Reconsider Me Read online

  A place of their own, that smelled of them, that was filled with their things mixed together, their energy.

  Theirs.

  But he wouldn’t push Joel. He’d be his Sir’s good boy and be patient. He knew he had the man’s heart—and Joel had his.

  They had the rest of their lives together.

  At home, as soon as he walked into the apartment, he realized the air smelled…not bad, but stale. Then he realized since he’d missed going through his routine last Saturday, because they’d headed to Mobile, it’d been two weeks since he’d aired it out. His mom had brought his mail in for him, and he’d have to go through that later. It sat in a neat pile on his coffee table.

  She’d also turned his AC up to eighty-five to save energy.

  First things first, he cranked down the AC. After getting his groceries and laundry put away, and cleaning the old food out of the fridge and tossing it, he turned on the ceiling fans, throwing all the windows and even the kitchen slider to the backyard wide open.

  Thank goodness for screens! He wouldn’t have a houseful of bugs.

  He sorted through his essential oils and went with a citrus blend to freshen the place, but added in a few drops each of lavender and vanilla to balance it out and give it a more mellow vibe. Liking that result, he replicated it in all his diffusers and then set about getting ready to cook. He wouldn’t have time to mop the floors before Joel got home, but that was okay, because they weren’t bad. He’d leave the windows open until after he was done cooking.

  Fen didn’t know if his oven fried chicken would be as good as Joel’s mom’s, but he’d damn sure try. Maybe if he could cook his guy a comforting meal of familiar food, it might help him relax after all he’d been through.

  While he cooked, he turned up the soundtrack to Mama Mia! on his stereo and sang along with it as he prepped the chicken, keeping an eye on his time.

  “I think I’m finally getting my groove back,” he said aloud, more to the apartment than to himself. Ever since having Joel over that very first night the weekend that they met, he hadn’t noticed anything missing or moved. Maybe the apartment liked Joel?

  He didn’t feel silly thinking it. Fen knew he loved the man. It was only natural whatever funky energies he shared the space with might sense his newfound happiness and feel the same way, right?

  He finally got the chicken in the oven. Fen had mixed the breading ingredients for the tomatoes, and had already sliced them and started to heat the shortening in the cast iron skillet Barb had given him, when he heard his phone ring back in the bedroom.

  Joel’s ringtone.

  “Dammit.” He ran to grab it before it went to voice mail. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  “Hey yourself. I’m on my way.”

  “Good. Dinner will be ready soon.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Got a little surprise for you, Sir.”

  “You do, hmm?”

  “Yes, Sir. And that’s all I’ll say until you get here. Then you’ll know what it is.”

  Joel’s throaty chuckle stiffened Fen’s cock. “Then I’ll see you soon.”

  Fen practically ran back to the kitchen and got the first batch of green tomatoes started. The shortening was hot and popped a little as he slid the breaded slices into the skillet. Thankfully he’d paid close attention to how she’d made them. Otherwise, he might have treated it like deep frying, which would have been a pain.

  “Ah, dammit!” He pulled off his glasses and looked at them. A fine spray coated both lenses. Shortening.

  “Well, I can’t clean them right now. They’ll just get dirty again.” He laid them on the counter and had finished flipping the first batch of green tomatoes when he heard a crash that sounded like it came from the master bedroom.

  “What the hell?”

  He made it halfway down the hall, as far as the doorway to the second bedroom, when he spotted a man standing in the doorway to the master bedroom, but he couldn’t make out his features without his glasses.

  Fen froze, paralyzed as the guy grinned and started toward him. “Don’t have Joel here to protect you now, you. You gonna gut me, huh? Think I’ll take my time and fuck your ass so he knows every time he takes you I done been there. He can have my sloppy seconds.”

  Johnny.

  The guy looked even bigger than he remembered. No way Fen could fight him off for long in that circumstance if he caught him. Not unarmed and without the element of surprise.

  Run. Kitchen.

