Fish Out of Water (11 page)

“You’re very welcome,” Ellery said dryly, starting his car and trying not to fuss too much about the blood and water stains on the gray leather upholstery. “Where to now?”

Jackson grunted. “Do you have a creature or anything? Dog? Cat? Fish? Plant?”

“I have a fish tank with a fake fish and plastic plants. It looks lovely.”

“Well it can feed its goddamned self and it won’t crap on the rug. My place, then—don’t worry, it’s not a shithole. Anyway—get on 80, take 5 to J Street, and I’ll walk you from there.”

“Which street do you live on?”

“Elvas—if it wasn’t so late, I’d say take Power Inn, but traffic should be not horrible.”

“Yeah. I know where it is.” A decent neighborhood—not great. Close to the college but not too close. It was the sort of place a guy could live on a cop’s salary if he was just starting out. Ellery wondered if that was where he lived when he’d been shot.

And those questions reared their ugly heads again.

A few minutes passed, and Ellery waded through traffic. It was nearing eight o’clock, and the sun was going down. Traffic was thinning a bit, which was a blessing. Although his AC was cranked full blast, he could smell the heat still radiating from Jackson’s body and the sweat of a long day.

“I’ve got cookies,” Jackson said, eyes still closed. “And milk. And beer if you want it. And chips if you like to nosh.”

“You sound all prepared,” Ellery noted.

“Cereal and instant oatmeal too,” Jackson told him. “And a comfortable couch.”

“It’s going to be a long night.” It went without saying.

“You can even borrow some of my sleep shorts,” Jackson confirmed.

“That’s kind, but I’ve got some in my gym bag. Got Internet?”

“Yup.”

“It’ll be just like college.” Except Ellery couldn’t recall ever having a study group with someone who looked dangerous and muscular, reclined and half-somnolent in the front of his car. His mouth went dry, and he took a deep drag of his own soda before setting it back in the cup holder. “Or maybe law school.”

Jackson let out a short, bitter bark of a laugh. “As long as we’re both still learning, I’ll take that.”

Ellery’s heart beat hard in his throat. Jackson’s house. In his sleep shorts. With his cat. Yeah, sure, he’d be sleeping on the couch, but it was like having membership to an exclusive club. Ellery hadn’t been in a lot of clubs through school. Chess, debate, science—most of the membership requirements for those were that you had to want to use your brain for something besides flirting with your classmates.

This club was sort of the opposite of that. Except Jackson was counting on his big brain to do more than win the chess tournament.

THE HOUSE
turned out to be a duplex—painted blue-gray on the outside, with white trim and a neatly kept postage stamp of a yard. As Ellery pulled into the driveway, he had to be very careful to avoid a scruffy guy wearing a grease-stained T-shirt and assless jeans tinkering under the giant black F-250 in the space next to Jackson’s.

Jackson grunted. “Wonderful. Mike’s working on the damned truck.”

They opened the doors and the heat of summer roared in, along with country music being played at top volume.

“Mike,” Jackson hollered as he exited the car. He came down hard on his knee and yelped and then soldiered around the front anyway. “Mike, goddammit, can you just not play Billy Ray at top volume tonight?”

Mike shoved himself out from under the truck with the muscular, easy movements of a man in his thirties or forties, but his hair was white. His face was relatively unlined, though, so Ellery couldn’t make a guess at his age—something about the crinkles at his eyes and the absolute capability in his bearing made Ellery think of Sean Bean. Mike pushed up from his dolly quick as a jackrabbit and eyed Jackson up and down before turning his gimlet blue-eyed gaze to Ellery and his smoky-truffle Lexus.

“Another guy?” he asked, squinting in disbelief. “You have got a parade of
fine
-looking women in and out of here, and you still have to bring home
another
guy?”

Jackson squared his jaw and lowered his head. If Ellery didn’t know better, he’d say it was his
own
expression when he had to deal with his mother.

“My women—”

“And men!”

“Are none of your business—”

“But you had
Jade
here, Jackson. She is
smokin’
hot, and funny, and a damned sight more than you deserve. Why this
bozo with the Lexus when you can have
Jade
?”

The look that crossed Jackson’s face was both patient and sad. “Because Jade and I don’t fit that way,” he said gently. “And she’s only ever going to sleep on the couch from now on. And this guy is here to help keep Kaden out of prison, so be nice.”

