School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,118

off. I’m not even kidding.”

“Which is exactly what I was doing before you called and fucked up my morning. Blame yourself, geezer. I’ll be there in ten if you shut up and let me kiss my boyfriend goodbye.”

“Stay home.”

“See you there. Stay alive.”

Fuck. “Fine. You too.”

And then Jackson hung up because everything hurt and shit was about to go down, and he wanted two quiet minutes with Ellery before the shitshow began.

Ellery pulled up to a loading-zone-only space in front of the courthouse and turned off the ignition. The street was deserted, and the early-morning shadows stretched long over them. It was late enough in August that the mornings had a little chill, but the day was still probably going to be a scorcher. For a moment, though, they sat in the silence and breathed.

Jackson was unsurprised by Ellery reaching for his hand, or the twining of their fingers.

“You okay?” Ellery asked.

“I could sleep for a week,” he confessed.

Ellery let out a weak chuckle. “How’s your back?”

A year ago, Jackson would have shined him on. He’d done it with Christie and had just tried to do it to Henry.

But he wasn’t doing it with Ellery, not after the night before. He could remember Ellery’s hands on his skin, so tender, and the way he’d simply… accepted. He’d accepted who Jackson was. Yes, he wanted Jackson to be more careful of himself, but the part that he couldn’t change, he accepted.

Such a powerful thing, that acceptance.

It had taken them a year to get here: to the place where Jackson learned to take care of himself for Ellery’s sake and Ellery learned that there were some parts of Jackson he didn’t want to change.

So for once he didn’t play the “I’m fine,” game. He wasn’t fine. They were going out into a potentially dangerous situation, and he was not moving as fast as he usually did, and Ellery needed to know that.

And Ellery wouldn’t judge him for being hurt.

“Ow-ooh-ch.” He punctuated the extended syllables with a grimace. “I could have used a Jacuzzi and some ice and another backrub.”

“Poor baby,” Ellery said, and he was only partially teasing. “Maybe the weekend.”

Jackson gave him his best smile, the one that came up from his toes. “Count on it.”

“Still want to pick out a kitten?”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah. Maybe we’ll have some cakewalk cases so I can spend a little more time at home with it. I’d hate to bring it home and just leave it with Billy Bob. That’s no fair.”

“To anybody,” Ellery said sourly. “We may want to consider separate rooms, separate cat boxes, and separate food.”

Jackson grunted. “Definitely separate food. Billy Bob’s fierce. Too much time on his own. He never got enough when he was younger. Doesn’t share. Has trouble playing well with others.”

Ellery’s smile was gentle and luminous. “Bad habits, true,” he conceded. “But I think he can learn.”

Oof. Well, yeah. “If I can, anybody can?” Jackson interpreted.

Ellery tilted his head from side to side, playing coy with the fact that Jackson had voiced his exact intention. “Well, you’ve both learned fixed animals don’t wander,” Ellery said gently.

“No, we do not. Just, you know, takes a lot of work to fix us,” Jackson apologized.

“Not so much.”

And for a moment the pain fell away, and the world was the two of them, and the gentleness they brought to their bed, to their lives, and the way sometimes, when it was only the two of them, the world could be perfect.

“Worth it?” Jackson asked, his heart suddenly pounding for the answer.

“Absolutely.”

And a breath, falling into Ellery’s eyes, and a heartbeat of knowing their love was strong.

And his phone, buzzing on his lap. They broke away reluctantly, and he picked it up.

“Rivers.”

“Burton. He just got off the freeway at J Street, and it’s not looking good. Bus is belching smoke and wobbling on a tire, and he’s driving like he’s about fucking done. Get your shit down there. Ace has a van but we need someone to drive the transpo, if we can find a safe place for him to stop, ’k?”

“’Kk,” Jackson repeated. “How will I know you?”

“When bad guys start dropping dead,” Burton replied and hung up as Ellery started the engine.

And Jackson picked up the phone and started making calls.

By the time he and Ellery hit J Street and hung a right, he had Mira, as well as Sodhi and Pasternak from the DA’s office, hauling ass for Mira’s minivan, as well as Christie in his unmarked, and Henry in