  It sounded like a young woman’s voice in his right ear, almost familiar, he’d swear to it, but Fen didn’t take time to process that. His fear paralysis snapped. He pivoted on his toes and bolted down the hall with the sound of Johnny’s footsteps echoing behind him on the tile.

  Instead of aiming for the back door, Fen thought to snatch his phone off the kitchen counter.

  NO!

  The woman’s voice again.

  Then his eyes fell on the knife he’d been using…before passing over it and focusing on the stove.

  Fen lunged. He felt Johnny’s hand close on the back of his shirt and start to yank on him as Fen’s right hand wrapped around the skillet’s handle where it sat on the burner. Closing his eyes and leaning his head to the left, he blindly heaved the skillet’s contents over his right shoulder into Johnny’s face. Only a couple of splashes of hot shortening landed on Fen’s T-shirt on his right shoulder, but Fen ignored the pain.

  He’d felt worse in a scene.

  Johnny screamed and released Fen’s shirt, but Fen wasn’t through. His gripped the handle with both hands now, and swiveled to his left, bringing the skillet around and swinging as hard as he could. It connected with the left side of Johnny’s head with a bone-jarring clang that silenced Johnny’s screams and sent him careening sideways, to his right, the momentum knocking him over and the right side of his face landing on the stove’s glowing hot burner.

  Another scream from Johnny, this one sounding…well, weird, as Johnny managed to pull himself off the burner and slide to the floor, where he landed on his ass, sitting there staring at his hands and moaning and making sounds like a drunken peacock.

  In his ear, Fen heard another whisper, or maybe it was his own rage chattering at him.

  “Motherfucker,” Fen muttered. He swung again, low to high like a golf club, catching Johnny dead center in the middle of his face, this time with a satisfyingly thuddy crunch.

  The force of that impact once again silenced the man’s screams and sent him tumbling back, where he landed face-up on the floor, eyes mostly closed, but no iris visible, and no movement in them.

  Fen stood there, staring, panting, skillet poised at the ready and waiting for the fucker to get up, to make any movement, so he could smack him again. He wasn’t sure if Johnny was unconscious or concussed or dead, and frankly, he didn’t care.

  He wasn’t taking his eyes off the fucker.

  And by god, this was a motherfucking castle doctrine state.

  He did, however, reach over and switch the stove’s burner off. Then he stepped around Johnny, after giving the man’s left knee a hard kick to make sure he was at the very least unconscious, so Fen could grab his phone. In speaker mode, he dialed 911 and left it sitting on the counter so he could once again hold the skillet with both hands and keep his eyes on Johnny.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  “A guy broke into my apartment and attacked me. I…” A sob clawed its way free. “I had to fight back. He’s unconscious right now, I think. I’m afraid to check his pulse. He’s hurt bad. I hit him with a skillet. I need an ambulance and the cops, please.”

  A fairly large trickle of blood now flowed from Johnny’s left ear and pooled on the floor by his head, in addition to the blood on his face from where the hot skillet had made impact. His nose was flattened and bloodied. Then there was also the spiral–shaped burn from the stove element along the right side of his face.

  “Sir, what is your address and your name?”

>   He gave her the info, then took a deep breath. “Please call Detective Glen White for me. Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. W-H-I-T-E.” He gave her his dad’s official cell phone number, and his private one.

  “Sir, can you leave your apartment and get to safety?”

  “I’m not leaving in case he gets up again. I don’t want this sonofabitch to get away!”

  “Sir, please stay calm, I have EMS and deputies on their way. Are you injured?”

  “Not really, he got nearly all of it. Just…just call Detective White, please!”

  “I’m passing a message along to the Sheriff’s Office dispatch right now, sir, but why do you want him called?”

  “Because…” He gave up trying to be strong, trying to be brave. He started crying. “Because he’s my dad, and I need him!”

  * * * *

  Joel pulled over onto the shoulder when two marked sheriff’s cruisers went flying past him, lights flashing and sirens blaring. He was going to pull back onto the street when he spotted the ambulance approaching from the same direction, so he and the cars ahead of and behind him stayed put until it passed, too.

