School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,102
that don’t give me wood?”
Jackson paused long enough to give him a filthy, filthy smile of absolute ownership.
“Heh heh heh heh heh heh….”
Ellery arched one eyebrow and regarded him stonily, hoping that the knowledge of exactly how badly Ellery’s mother could put a crimp in their sex life would make him see sense.
After a moment, Jackson grunted and replaced the basketball shorts with a new pair of lightly woven cotton—just as cool, just as practical, but they apparently didn’t tickle Ellery’s little kink.
“Thank you,” Ellery said as Jackson slid them on. “Now, do I need to know what this is about before I call my—”
His phone went off in his hand just as Jackson grimaced.
“Hello, Mother,” Ellery said, soothed to talk to her in spite of himself. “What can we do for you?”
His mother’s voice was, as always, reasonable and measured. Ellery had very rarely seen his mother ruffled. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know when she was pissed.
“Ellery, is Jackson there with you?”
“We’re both here, Mother,” Ellery responded.
“Hi, ma’am,” Jackson said, his voice taking on the reluctant-schoolboy tones he often used when addressing Taylor Cramer.
“Good. May I ask what you boys have been up to today?”
Jackson’s eyes widened in apparent panic, and Ellery gave him a meaningful look. Oh, yes. There would be consequences.
“Well,” Ellery drawled, “I got a seventeen-year-old boy out of prison where he should have never been, leveraged a bailiff and a prison guard into giving up the blackmailer who wanted to keep him there, and bought Jackson an economy-sized SUV.”
“Really? That’s good to hear.” Taylor Cramer never lied, so Jackson’s little smirk of triumph wasn’t lost on Ellery. “That larger vehicle is quite impractical for tooling around town.”
“It is,” Ellery said, ignoring the urge to remind her that they usually drove his car. “Jackson came back to work yesterday, and he really does need a vehicle of his own.”
“Came back to work yesterday,” Taylor purred. “Hm. So, Jackson, what did you do today?”
“Well, I offered an assist on getting the kid out of jail,” Jackson said, nodding at Ellery like he could will Ellery into compliance, “and then Henry and I went to the high school to do some interviews, and then I came home and rested, because I am a good boy.”
“Ellery?”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Are you and Jackson sitting close together?”
They were, in fact, their naked thighs touching as Ellery held the phone.
“Yes, Mother.”
“You should move, dear boy. God is going to strike your boyfriend down where he sits for telling such outrageous lies.”
Ellery made a silent fist pump and mouthed “Yes!” in Jackson’s general direction.
“I told the truth!” Jackson protested.
“Sure,” Ellery retorted. “But you left out the part where you got shot at and cut up your leg wiggling out of the window to confront a potential assassin.”
“And,” Taylor Cramer interjected, her voice irritated in the way that only a particularly fractious child can irritate a parent, “he left out the part where he agreed to help a rogue military operative spirit a shipment of valuable property away from the officer who needs it to help with an op!”
“You did what?” Ellery asked, staring at Jackson.
“How did you know about that?” Jackson said, obviously surprised. “I didn’t even have a chance to tell Ellery!”
“Why would you do that in the first place?” Taylor demanded. “I’ve got a brigadier general pounding down my door, telling me to get my son-in-law back in line. What product is so important that you would agree to help law enforcement steal it from a military operation?”
“Children!” Jackson burst out. “Children. Okay? You all remember Jason Constance?”
Ellery could hear his mother’s complete stillness through 3,000 miles of fiber-optic network, and he remembered earlier that year, when Constance and his friend Burton had guarded his mother for a week because she had pissed off the wrong people in her job as a corporate attorney who often dealt with military contractors.
“I do,” Taylor said softly. “Is he our ‘rogue military operative’?”
“He is, ma’am,” Jackson replied, his voice quiet again. “What happened, I believe, is that Ace and Jai—you remember them?”
“I remember Ace,” Ellery’s mother said. “I never had a chance to meet their friend.”
“Well, you’d remember him if you met him,” Jackson understated. The man was nearly seven feet tall and built like a refrigerator. Who wouldn’t remember him? “I believe they intercepted a shipment of children being taken to Las Vegas. The young man we got out of prison had a brother and a sister who were stolen by the local