burying his head in the ice, and focusing on skating. That’s how he’s handling it. Only he’s not. He’s not really dealing with it at all, he’s just avoiding it.”

“So what’s that mean?”

“I’ve been in agony, fighting with the demons since those fucking attacks, and it wasn’t until I came over here last weekend that I started to really cope with the fact that they were all gone. Kind of like my dad did. JJ’s not there yet. He’s not even close to that point.”

“Holy shit! This could really fuck him up.”

I nodded. “It could. I think he knows that, and I think he knows he has to deal with it. That’s why he came. That, and to laugh at you when we’re shopping.”

“Ha ha ha,” he said with faux grumpiness. “I’m not allowed to help him out like I helped you?”

“No, you’re not,” I said, with a pretty pronounced frown, even though he was just teasing me.

He reached over and held my hand. “You doing OK with that?” He was asking me about the deal with Matt and Tony.

“Matt and Wade broke up,” I said, even though it was more like a divorce. “Matt moved in with Tony.”

“The dude he fucked you over with?!” he asked, really pissed off.

“That’s the one,” I said.

“You’ll be good,” he said, referring to me getting beyond this deal with Matt. “You’ll be even better, actually, with those two douches out of your life.”

“I’m good now,” I said, gripping his hand back even more firmly. I figured I’d get all the unpleasant crap out of the way upfront, so I broached another issue. “I went to dinner with Stef and told him about us.”

“Dude, how many people know we fuck?” he asked, freaking out.

“My family,” I said. “They won’t out you, or say shit.” I knew they wouldn’t, although I wondered about Matt. I didn’t think he’d out a guy like Zach, but then again, I never thought he’d let Tony fuck him either.

“This is a big fucking deal for me,” he said.

“I know that, but no matter what happens, they won’t out you.” He nodded, trusting me since he had no choice.

“So did Stef give you pointers?” he asked, turning into a wolf again.

“Why? What we do isn’t enough fun?” I was suddenly worried that I was sexually boring.

“Yeah, but maybe there’s other fun stuff we’re missing out on.” I grinned, then smiled at that, so excited that he was willing to be sexually adventurous.

“I’ll do some research.”

“You do that,” he said. “So what did he say?”

“He was freaking out because we’re barebacking, and he made me promise him that we’d do something.”

“So now we have to wear condoms?” he asked, and that really bugged him. I understood why he felt that way without him saying anything. It was an issue of trust, and he was insecure about that, because he’d been fighting to try and be trustworthy despite Gathan and Wally’s attempts to blackball him.

“No. He made me promise that we’d pledge to each other that if we had unprotected sex with someone else, we’d admit it and wear condoms until we’re tested again,” I said.

“I can do that,” he said.

“See, it sounded easy to me too, but then he said we have to promise each other that we won’t get pissed off if that happens, if we have unprotected sex with someone else.” I swallowed hard. “That might piss me off.”

He smiled at that, since he could visualize how pissed I could be, and then he thought about my issue, even as he drove into the tunnel to Manhattan. “I see what you mean.” He drove on in silence for a little bit. “Will, I really don’t want to be with anyone but you, but it could happen. I’m getting a bunch of shit from my parents, and from the Piehls, because I’m not dating anyone.”

They were pushing him to date girls, and that meant he’d end up with a beard. That’s what he was telling me. I wanted to freak out on him, but that wasn’t fair. I knew what I was getting into with him. “And it’s possible that I could end up going out with another guy from time to time,” I said, just to keep things fair.

“I don’t want to know about that,” he snapped. We drove out of the tunnel and into Manhattan, and that seemed to spark an idea. “How about if it happens you tell me, or I’ll tell you, but no details are required?”

“So you just say, ‘Hey, we need to wear condoms’?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t want to know more than that.”

“What if I do?” I was more inquisitive than that.

“Then you can’t get pissed off at the answer you get,” he said. And then I could see the beauty of what he was proposing, and I could also see the danger. It set up our relationship to be completely isolated from our regular lives. “That work for you?”

“It works for me,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that it did. We pulled into the garage and parked the Durango, then hauled our bags up to the condo. We walked into the main room and found my father sitting there reading, waiting for us.

“Hello!” he said, and jumped up to give me a big hug, and Zach a demi-hug, in the way his grandfather had taught him, and he’d taught us.

“Everyone else should be right behind us,” I told him. “I need to talk to you about JJ.”

“I heard what happened to you this week,” he growled, referring to the issues with Matt and Frank.

“I need to talk to you about JJ,” I reiterated, and that got him on topic. “He’s going to lose it this weekend.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked. I told him about my conversation with JJ, and my guess that he was just avoiding the whole thing. “I’ll help him out.”

“He can hang out with us too,” Zach offered.

“He’ll need all of us,” Dad said diplomatically. “I put you in the second guestroom, so Frank and Mother can have the master.”

“Then I think we’ll go check it out,” I said. I ignored my father’s look and went into our bedroom. I kissed Zach passionately, a passion he fully returned. “I need to get everyone situated, but then I’m free.”

He reached out and grabbed my dick through my pants in a playful way, making me laugh, and then we adjusted ourselves so we weren’t showing and went out to greet everyone. “I put you and Frank in the main bedroom,” Dad was saying to Grandmaman and Frank. “You have the other guest bedroom,” he said to Stef. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind sharing with me,” he said to JJ.

“I can get a hotel room,” JJ said nervously, even as he looked around at these walls that held such horrible memories.

