Fish Out of Water (36 page)

“How much money would you give me to leave him alone?” Jackson asked, not sure if he was being facetious or not.

Lucy Satan’s smile had an unusual number of teeth. “Far more than you’re prepared to accept,” she said coolly. “But I
will
buy you another car, once you’re on your feet and your house is fixed. My son didn’t have the heart to tell you that your old one—”

“It was
new
!” Jackson wailed.

“Your old new car was demolished in the drive-by.” She shrugged. “But since you appear to be mostly healthy, I am taking my leave this afternoon.” She took a few steps toward the door and then turned and pegged him to the bed with her poised regard.

“If I felt you were a danger to my son, Mr. Rivers, you never would have seen me. You never would have met me. You never would have known I was in Sacramento. And Ellery would never see you again. You may expect him this evening, after work, per usual. I suspect I shall see you this holiday season.” She smiled regally. “A gift is customary, whether it’s Christmas or Chanukah. I prefer silk and perfume, just as a general gesture. May you heal well by then, or the plane ride will be most uncomfortable.”

And with that she was gone, and Jackson was left gaping.

He stayed that way until his next nap.

TWO WEEKS
later he was
begging
to get out of the hospital, antsy as hell, irritable as
fuck
, and a miserable bastard to be around.

Ellery still came by a few hours every day, and the guy’s company was… growing on him.

He supposed it would have to be. He had another month to go before his house was good, and Jade had sold her lease after Jackson’s first week in the hospital. Jackson had asked her if she was sure about moving in with Mike so damned soon, and she told him that no, she would just be staying with Kaden and Rhonda while they caught up financially.

Then Mike told him that while there were workers in and out, he was converting one of the rooms to a strictly “Jade” room—a sewing machine, because she’d learned how to sew from her mother, and cupboards for fabric, and an extra bed for relatives.

“But Mike, what if it doesn’t work—”

Mike had shrugged, winking. “It still makes me look like a catch, right?”

Well, yeah. Actually.

But Jackson wanted to get back to work. He could still work from a desk, right? He could run down stuff on the computer or help stake out a potential lead. He wasn’t entirely helpless, right?

He just felt so helpless without a job, or a home, or Kaden to protect him.

He was two days away from medical clearance and had just finished a couple of laps around the long-term-care floor with his IV attached and his scrubs hanging low on his waist when he saw a big black man standing at the doorway to his room.

And he almost broke into tears.

Kaden’s hug—careful of the healing, bandaged, casted shoulder and the IV with all the drugs—lasted a long, long time.

And then he parked his big body in Jackson’s room and they had themselves a little chat.

About everything.

About three weeks in a small house up in the Northern California hills and homeschooling his kids. About how he’d worried the first time he and a marshal had gone into town for firewood, because he was pretty sure nobody there had ever seen black people, and how maybe that was true, but that didn’t mean the rednecks were necessarily
bad
folks. Like Mike, he said. They said all the wrong things sometimes but still had good hearts.

About how he’d looked into how much money it would cost to live in a smaller place away from the city, away from the problems they’d known intimately since they were children.

“Not everybody’s nice there,” Jackson said, fearing what was coming next. He could see it—he could. “You have community ties here.”

Kaden nodded, bobbing his head back and forth like he was weighing and measuring. Then:

“It’s time for a change, Jackson. You and Jade, you both finally stopped screwing around with each other and are looking for somebody real.”

“Hey, did Jade tell you about Ellery—?”

Kaden shrugged. “Yes. But no, that’s not it. I’m saying we’ll always be family, man. You will always be welcome to visit. We wouldn’t have a place without a spare bedroom with your name on it, and one with Jade’s name on it, and a gaming couch for when you’re not there.”

“But….” Jackson couldn’t finish that sentence, because he felt like a child, lost and alone, hiding in his room and wishing his mother and her drugs and her john would just go the fuck away. He was a grown man, dammit! He swallowed. “Why? Why go now?”

Kaden shook his head. “Because two crooked cops came into my store, and one of them got blown away. And my employee and friend is dead. And a girl I only knew as a shadow got killed that same night. And I don’t know if I can stay in my own goddamned service station ever again. I work two jobs down here. I could sell my house, my share in the service station, and go up in the hills and work one. I could see my kids for dinner every night. We’ve scoped out the schools—Rhonda can get a job anywhere. You know her—she’s crazy good.”