  He could see ahead of him that all three were going in the same direction Joel was. Another cruiser, lights and sirens going, turned onto the street ahead of him, following the others.

  And as he kept following them, turn for turn, a bad feeling started congealing in his gut.

  He couldn’t help but push the accelerator closer to the floor. When he reached Fen’s street, he had to park by someone’s yard and run, because there were cruisers and another ambulance in front of Fen’s and the street had been blocked off three houses down.

  Joel’s heart lodged in his throat when the deputy tried to stop him. “Sir, you can’t go in there.”

  “That’s my fiancé’s place! What happened? Is he okay?”

  “Joel!” In the distance, he spotted Fen’s dad waving at him from where he sat on the front porch.

  Even better, he spotted Fen tucked against him.

  The deputy let him through and when he reached the porch he nearly threw himself on top of Fen, who was crying.

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I-I-m s-sorry, S-sir! I-I wanted t-to—”

  He pulled Fen against him. “Shh, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay, baby. I’m here.” He stroked Fen’s hair as the man’s sobs renewed.

  He stared over him at Detective White. He wore his badge holder strung around his neck on a beaded chain, and was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He looked like he’d been doing yard work, from the grass stains covering his sneakers and bare lower legs.

  “What happened?”

  Glen patted Fen’s shoulders. “A guy broke in and attacked him. Fen said he was your ex?”

  Rage washed through Joel. “What?” he screamed.

  “Yeah. Fortunately, Fen was cooking and grabbed the skillet and…” He looked at the back of Fen’s head and shook his head.

  “Dead?” Joel silently mouthed.

  Glen grimly nodded.

  It felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

  He tightened his grip on Fen and rocked him as Fen cried, Joel’s face pressed into Fen’s hair, which smelled like—

  “Glen.” A uniformed deputy stood in the open doorway and motioned to him.

  “Stay here with him.” Glen stood and walked into the house with the other deputy.

  A million and one questions flooded Joel’s brain, but he wouldn’t ask any of them right now. Fen had started trembling. One of the EMTs walked over and squatted down so he could look Fen in the face.

  Now Joel realized Fen didn’t have his glasses on.

  “Sir, can we check you out now? I’m really worried about you going into shock.”

  “No—”

  “Yes, baby,” Joel overruled, scooping Fen into his arms and carrying him over to the back of the ambulance that had already been parked in front of Fen’s. Ten minutes later, Fen was wrapped in a silver thermal blanket, despite the warm afternoon, and they’d put EKG leads on him and were monitoring him as a precaution, because his blood pressure was still high and his pulse extremely elevated. The EMTs thought it might be due to adrenaline still in his system, but they wanted to transport him to be on the safe side once he was cleared to leave.

  In the process of pulling his T-shirt off him for the EMTs, Joel discovered the burns on the top of Fen’s right shoulder, which they were now cleaning and dressing.

  And why the hell did his guy smell like fried green tomatoes?

  Glen joined them at the back of the ambulance. “Fenton,” he said, totally Dad tone. “I need Joel to come talk to me for a minute, okay? He needs to look at something for me. He’ll be right back. Okay? You stay here.”

  Fen nodded, but there was something haunted to his expression, the way he was still silently crying, that made Joel want to never leave his side.

  Reluctantly, he followed Glen into the house.

  Someone had thrown a sheet over the body, which lay on the floor in the kitchen near the stove. Glen stopped Joel at the end of the counter, and another deputy raised the sheet enough Joel could see.

  Holy…FUCK!

  His Fen had done that?

  Then again, he thought about watching Fen’s flying leap in the cemetery as he’d taken Johnny down after the funeral. How he’d been so shocked he hadn’t been able to respond, to do nothing except watch it play out until common sense kicked in again and he and Jackson had peeled Fen off Johnny.

  It’d taken both of them to do it, too.

  “Is that him?” Glen asked.

  Joel nodded and they covered the body again.

