Fish Out of Water (32 page)

Ellery squinted at him in the light. “Are you Dave or Alex?”

“I’m Dave, and pleased to meet you. Are you the nice man who bought us a new car four days ago?”

“How on earth did you know that?” he asked, laughing.

“It was a guess. Your man here got… soft when he said someone was taking care of it. He didn’t know it, of course, but we’ve known Jackson for a while. We had hopes for him.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I mean, he makes a big show getting his freak on with anything that moves. Probably had fun doing it. But he’s a deeper man than that, you know?”

“I think so,” Ellery confided, and then he yawned. “Wake me up if he starts… twitching,” he said. “I….”

“I’d have nightmares too,” Dave told him, his bitterness unmistakable. “I have nightmares now, and I’ve
never
been shot.”

Ellery shuddered. “Is why I didn’t go home,” he confessed, eyes closed. “I keep seeing it in my head.”

Dave touched his forehead gently, like a friend. “Sleep, baby,” he said, and it was like witchcraft, because Ellery did.

WHEN HE
woke up again, it was morning, and Jackson was awake too, studying him from the hospital bed.

“You slept here,” Jackson said as Ellery swung his legs around the cot.

“Jade and Mike offered,” Ellery said defensively. “But they were trying to clean up your house.”

“D’oh!” Jackson’s pained noise reminded Ellery that he’d lost the only home he had. Even when he could move back in, how was he going to sleep there, wondering where the bullet holes were? “How’s my fucking cat?”

“Alive, but he’s going to be hobbling around on three legs. I hope that’s okay.”

Jackson’s chuckle sounded stoned. “He’ll still be able to fuck Mike’s dog.”

Ellery didn’t tell him about the neutering procedure. That would just be too painful. “Sure,” he soothed. “How’re you doing? Do you need any more drugs?”

Jackson let out a groan. “Why’d you stay the night?” He wrinkled his nose, his green eyes going slightly crossed. “Wait. This is the third night we’ve slept together. Is that fair? I didn’t get a say in this one.”

“Are you kidding?” Ellery asked, standing and stretching. “When I’m sitting by your hospital bed, it counts as a fucking week.”

“Nobody tells me the rules.” Jackson might have been trying to pout then, but his face wasn’t capable of subtlety with this much medication. “Was it my imagination, or did Dave come in and change my catheter? Because that was a violation.”

“Thankfully I slept through that,” Ellery said fervently. “I was given a choice, you know. Doctor, lawyer, or businessman. I barely made it through anatomy. Fucking frog.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said knowingly. “But was the frog a Kinsey six, that’s what I want to know.”

Ellery chuckled. “You’re fun this high,” he said, not able to help himself. “Is there any way we can just do this with alcohol and not bullets and anesthesia?” He finished his stretches and plopped down by Jackson’s bed. Jackson’s good arm was stuffed full of needles and tubes, but he twitched his fingers anyway, and Ellery slid his hand between the bars of the bed and held his fingertips.

“We can knock back some whiskey when I get out,” Jackson slurred. “And then we can go find Bill Chisholm and shove a Scott Bridger up his ass.” He giggled quietly to himself, and Ellery let him fade into sleep.

He stayed there, though, holding his fingertips and not thinking of much at all. It was hard to think when he had so much anger building in his chest. It didn’t stay there. It suffused his body, blending into his arms, his legs, his neck, until he was vibrating with it—not just strong but
transcendent
with holy fucking anger.

What was it Hamlet had said? Now I can drink hot blood!

Fuck whiskey. Ellery Cramer wanted himself a goblet full of bloody retribution, and he needed a way to get it.

He was wondering how long he could hold the balance—tenderness with Jackson or the need to go wreak vengeance—when the familiar tread of practical low-heeled women’s pumps echoed in the room.

His eyes popped fully open, and he stared at the doorway. She didn’t
look
like a hallucination. She made average height look regal, and her hair had never been anything but deep chestnut brown. If Clairol stopped making that color, she’d probably bankrupt the company, but at least Ellery knew it was her. Intelligent brown eyes made up with thick kohl, lipstick bright red, a sleeveless white shell and a summer-weight cardigan, a black skirt, hose, and yes, businesswomen’s pumps.

