by Amy Lane
Henry glared at his feet. “Look, let me give you a ride to Med Center. I’ll tell you… well, some of it—”
“All of it!” Jackson snapped.
“What you need to know!” Henry yelled back and then squeezed his eyes shut. “Just, not here. Not when everybody who knew what that guy was can hear.”
Jackson’s shoes were sticking to the parking lot, and sweat was rolling down his back. Ugh. Climate change sucked ass. “Turn on the fucking car!”
Henry did, but Jackson waited three deep breaths—and until the AC kicked on—before he hopped in.
“What’s at the hospital?” Henry asked, turning back the way they came to get to Alhambra.
“The morgue. Your guy—I want to get a look at the body.”
“You can do that?”
Well, the kid was right to be a little surprised. PI’s did not just get access to a hospital morgue. “I got a friend there.” He grimaced. “Got a lot of friends there. It helps.”
“Why do you—”
“’Cause I go there a lot. Tell me about Scott, Henry. I’m in the mood to hit something.”
“Yeah, well, so was he!” Henry snapped back. “As in ‘hit that’—so we did. We hit that!”
Jackson almost swallowed his tongue. “What in the fucking hell?”
“The Army kicked me out, so I went to my parents’ place. They kicked me out, so I came here because Dex was maybe the last person who’d talk to me. I showed up at the bus station at fuck-you o’clock and found a shitty hotel on my phone. As I’m walking there, this guy starts to chat me up. And….” His voice sank. “I was… you’d have to know everything else, and I just don’t want to fucking talk about it, but I was as low as I’ve ever fucking been in my life, and he was talking real goddamned sweet. And… and I’ve only… the one person I’ve ever… he’s back in that old life. Back the way I came and can’t go back. And it was just really easy.”
Jackson’s brain was going to explode. “You’re gay?”
“So are you!” Henry snarled.
“I’m bi, and I told you. But this is a plot twist I did not see coming! Jesus, wait until I tell Ellery—he’s going to shit walnuts.”
“So the fuck what? You just talked to a zillion goddamned gay men and it didn’t bother you—”
“You know, Henry, your fuck-you-asshole force field is premium fucking quality. I can usually spot that shit a thousand miles away.” Jackson tried to wrap his mind around it and couldn’t. He was usually just… just spot-on. With a good-looking guy like Henry—even if Jackson didn’t want to hit that, and he didn’t—he’d know if it was an option.
God, Ellery was right. He really was off his game these last few weeks.
“I’m sorry!” Henry protested. “I… I looked Davy up the next day, and he was nice. He was….” Henry’s voice dropped. “Considering what an asshole I’d been to him last time we saw each other, he was great. He gave me the number to the flophouse, made sure I had access to a car, has been helping me look for a job. I didn’t… I mean, our older brother might have filled him in, ’cause they talk sometimes, but I haven’t even told him how I ended up on his doorstep.”
“How did you end up on his doorstep?” Jackson asked, appalled. He’d been kicked out of the military? Jesus fuck!
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Henry shouted. “I haven’t told Davy, and I’m an asshole. I get it! I know it! I don’t make it easy! And then I saw Martin being shitty to Reg, and after I clocked him in the jaw and threw him in the dumpster, all the guys in the house gave me the backstory, right? About how they knew Sampson by another name, and how he’d been my brother’s ex-boyfriend and a real bastard. But all I could think of was I’d slept with my brother’s ex and Davy didn’t even know I was gay. Do you understand how awful that is? And then Martin Sampson, who was Scott the evil ex, turned out to be a drug-dealing scumbag to boot. I was embarrassed. So I haven’t told anybody—well, except Lance. But….” Henry shook his head.
“Wait, was that the guy who was coming down the stairs from the shower after you threw Sampson in the dumpster?”
Henry looked wary. “Yeah?”
“You’re not hitting that, are you?” Because Jesus!
“No!” But Jackson heard the note of defensiveness in his voice.
“But would you like to?” he wheedled.
“I don’t want to talk about it. He’s a porn model—don’t you get it? How am I going to have that relationship, particularly when nobody knows I’m gay!”
“Well first, sugar-booger, you tell people you’re gay!”
“But….”
Oh God. And Jackson got it now. “So all this attitude is about what? Trying to hide the secret that apparently destroyed your life in the first place? Jesus, Henry, it’s hard to have a learning curve on a plateau, isn’t it?”
“Shut up,” Henry muttered. “Just shut the fuck up. I’m sorry I told you.”
Jackson rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone. Henry slept with the vic when he got to town. Had no idea his brother did it first.
There. Hopefully that would ease Ellery’s mind just a tad—
Fucking fascinating, came the reply. Are you going to be okay?
Jackson took a deep breath. I’ll. Be. Fine.