Mike’s half-badgering, half-exasperated expression changed just that fast. “What in the hell did your people do to Kaden!”

Jackson grimaced. “Not my people anymore, Mike—and it’s bad. Ellery here is his defense attorney—we’ve got some work to do.”

Mike took off his baseball hat—Deere tractors—and scratched the back of his snowy-white head. Maybe all the white was premature, because the man’s face, while a little weathered, really was quite young. “Yeah, I hear ya. Let me know what I can do.” He frowned. “And you fucked yourself up again. God almighty, kid—you have to stay healthy, or who’s going to manage your wild animal?”

Jackson laughed and spun around on his good leg, waving behind him as he limped toward the front door on the right side of the duplex. “It’s a
cat
, Mike. I think they were a thing in the 1800s—when you were
born
!”

“Not that kind of cat,” Mike said sourly. “I swear that thing was fucking my dog the other day, and he doesn’t swing that way.”

Jackson smiled fondly. “Well, if Paulie starts squirting out mutant catdog assbabies, you let me know—I’m good for palimony.”

“Screw child support!” Mike retorted. “He hurt my damned dog’s feelings! That fucker better be over here with flowers and Milk-Bones or my dog’s going to grieve himself to death!”

Jackson tossed a winning smile over his shoulder. “Well, Mike, that’s up to your dog. As long as Paulie didn’t kick him out of bed, Billy Bob’ll be sweet to him after. You know that—he’s a tomcat, not a cad!”

Mike shook his head and sank down to a squat, checking on something underneath the truck. “Fucking queerass tomcat, sticking his wiener where no wiener belongs.” As Ellery neared the front door, Mike raised his voice in order to be heard unmistakably. “And I’m not talking about Billy Bob!”

Jackson took a step backward right into Ellery’s chest, but like with most athletic men, the contact didn’t seem to register. “You got a problem with where I put my pecker, Mike?” His voice was still laced with humor, but the good nature was balanced on an edge.

Mike stood up again and shook his head. “Just take care of our family,” he said, and Ellery heard a true note of upset. “No pecker poking until your people are out of jail, okay?”

“Our people, Mike,” Jackson said gently. “They’re your people too.” The heat from his back seared Ellery right through his dress shirt and tank. For a moment it was hard to catch his breath.

Mike shrugged, and Ellery watched his mouth work. He swallowed after a few deep breaths. “Just tell Rhonda and the kids that Uncle Mike’ll get them anything they need,” he said humbly.

“Yeah. I’ll do that. Jade’s there now, but I’ll call Denny at the gas station and see if they need any help, if you got time.”

“Yeah. Not getting much work at the shop—tell him I got time.”

“Thanks, Mike—that’s a stand-up thing to do.” When Jackson
finally
took a step forward, Ellery became aware that he’d been supporting some of Jackson’s weight. His limp was getting worse.

But he didn’t even grunt. Just opened the door and began calling for the cat. “Billy Bob—Billy Bob, you old fucker, where the hell did you crap?”

What followed was a very vocal, very articulate harangue from a cat who obviously
thought
he was a human when, in fact, he looked like a car wreck.

“Oh my God,” Ellery muttered, taking in the tattered ear, the scars, the thick chest and neck, and Lord almighty, the
sneer
over one crooked tooth as the cat thug-walked up to Jackson, bitching the entire way.

“Yeah,” Jackson muttered. “Meow meow meow—all you do is bitch at me and crap. Pay some rent, motherfucker, just pay some goddamned rent, it’s all I fuckin’ ask. I mean, I’d ask you to use a rubber, but you’d bankrupt me, yes you would. And you got no thumbs, motherfucker—you’d rip the goddamned Trojans, don’t lie. I know you’d do it. I’d have a truckload of clawed-up rubbers in the backyard and you’d still be knocking up everything on the fucking planet. Don’t meow at me, asshole, you know I’m right.”

During the monologue, Jackson rubbed the cat’s ears, scratched the sweet spot at the base of his tail, and finally hefted what looked to be fifteen pounds of pure feline muscle into his arms so he could touch his nose to the cat’s and smooth back its ragged whiskers.

That cat stopped bitching long enough to purr until drool trickled down under its chin, and Ellery got to see the thing up close, since they were
blocking the hallway
in front of the now-closed door.