She must have travelled all night, but she looked like she’d stepped right out of her stylist’s office, and Ellery was, as always, reluctantly impressed.

“Hello, Mother,” he said, fingers tightening on Jackson’s in spite of himself. “What in the f—hell are you doing here?”

She clipped in crisply and remained standing by his chair. “Well, Ellery, you’ve sent me half-a-dozen files in the last two days, all of them involving dirty cops and shooting people and all with the heading
For Safety
on the top. Did you think I wouldn’t worry?”

“You weren’t supposed to
worry
,” Ellery said, pushing himself up. She waved him down, and he stayed. “You were supposed to
stay put
and, you know, knock mountains over if I got hurt.”

“Well, apparently it was a near thing!” she said, her voice pitching just enough to let him know she really
had
been worried. “When I called your office, they said you were here. For a moment I thought you were injured, and then the woman said no, you were here visiting your boyfriend.” She wrinkled her nose. “Your
boyfriend
got shot?”

“Shoving me down on the ground,” Ellery confirmed, and just saying it opened a hole in his chest he’d been trying to close.

“So, he
is
your boyfriend?” She sounded like this was the most important thing in the entire situation.

“Sh!” Ellery glared at her. “If he hears you, he’ll rip the tubes out of his arms just to run the fuck away.” He looked at Jackson and smiled bitterly. “We’re trying to ease him into the idea. I think it was sort of growing on him.”

She nodded as though that made perfect sense. “Very well. So, what are you doing here?”

That
threw Ellery for a loop. He looked left and then right and then at Jackson and then at her. “Letting him know he’s not alone?”

“Well, he’s not anymore,” she said, setting her handbag down and pulling out her laptop. “And if you
really
cared about him, I’d expect more carnage by now.”

Ellery found a smile stretching his cheeks. He released Jackson’s fingers and stood, bending over to kiss Jackson’s cheek. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’ll be back.”

“Check on my cat,” Jackson muttered.

“Of course.”

Poor Billy Bob. He was going to miss his balls.

“I’ve got an appointment with Bill Chisholm in”—he looked at his watch—“two hours. If you’ll excuse me, Mother, I need to arrange for some backup.”

“Backup?” she asked, looking up from her e-mail.

“If I get shot, the only other person to take care of the damned cat has a German shepherd with hurt feelings. He needs me in his life.” Traveled all night to walk into his boyfriend’s hospital room and urge Ellery to go be a shark. “Just like I need you,” he said graciously. She turned her cheek for a kiss, and he gave it with his whole heart.

“Mother?”

“Yes?”

“There are two nurses who are going to come in. Their names are Dave and Alex. Treat them like royalty, okay?”

“Of course, dear.”

“And Jackson’s ex-girlfriend and his neighbor are going to come in here too, and—”

“Royalty, yes. I understand. I’ll cater the event. No worries. Now go bring back someone’s head on the front of your Lexus for Mommy, okay?” She batted her eyelashes and he grinned, showing all his teeth.

“It’ll fit with the bullet holes through the trunk,” he told her. The car had run and the windows hadn’t been busted—the bullet holes had been the last priority.

“You
are
going to get those fixed, aren’t you?” she asked, as though he’d messed up his room.

“Of course, Mother. But I’ve got some shit to clean up first.” He whirled on his heel then and left, because he wanted one of his best suits on, and a bloodred tie. Armor was armor, and hopefully he wasn’t going to need Kevlar.

God love his mother. He really had learned from the very fuckin’ best.

JACKSON REMEMBERED
Ellery’s kiss on the cheek—uncharacteristically sweet for both of them—but he didn’t wake up again for another two hours.

When he did, it was because two women were fighting over him, which was an… unusual feeling to say the least.

“And I’m saying”—Jade’s voice rang with irritated authority—“that I don’t know you, and I’m not leaving him alone with you!”

“That’s acceptable,” said someone he didn’t know. “However, before you stay here, I insist you wash your hands. You’ve been chain-smoking, and the smell is offensive.”

“I’ll tell you what’s offensive, you—”

“She’s right, Jade,” Jackson mumbled. “I can smell it from here. You were supposed to be quitting.”

