School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,141

the Lexus and sent Jackson a deeply tired look. “Finish that sentence,” he said, exhaustion hurting his bones. “I dare you.”

Jackson took a deep breath—a gratifyingly clear deep breath—and nodded.

“I’m sorry, Ellery,” he said dutifully.

Ellery let out a cracked laugh. “You got out of surgery a week ago. You’re doing fine. You just need to relax, and you’re not doing it at home. Can we…?” He looked at Jackson in honest supplication. “We’re the bosses, and I say we take a vacation.”

Jackson nodded. “You’re planning to work during my mandatory nap time, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Ellery said without repentance. “But we have a hotel room overlooking the ocean, so it will feel like a vacation.”

Jackson smiled faintly and yawned. “You need to not worry about me for a week,” he said, and that new understanding he’d shown when his heart murmur had really started getting bad hadn’t gone away yet.

Ellery was grateful.

“Yes,” he said gently.

Jackson regarded him with narrow eyes. “Am I going to get sex? Finally? Because the doctor said I could go as soon as I felt up to it.”

“And when do you feel up to it?” Ellery closed the door and started the Lexus, drowning out Jackson’s automatic “Always!”

“I’m sorry,” Ellery said, holding his hand to his ear. “I didn’t hear that.”

“You did too, you big baby. How do you know it’s not true?”

Ellery took one more look at him before backing the car out. He’d gained a little weight back, and since the surgery clearing out the scar tissue from his aorta, his cheeks were a normal color again. But Ellery had almost lost him so many times, the idea that he could lose Jackson now, to Jackson’s stubbornness, still filled him with fear.

“It’s true when you’re not trying to prove something to me,” Ellery said, his face relaxing a little. The garage door was open; they were going to see free air. “I don’t just want you for the sex—and yes, it’s a perk. I really, really need to know you’re okay.”

Jackson closed his eyes, the shadows under them indicating he’d about used up his awake time for the moment. The doctor said he’d sleep a lot in the first couple of weeks, but as long as he kept up a regimen of moderate exercise and ate well instead of like a fifth grader running away from his parents, he would be back to five miles a day and a hundred miles an hour in no time at all.

Ellery needed him to sleep.

“You have said that before,” Jackson said softly.

“Which part?” Ellery backed out and hit the button for the garage door. Jade and her boyfriend, Mike, would be by to water Ellery’s plants that evening, and Henry would be by to take care of Billy Bob in the mornings. Between the three of them using the pool and taking advantage of the air-conditioning and the privacy, the house should look well lived in for the next week. Ellery wasn’t worried about it.

Jackson on the other hand…. Ellery would never not worry in that direction.

Never.

“That you don’t need sex from me.”

“I don’t! I—”

“No, no.” Jackson held up a languid hand. “I believe you, Counselor. I just need to remember I have to work at being better company.”

“You do not! That’s the point. You don’t have to work at being anything but yourself.”

Jackson let out what might be a laugh when he woke up. “I’ll parse that in a few hours. Are you sure you’re up for driving?”

“Monterey here we come.” Ellery had literally pulled it out of a hat. Jackson had loved the beach in San Diego, but they needed someplace cooler. Some place Jackson wouldn’t be tempted to surf, swim, or otherwise dive into the water.

Some place they could walk easily, not sweat too much, and eat clam chowder, and Ellery could remind him that his entire existence was more than his ability to solve mysteries or sex Ellery up.

Not, of course, that the sex would be unwelcome. It was just that Jackson needed to remember that he was loved.

He’d come through the surgery with flying colors—and too many people worried about him. Once everybody had gone away, he’d been alone with the voices in his own head and a body that wouldn’t let him outrun them. Ellery had learned all sorts of things about being in a relationship with this man over the past year, but as he drove out of Sacramento and down toward the Monterey Peninsula, he thought that maybe the biggest