“It’s too late for that,” I said.

Dad looked at his watch meaningfully. “It’s almost midnight.”

If he snores and keeps you awake, we’ll find something tomorrow,” I added.

“Fine,” JJ agreed grudgingly.

“The game tomorrow is at noon,” Zach said. “It’s early this week.”

“Then we will do our shopping after the game or on Sunday,” Stef decreed.

“There’s a car to take you to the school,” I said. “I’ll go over with Zach.”

“Sounds good,” Frank said. “I’m going to bed.” Grandmaman went with him. The rest of us went into the kitchen and grabbed some snacks.

“I see you did some shopping,” I said to Dad. “Thanks.”

“I had the pantry stocked,” he said, so Zach didn’t think he actually went to a grocery store and lugged all the stuff back himself. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around this week.”

“It was interesting, but I’m fine,” I told him.

“I can’t believe that Matt moved in with Tony,” he said, venting his annoyance. But I didn’t want to think about Matt, or talk about Matt, and I really hadn’t thought about Tony, so I used that as an excuse to bail on them.

“Believe it,” I said abruptly. “I’m going to bed. We’ll see you at the game.” He looked at me nervously, as if worried he’d upset me, but then seemed to figure out that I was OK. I led Zach back to the bedroom, locked the door, and then reunited with him physically. Several times.

November 10, 2001

Tribeca, NYC

I poured two glasses of cognac and took them into the main room, where Stef sat gazing out the windows at Manhattan’s blinking lights. “Here,” I said, pulling him out of his introspection.

“Thank you,” he said, forcing himself to mentally rejoin me. “This city is so alive.”

“Yes it is,” I agreed. “I stayed here this week and really enjoyed myself. The only thing that sucks is the traffic.”

“That is saying something coming from someone raised in the Bay Area,” he joked, making me chuckle. “Is JJ in bed?”

“He is,” I said. “I don’t know if he’s sleeping, but I figured I’d give him some time to himself.” He had pretended to be dozing, and that was a pretty clear sign that he didn’t want to be bothered.

“Will is very worried about him,” Stef said.

“He is,” I agreed. “I’m worried about both of them.”

“I think that Will is doing fine,” Stef said. “He is angry at Matt, but he has chosen to work through that by avoiding him.”

“So he’s just going to ignore the problem?” I asked. That was pretty foreign to me, and to Will. Stef laughed, which kind of pissed me off.

“JP explained it to us at dinner, and he likened Will’s attitude now to the attitude you had with Robbie back in high school.” I was trying to figure out which attitude he was talking about, but fortunately he enlightened me. “I am thinking of that time when you pledged not to let anyone else fuck you, but Robbie broke that pledge by sleeping with that large, handsome football player.”

It said something about my feelings for Robbie that I felt myself get pissed off about that all over again. “I was pretty angry.”

Stef laughed again, only this time I joined him. “JP explained that just as you had to cool down before Robbie could approach you, so Will has to work this through in his own mind before he’ll be willing to listen to Matt.”

I smiled and nodded. “That makes sense. I get it now. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it, or think about it.” He had pretty abruptly shut down the topic when I’d raised it.

“And how has your week been? Did you have any more dates with Chris Mendoza?”

I frowned, which just made him smile. “So Will told you all about that.”

“But of course,” he said dismissively. “It was within the realm of allowable gossip. It is not as if he interrupted you having sex with him.”

“Right,” I said dubiously.

“Did you have sex with him?”

I shook my head in frustration at how irrepressible Stef was. “No, I did not. Last Saturday, after we went out, he kissed me goodnight.”

“You have lost your touch,” Stef said, as if I wanted to sleep with Chris but couldn’t.

“I’m not ready to go there yet,” I said. My tone was serious, so his attitude adapted to match it. “I don’t want another relationship. I have enough people to be responsible for, and to worry about.”

“I wonder if that is what is driving Matt’s actions,” Stef said.

“I think with him, he’s just trying to avoid intimacy with anyone,” I said. I’d talked to my shrink about it, and that was his read, so I was just parroting that back to Stef. “He’s probably mad at everyone, at the world.”

“That is very self-destructive,” Stef noted sadly. I nodded my agreement. “While we are on unpleasant topics, I have some bad news to share with you.”

“Go on,” I said nervously, wondering what else he could possibly toss in my lap to make my life any worse.

“Aaron Hayes died. I got word today from Los Negros. He died of skin cancer.” I digested that, and while it was sad, it didn’t really bother me all that much. It was very hard to feel sorry for Aaron, after the way he bailed on his family. Stef and JP seemed much more able to forgive him for that than everyone else.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and managed to sound sincere. “How did Frank handle it?”

“For him, it was good news,” Stef grumbled. It made sense that Frank would be bitter. He’d grown up in an abusive household, and seen his family torn apart, because of Aaron’s selfish decision to fake his own death.

“Did you let Nathan know?” I asked, referring to Aaron’s brother, who lived in Detroit.

“I did,” Stef said.

“Did he have a family or anyone there with him?”

“There was a man living with him. I saw him briefly when I was there. Aaron left his house and possessions to him,” I said. “I sent him a check to help him out during this time.”

“That was nice of you,” I said. I finished my cognac. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Good night,” Stef said. I went to the bedroom and got ready, then climbed into bed. This room had two queen-sized beds, so I didn’t have to worry about jostling JJ awake. I looked over and his back was to me. He was breathing softly, like he was sleeping, so I left him alone.