Yeah. Proximity didn’t make that cat any prettier. The cat’s balls were big enough to be seen swinging from its backside as Jackson held him, and Ellery thought maybe both man and cat would be a little happier if those things hadn’t been so fucking large.

“Uh, hello, pussycat,” Ellery said. He tentatively stretched out a finger to stroke a scarred nose, and the cat hissed and spat. Ellery withdrew the finger in a hurry.

“That’s no pussycat,” Jackson said smugly, his green eyes glinting happily over the cat’s head. “That’s a cock-kitty.”

Ellery gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “Isn’t that sort of, you know, sexist? Like the, uh”—he blushed just saying it—“the assbabies thing. That’s not really a valid representation of the gay and bisexual community—”

The crinkles in the corners of Jackson’s eyes disappeared, as did his scorching warmth.

Ellery fought the temptation to shiver.

“I’m going to go put my politically incorrect cat out now,” he said, and Ellery could delude himself into thinking there was some hurt in that censure. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me to get him fixed.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, following Jackson as he hefted the drooling bulldog of a cat down the hall. “I mean, it would probably be better for the—”

Jackson paused midwalk and fixed him with that scary glacier of a gaze, and Ellery swallowed, keeping his eyes level. Jackson swung his head back around and kept walking.

They passed a kitchen to the left and a living room to the right, a bathroom, a spare bedroom, and were heading toward what was probably the main bedroom. Everything looked… neat. Clean. Uncluttered but not bare. Framed photos graced the hall at sparing intervals, and framed prints adorned the living room and guest room. Some were bright, some dark, some classic, and one from a movie that had come out the year before. The hardwood floors had some dust in the corners, but there weren’t any beer cans on the floor.

Ellery tried hard not to be impressed—and to mend what he’d obviously broken. “I didn’t mean to sound like a—”

“An insensitive liberal?” Jackson said dryly. He pushed into the bedroom and limped past the bed to the sliding glass door. Ellery wrinkled his nose—he smelled cigarettes here, and he loathed smoking. Looking to the small porch that led to the backyard, he saw a paint can full of sand and a couple of butts—different brands.

Oh. So not a smoker, but courteous to those with the habit.

Interesting.

“A prude with a stick up his ass,” Ellery supplied. “I just—”

“Have a stick up your ass,” Jackson replied, the smugness in his voice almost intolerable.

“Look, I just think that, since you are apparently out and proud and bi, maybe you should—”

“I am
not
representing a cause,” Jackson growled. “And let’s get one thing straight.” The cat squirmed in his arms, and he slid the door open and unceremoniously dumped it on the ground. “You’d better take a shit out there!” he hollered as the cat darted away. He closed the door and turned back to Ellery. “You and I don’t have to like each other,” he said, pulling his shirts over his head and throwing them into a hamper by the headboard. His hands went to his belt and Ellery found himself looking anywhere—the green-and-gray comforter, the Lautrec print on the wall, the strip of navy blue painted near the ceiling that gave the room some solid character—
anywhere
besides Jackson as he stripped down.

“I don’t dislike you,” he said tentatively. “Oh, you have a television.”

“Well, right now it’s tuned to het porn, so don’t turn it on!”

Ellery flinched from his snarl. “I’m… I don’t know how to be around you,” he admitted, hating that he was backing down from this ex-cop, in his bedroom, in a way he backed down from
nobody
in the courtroom.

“
Be
around me?” He heard the thump and rattle as Jackson’s belt and jeans hit the ground, and a pair of boxers sailed into the hamper. And Ellery kept his eyes directed
right there
. “What does that even
mean
?”

Ellery swallowed. “You… you are two steps ahead of me,” he said. “And you have seen and done things today that I don’t know if I could deal with. And I’m in your….”

“Bedroom?” Oh God—his voice was close, and suggestive, and he hadn’t reached for a towel or a sheet or underwear or anything.

“House,” Ellery corrected, risking a look at him.

Jackson’s green eyes loomed closer than he’d thought, and that glacial cold he’d snapped on had completely reversed polarity. Ellery’s breath caught, and he couldn’t look away.

“Mr. Cramer, are you afraid to look at me naked?” Jackson asked, purring.

“N-no,” Ellery lied.

Jackson took a step back, ice-cold again. “The scars freak you out,” he said flatly, and
that
of all things forced Ellery to look at him again.