  Joel felt…ill. “Yeah,” he finally said when he felt he could speak without throwing up. “Johnny McNamara. He showed up at Dad’s funeral Monday. I don’t know how he found Fen…”

  He thought about what Fen had said at the one gas stop. “Shit. He must have followed us from Alabama after my dad’s funeral. One time Fen said he kept seeing the same car and we didn’t think much of it at the time. Lots of cars heading east on I-10 to I-75.”

  “What kind of car?”

  Joel described it. One of the uniformed deputies was taking notes, and as Joel looked around, he realized all the windows were open. “What the hell happened?”

  Glen pointed to where the cast iron skillet had been dropped on the floor. “We’ll have to get Fen calmed down to get him to recount the events for us again, but from what we could get out of him, Fen heard a noise in the back bedroom. Screen’s pulled out on one of the windows there. When Fen went to investigate, he saw this guy in the bedroom, and then heard a woman and turned and ran.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah. They’re getting K9 units in here now to track. Fen made it here, into the kitchen, where the guy caught up to him. Apparently the guy also told Fen he was going to sexually assault him.”

  Glen looked torn between rage and anguish, and needed a moment before he could continue. “So Fen grabbed the skillet. First he flung it back over his shoulder”—he mimed the action—“hitting the guy in the face with the hot oil and food, which distracted the guy. Then Fen turned and…”

  He mimed swinging. “Nailed him in the head, but apparently not hard enough to take him down. Fen hit him a second time when the guy lunged at him. Then, as the guy fell, he hit the stove on his way down and landed on the floor dead, or dying. If he wasn’t dead already, his head probably hit the tile hard enough to do more damage before he expired. Big guy like that, dead weight, lots of momentum.”

  Wow. That explained why it looked like Johnny’s face had been smashed in.

  It had.

  He was still trying to come to grips with the fact that his guy, his sweet, gentle Fen, had done…this.

  “Fractured skull, most likely,” Glen said. “Blunt force trauma.”

  Now Joel realized he smelled chicken cooking—his mom’s chicken.

  He pointed at the stove. “I think that’s on.
The oven.”

  The deputy closest to it was wearing black tactical gloves. He opened the oven door and peeked inside. “Damn, that smells good. We get pictures already?”

  “Yeah,” one of the other uniformed deputies said.

  The deputy closed the oven door and then turned it off. “Someone please note in the official record that the oven was on, and responding officers turned it off for safety.”

  “Got it,” someone else said.

  Joel spotted the chef’s knife lying on the cutting mat, where several green tomatoes had been sliced and were waiting to be breaded. Now that he was registering details, he spotted breaded and partially cooked tomato slices all over the floor.

  “That’s my grandmother’s skillet,” Joel numbly said. “Mom gave it to Fen when we were there. She showed him how to make some of my favorite recipes. She…” He choked back tears of his own. “She really likes Fen and wanted him to have it. Knew he’d appreciate it.”

  Glen leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We have to take it as evidence. I’ll make sure it gets back to him once the investigation is closed.”

  Joel nodded, wondering if this was the weirdest conversation he’d ever have with his future father-in-law.

  “Is…is Fen in trouble?”

  “No,” about four officers and Glen all said.

  Glen continued. “Self-defense.” Glen glanced around and smiled, dropping his voice to a whisper again. “That’s my boy.”

  No, he’s my boy.

  But Joel was smart enough not to say that out loud. Especially not to his fiancé’s father, who was currently surrounded by a half-dozen well-armed co-workers.

  Chapter Twenty

  Glen took Joel’s keys from him and told him he’d move his car to Fen’s driveway once everyone cleared out. He was going to stay behind and unofficially supervise the crime scene cleanup once the body was removed and the CSI techs had released the scene.

  He sent Joel to the hospital in the ambulance with Fen, and would have Fen’s mom meet them there. Ivy practically had to be held back to keep from climbing into the ambulance with them when they were unloading Fen on the gurney, until Fen grabbed her hand and squeezed.