“But….” Interviewing. The one black woman in an all-white high school. Jackson just kept imagining throwing Rhonda into the high school in
Footloose
, and he was halfway to verbalizing that when he realized that he was being an ass about a world he was ignorant of.

But that Kaden had been living in for the better part of a month.

“How long?” he asked instead.

“Rhonda and I did the finances in this last week. We put a bid on a house while we were there, actually. We find out in two weeks. If it’s accepted, we can be moved up before the kids miss more than a week in school, stay at a temp place, and be moved in by the end of September.”

Jackson swallowed. “I can’t coach River’s soccer team this year,” he mourned, remembering how much he loved that.

“They already started practices,” Kaden said kindly. He nodded to a handmade card on the windowsill. “I see you got their good wishes.”

Yeah. “So, I guess I don’t even get to help move, huh?”

Kaden rolled his eyes. “Brother, all you have to do is sit in the shade and direct.” And then Kaden’s eyes grew bright, and his lower lip began to tremble. “After what you and that lawyer did for us, you get to come and be royalty, you hear me?”

Jackson’s mouth twisted. “Self-interest, K,” he said. “All the best stuff I do is because my life is better with my family in it.”

He expected a hug then, but what he got was a glare. “Don’t bullshit me, Jackson Rivers.”

“What?” Jackson grimaced at him, hating that he couldn’t twist and throw a pillow, not yet. “What do you mean, bullshit?”

“You, Mr. Cramer—you did this, you followed it through. You’re good guys.”

Jackson half laughed, half cried. “I’m not a good guy,” he said, his voice a little broken. “I’m an asshole afraid of being alone.”

Kaden stood and clasped Jackson’s good hand in his. “Still bullshit,” he said softly. “You’re afraid of letting someone in who’s not me or Rhonda or Jade. I’m not going to pretend I’m doing this for you—but maybe you letting someone in is the good that will come of it when I do.”

Jackson finally got his hug, and then he was forced to just sit back and watch him go. Of course they’d see each other again, but his family was changing.

“I’m out of it for a little while and everybody gets delusions of grandeur,” he said softly. But he didn’t even have Billy Bob to give him the line back.

Ellery wasn’t coming in that night—he’d already told Jackson he’d be working late so he could get Jackson situated the following afternoon. Jackson had that entire evening to sit back, stare at the television blindly, and wonder,
What next?
He was going to live in Ellery’s house for a couple of weeks—how would that work?

How soon before Jackson crapped this thing up? How long before he turned what had been a distant workable relationship into a giant clusterfuck of emotion and recriminations? It had been a long time since he’d had a monogamous lover, but he seemed to remember that happening a lot.

But he couldn’t bring all that up to Ellery when the guy came to pick him up in his recently repaired Lexus. For one thing, Jackson recognized the act of sacrificing your own schedule to help out somebody else, and he was humbled—and uncomfortable.

Of course, he was even more uncomfortable in the car back to Ellery’s place, but that was mostly physical. He must have grunted one too many times, because Ellery finally burst out with, “Did you take the goddamned pain pill?”

“No. No, I didn’t. Because I wanted to get the hell out of there, and I was afraid if I so much as looked at the oxy bottle, they’d make me shit in a bucket to prove I could.”

Ellery half laughed. “Shit in a bucket?”

“You have no idea how much it comes up when you’re in the hospital. God, what a nightmare.”

“Well, let me get you a soda on the way home, and you can take your pain pill and be happy and stoned for the rest of the day.” Ellery’s dry humor was back in full force, and Jackson approved.

“That’s sweet,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to take too many, though. You know—”

“Oh my God, do I. Chill out, Jackson. Take a Vicodin and take the edge off. If you become a junkie, I’ll shove you in rehab and buy you a liver, but that’s later and this is now!”

Jackson glared at him. “You are remarkably cavalier about my fucking health.”

Ellery growled. “I’m going to slap you. Your health has been my only topic of conversation for the last three weeks. ‘How’s Jackson doing? Is he okay? What do you mean he’s coming to your house? Wait, are you guys seeing each other? Is he ready for that? Because he could stay at my place
no strings attached
!’”

