School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,101

most of my pork chop. You didn’t.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Jackson repeated, and then called, “C’mere, you no-thumbs-having motherfucker. Daddy’s gonna make a fur pillow out of you.”

Ellery laughed softly and fell back against the pillows, obviously content to let Jackson do the cleanup and discipline for the moment.

Good, Jackson thought, limping grimly through the house naked. Ellery had taken care of Jackson plenty over the past year. It was good that sometimes he got to do the same.

Fish Bowls in the Air

ELLERY LAY on his side, watching Jackson chase his cat through the house. After a few entertaining minutes of hearing Jackson swear—and watching him run naked back and forth in front of the door—he swore to himself and gave up. Ellery could hear the muted sounds of cupboards opening and shutting and silverware on plates. When he realized Jackson was going to do dishes too, Ellery got out of bed just long enough to put underwear on and grab his phone.

There was something really sexy about a naked Jackson doing dishes in his kitchen. He had obviously set about making the night nice for Ellery—for the two of them, really—so Ellery was going to stay there and savor.

Loving Jackson Rivers had never been easy. Coming to this place, this emotionally satisfying place right here, was like waltzing with a porcupine until his quills turned to feathers. It was like skipping over rolling logs until you met a brick road and could skip down it instead. Like coating yourself with sirloin steak and walking through a panther cage—and coming out on the other side for a fresh shower and some gelato for your trouble.

A year it had taken them, to get to this place. There had been progress and there had been setbacks, and they had both kept trying and trying again, because separating after everything they’d been through together had absolutely not once been on the roster of possibilities.

And now, happily sexed but body still humming in anticipation of more, Ellery remembered a moment the year before, when Jackson had scorned the idea of a wedding because, in his words, “Who in the fuck would want to marry me?”

Ellery would.

Ellery had from the very beginning.

At first it had been a dream, a distant hope, a thing he tormented himself with before he closed his eyes on the worst nights.

The ones when Jackson had been in the hospital, for example. There’d been a lot of those.

But lately, it had become more and more an expected, hoped-for part of the horizon. Someday, Ellery was going to ask him. And when he did, he knew Jackson would say yes.

Because Jackson loved Ellery enough to give him everything. Including hope.

Ellery pulled the comforter over his bottom half and practically giggled to himself.

Especially hope.

He could have gone to sleep happy right there, but he just had to check his phone.

“Jackson!” he called, hopping out of bed. “Jackson, what did you do while I was gone?”

“I’m sorry?” Jackson murmured, and Ellery heard the start of the dishwasher as he rounded the curve. “I made some calls. Why?”

Ellery held out his phone. “Whatever you did, you managed to piss off the DOJ. My mother needs to talk to us!”

Jackson’s eyes got amazingly big. “I… hold on. I have to go put on some pants.”

Ellery rolled his eyes and turned to follow him back into the bedroom. “We’re not Zooming. This isn’t on Skype. How’s she going to know if you’ve got pants on or not?”

“Oh, she’ll know,” Jackson muttered direly. “Lucy Satan will know.”

“My mother’s name is… you know, never mind. Call her Lucy Satan. She likes it. I think it makes her feel young.”

Jackson had scooped up their clothes as he’d stalked back into the bedroom, and now he was rooting for his underwear before pulling out a pair of transparent nylon basketball shorts from the chest of drawers Ellery had bought exclusively for Jackson that summer, along with clothes to fill it.

Ellery looked at the shorts in despair. Jackson had actually volunteered to retire most of his old clothes from activewear—probably because they were rotting, thread by thread, from his body. He kept the old stuff for mooching about the house, which made complete sense until Ellery had to see him wearing shorts that were transparent and sort of slinky and threatening to reveal all of Jackson’s best parts as he moved.

“Please,” Ellery said through a dry throat. “If we’re going to talk to my mother, could you put on some sleep pants