He’d quit, she was quitting, all the time she was quitting—they’d promised her mother.

“Yeah, well, every time I get close, some asshole gets
shot
!”

Jade loomed over his bed, and he squinted. “You look like hell,” he said clearly. “Go home.”

“I thought you loved me,” she said through a watery smile.

“Forever. Where’s Mike?”

“Keeping my brother’s business afloat. Fixing your house. Saving the goddamned world.”

Jackson half laughed. “Look who
you
landed. An upper-fixer.”

Her smile firmed. “Yeah. And you landed the original son of a—”

“Be nice.”

She let out a breath and tilted her head back. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she said plaintively. “Ellery had to go… take a meeting or something—”

Jackson fought hard against the drugs—even managed to sit up halfway. “He had to what? Oh, fucking
ouch
! Mother
fucker
. Someone get this shit off of—”

“Please lie back down.” That voice—regal, icy, irrefutable. “You have several bandages in place, and you’re
bleeding through them
.”

Jackson fell back down because he had to—
not
because she told him to. “Ellery is
where
?” he demanded. “Don’t you get it? The guy who took out my house was circling that place like a shark around blood yesterday!” Or was it the day before yesterday? Fuck… was it Monday? “He’s going to get
hurt—
I’m stuck in this fucking bed, and he’s going to get—”

“Nonsense.”

The woman stood up and sort of…
imposed
herself into Jade’s place. She was barely taller than Jade, with dark brown hair and familiar, fine brown eyes. Her face was lined, not heavily, just enough to show she was old enough to have no fucks left to give about anyone’s opinion.

But her hand on Jackson’s forehead was warm, dry, and soothing. “He said he was calling for backup. He’s a very bright man, my son. I don’t think he’d leave this up to chance.”

Jackson looked at her, aching. “We were in my
house
,” he told her, trying to make her understand. “The man who shot us is a
cop.
Don’t you get it? There
is no safe
.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Ellery’s mother. “And neither does he. And like it or not, young man, you’re out of the game. Yes, if it was just a flesh wound, you could probably rip your painkillers out like a cowboy and go be his backup. But it’s not. And you can’t. And you’re just going to have to trust him.”

Jackson growled at her. He didn’t
think
he had, but her eyes got big, and he figured he
must
have actually made that sound he’d been feeling.

“Oh no,” Jade said, hand on her hip. “Jackson doesn’t trust.”

“Well,” Ellery’s mother replied, her composure slipping back on like a mantle of gold, “he’s going to have to learn to. Weren’t you going to wash your hands? I’ve ordered lunch—it should be delivered shortly. There’s plenty for everybody.”

Jade’s eyes slid to Jackson’s, and he would have shrugged if he could have moved at all. “Yeah. Sure. What’re we having?”

“You’ll see when you wash your hands. I have breath mints when you get back.”

Jade made it a big deal—swayed her hips, growled a little—but she left.

Jackson wanted to shake his head. Well, yeah. Princess Bee, meet Queen Bee. Now go wash up, we’re having dinner.

“I don’t know how you can just sit there,” he said, surprising himself. He couldn’t keep looking at her. Her eyes were too much like Ellery’s. He managed to turn his head enough that he didn’t have to, and didn’t have to remember that tender kiss on the cheek, or the fact that Ellery had slept there when he didn’t need to, or…

Or the night before.

When Jackson had talked to another human being like they might have a future together that would make the past worth sharing.

“He’s in danger,” Jackson said at last, hopelessly. The window overlooked the parking garage, and he stared at it as it baked under the August sun. “How could you just… I can’t
protect
him from here.”

“That’s amazingly sweet,” Ellery’s mother said, sounding amused.

“I am
not
sweet—
ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
” Because he’d jerked, surprised at the idea of being sweet, and pulled something not meant to be pulled. He took a breath, and then another, and it turned into a sob. Oh God, his meds must be wearing…

Ah….

Very slowly, he turned his head and saw that Ellery’s mother was pushing the red button on his morphine drip, and he smiled dopily at her.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” he said, knowing his eyes were at half-mast and not caring.

“Darling, what use is being shot if you’re not stoned to the fucking gills?”