Jackson burst out laughing. “You are so making that up.”

“I am not.”

“You are too.”

“No, I swear. That was actual text. I have the court reporter’s notes.”

Jackson snorted. “You
lie
!”

“I’m a lawyer, that’s my job, but not about this!”

They bickered as they got into the drive-through line and then on the rest of the way home. When they got to Ellery’s house, Jackson stepped in, fully expecting to feel as comfortable as a farmer stepping off the tractor and into a five-star hotel.

What he was not expecting was the familiar smell of animal. Not cat pee, although clean litter was an undertone, just… furry mammal.

Followed by Billy Bob hobbling up to him, one powerful back leg making up for the loss of the other.

“Billy!” Oh Lord, his cat. Jackson’s
cat
was there, and for some reason, of all the changes, of all of the big things walking over the threshold of Ellery Cramer’s super awesome house in the super rich neighborhood might imply, having the damned cat made everything so very, very doable.

With a careful squat, he scooped Billy Bob up and then stood. Ellery caught his elbow as he was rising, and he grunted thanks, but mostly he was just worried about being nose to nose with his companion, the buddy who had seen a lot of people in and out of his bedroom but who had never left him alone.

The cat was already drooling when Jackson lifted him up. “Billy Bob,” Jackson murmured. “Jesus, buddy, I’m glad to see you.” He tapped Billy’s bandage tentatively and realized that it was nearly plastered over with a tough wrapping. “And someone is taking very good care of you.” He turned shining eyes to Ellery. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. “I mean, you’ve been saving the world for the last month, and you’ve taken care of my damned cat. Thank you.”

Ellery helped him to the couch and then sat next to him, scratching Billy Bob under the chin. “Is this all I had to do to impress you?” he said, smiling slightly. “I could have done without saving the world, frankly.”

“I thought I told you—finite, tiny things,” Jackson said. God, it wasn’t the morphine. He could finally admit that. With the air of giving something up that he might never take back, he rested his head on Ellery’s shoulder. “First you save my cat, tomorrow you save the city, maybe the day after, work on world peace.”

Ellery wrapped a careful arm around his back and then leaned into the couch. Jackson felt the kiss on his hair, and for the first time in weeks, he wondered what it would be like to be intimate with someone again.

To be intimate with Ellery when all of the bandages were off and the pain pills were gone. Or even a little bit before.

“The cat I can do,” Ellery said gruffly. “But I’d really rather just save you.”

“I can save myself.”

“Sure. Jackson, I, uh—I didn’t want to mention this in the hospital, but, uh….”

Jackson saw it then and pretty much ignored whatever Ellery was saying. “Hey! What the hell happened to his balls!”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Ellery said, wincing. “You understand—they said it was really the best thing for him since we didn’t want to let him out—”

“You got him
fixed
!” Jackson wailed. Oh God! The betrayal! He looked at Billy Bob for recrimination, but the cat just purred some more and melted into his chest. “Billy! Speak to me, man! Are you going to be okay?”

Prrrr
.

“Jackson, don’t get hysterical—”

“But
why
!” Jackson demanded. “Why change things? Why risk who he is to fix what’s not broken?”

“Because!” Ellery snapped—and pulled Jackson out of his cat-induced hysteria. “Because! He was breaking a little bit every day! Cats don’t get mean when they’ve been fixed, Jackson. They don’t
wander
when they’re fixed. He was going to go away one day and never come back, and he doesn’t even want to go outside now. They stay put when they’re fixed. It’s what they need!”

Jackson stared at him, absurdly hurt. “Is that what you want from
me
?” he asked. “Do you want
me
to be neutered? So I don’t run away?”

Ellery squinted at him. “Okay, so oxy is not your drug, I can see that now.
No
. I don’t want you neutered.” Those two red crescents appeared at his pale cheeks, and Jackson felt a stirring at his stomach to know he could do that. “I like you
not
neutered, as a matter of fact,” he said. “I like you very much
unneutered
.” Ellery grimaced. “But I don’t mind if you get fixed a little. I don’t want to cut off your balls, Jackson. But I worry very much about what will happen if you decide to wander.”