Of course he would.
He tucked his phone into his pocket and failed to keep a growl from escaping.
“What’s your problem?” Henry demanded. Surly fucker.
“Ellery’s getting in my face about something.”
He heard the question in his head before Henry asked it.
“What?”
“None of your business.”
“Aw, c’mon, man, that’s not fair. I unburdened my soul to you. You can’t just shine me on like that!”
Jackson ignored him for a few moments, trying to get his breathing under control. “I fucked a lot of people before I met Ellery,” he said, knowing it sounded random when he said it. “Women, men, multiples thereof. Most of them were decent people, but there were a few I regret touching. I would rather give you a verbal breakdown of every sexual encounter I’ve ever had, complete with pictures and their notes on me as a lover, than tell you why I hate the morgue.”
Henry blew out a low whistle. “Wow. That’s bad.”
“Yup. So I’ll go visit your brother tomorrow. You can drop me off—”
“I’ll park,” Henry said, surprising him. “I can come in with you.”
Ugh. No. “I don’t need a babysitter,” he said, trying not to sound bitchy.
“Obviously.” Jackson could have scoured graffiti off a cinderblock wall with the sound of Henry’s voice alone. “I would like to get a look at him again too,” Henry continued. “Maybe if he’s cleaned up, I can see something I missed. Something that would help.”
“Your stomach that strong?”
“I was deployed twice,” Henry said, voice measured. “I’ve seen bodies before.”
“The morgue is different,” Jackson said. “Just like killing someone in battle is one thing but killing someone up close is another.”
“And you’ve done that?” Henry asked, and God, wasn’t he a snide little shit.
“Yes,” Jackson answered. “You?”
Henry swallowed and looked away. “Not up close and personal,” he said softly. “How—”
“I am not sharing that information.”
Henry pounded the steering wheel with his fist, hard and fast, startling Jackson so badly, he threw his elbow back and cracked it on the door.
“What the fuck!”
“I’m sorry!” Henry shouted back. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Is that what you want me to say? I’m sorry I’m an asshole and everything that comes out of my mouth is wrong! I’m sorry I don’t know what to say and it all comes out fucked-up! I just wanted you to be fucking human is all! Jesus, you, acting like you got all the answers! I haven’t had a friend I can talk to in ten goddamned years, and now the one person I’m supposed to tell my
whole life to is so fucking closed off, I’m not sure when I’m gonna step on his toes!”
Jackson’s elbow was singing a song of pain all the way up to his shoulder. “Pull over,” he snarled.
“What?”
“Pull over!”
Henry was driving in front of a tiny strip mall that featured a taqueria on one half and a vintage clothing store on the other. The afternoon sun beat down on the broken tarmac like the jackhammer of the gods, and as Jackson threw open his door before the car was completely stopped, he had to ask himself if heat stroke was going to kill him or an actual stroke from dealing with Henry fucking Worrall.
Henry squealed to a halt and Jackson launched himself out of the car.
Henry followed him. “What the hell—”
“Don’t do that shit!” Jackson snarled. “Don’t pull that psycho tantrum bullshit on me. Pull it on your brother, on his friends, on whoever else puts up with that, but don’t pull it on me. I’ve been a nice guy, I’ve been an honest guy, but I draw the line at spilling my guts for some numbnuts who doesn’t know the truth from his own goddamned left toe. Now get the fuck out of my way and let me go. I need to cool off, and I need to move. And if I have to walk all the way to Med Center, that’s what I’m gonna fuckin’ do!”
“Come on, man,” Henry cajoled, getting in front of Jackson and holding up his hands. “I’m sorry—”
Jackson knocked his hands away. “Are you insane? I said get out of my way! You fucking child—you don’t know who you’re dealing with! You may eat bullets and crap lead, but I’m still sitting up in bed screaming from the last time I did that! So bully for you! You win in the emotional health department! I don’t care! I’m done!”
His heart was still hammering in his ears, and he couldn’t get a handle on his panic breathing. Goddamn this kid for ripping him wide open like this. Like a slug to the gut, he wanted Ellery. He wanted Ellery’s touch on the back of his neck, wanted his voice, irritated and persnickety and soothing, telling him he got to feel like this. Wanted Ellery, who would forgive him for not being able to do what needed to be done when Jackson couldn’t forgive himself.
Jackson would walk inside that morgue if it killed him—but he needed to do it without this fucking kid.
“Look, you can’t just walk off. It’s five miles if it’s a step, and it’s hot as balls out here! Come on, Rivers, just get in the car and—”
“And nothing,” Jackson muttered, putting his hands in his pockets and shoving past him. Yeah, he wanted Ellery, but he knew how to use a phone, and brother did he know how to catch a goddamned bus. He was two blocks from the next stop, and one transfer would take him down Alhambra until it turned into Stockton Boulevard. Would it take longer? Yes. But Jackson could calm himself down and get really fucking zen about going inside the hospital, which weighed on him like two-hundred tons of lead and concrete just thinking about it, and into the morgue, which added war gods tap dancing to Irish rap music on top of that weight.
He just had to get away from this kid, with his need and his anger and his hair-trigger temper and—
And his fucking hand on Jackson’s shoulder!
Jackson grabbed his hand and yanked Henry forward until his face cracked into Jackson’s skull.
Jackson threw his head back, wrapped his leg around Henry’s, and shoved forward until Henry fell roughly to his knees on Jackson’s side, sputtering blood from his nose.
“What in the hell—”
“Please, kid, could you just go?”
“No! Man, all day, you’ve been in my face about telling you the truth and talking and shit, and now you’re just gonna walk into the sunset with all your bullshit—”
“Because my shit’s my problem, kid! Your shit is your case!” Jackson kept walking, thinking, Let it go, kid, let it go. Let it go, kid, let it go. Let it go—
“Augh!”
Henry rushed him so fast, Jackson didn’t have time to sidestep. Instead, he got thrown forward onto the gravel, his knees making contact first and then his elbows as he tried to protect his chin. He rolled, throwing Henry off so he could scramble to his feet, and he got there just in time to catch a haymaker in the ear.
He shook it off, his head ringing, and launched his own series of jabs—eye, nose, chin—roundhouse!
Henry caught him twice in the ribs, which were surprisingly sore from the fight with the guy who had hospitalized him six months ago, and Jackson howled, lifting his foot and scraping his shoe down Henry’s shin.
It was a kid’s move, designed to hurt not injure, but Jackson’s vision was red, and he was one swing away from dislocating Henry’s kneecap and leaving him writhing on the ground.
“What’s your problem, Junior!” he taunted, stepping back when Henry tried to get close enough for another roundhouse. “I was trying to help you!”
“Sure!” Henry shouted. “Sure! You were trying to help me! It may have been just a job to you, but I told you shit that mattered! Shit that nobody else knows about me! And you were fine with it. And I’m like, if you knew that shit about me, maybe… maybe I could finally… I could finally….”
Henry’s shoulders slumped forward, and Jackson held his hand to his ribs, breathing hard.
“Finally what, kid?” He blinked hard, getting the sweat and the blood out of his eyes, and tried to assess the damage.
“I could finally tell someone everything,” he said pitifully, and the look he shot Jackson was so mournful, so lost, that Jackson stopped counting bruises. Fuck it. Everything hurt.
He took an unsteady breath and tried to decide if his ribs were cracked. “Kid, you really suck,” he muttered.
“I’m twenty-seven,” Henry said back, glaring at him defiantly.
“I’ll be thirty-one in September, and I’m still way the fuck older than you.” Oh God. That naked admission of wanting to talk—six months of trying to talk and Jackson wasn’t sure he was strong enough. But this kid wanted to talk and that meant something. “Look. I don’t want to talk about it now. I mean, I really don’t want to talk about it now. But if you can get me to the morgue before Ellery starts freaking the fuck out, maybe we can try this again tomorrow. Same deal. You take me around, I ask questions, we talk. Can we try that?”
Henry nodded, his relief palpable. “Yeah. A do-over. I can deal with that.”
Great. “But first, we need to get to the hospital. If I don’t call Ellery in an hour, he’s going to come looking for me.”
Henry straightened and used his shirt to wipe the blood from his nose, wincing when it kept flowing. “You don’t look like a guy who needs a leash.”
“Ellery’s spent a lot of time next to my hospital bed,” Jackson told him. “I would just as soon we not spend any more. Can we go?”
“Sure. Shouldn’t we clean up or something?” Henry wiped his nose again, and if Jackson’s face had been any less achy, he would have rolled his eyes.
“We’re going to a hospital,” he muttered. “Now could you get your ass over here and start the car?”
Bruised Lovers and Slippery Fish
ELLERY PACED the confines of Toby’s—aka Toe-Tag—small office one more time.
“Ellery, I can wait for him, you know.” Toby Tagliare was a small round hobbit of a man with so much curly gray hair it overran his eyebrows, his mustache, and his ears. He had more kids than Ellery could keep track of, a bunch of grandkids, and a grown gay son who had—as far as Ellery could tell—a lifelong crush on Jackson that Jackson had never noticed.
He worked in the morgue because he liked the quiet and because he had compassion for the dead, but also because he enjoyed his life to the fullest and liked for it to have meaning.
Ellery never would have thought to look in a morgue for a good friend, until Jackson had introduced him to Toby.
“It’s just that he hasn’t been back here in… in a while,” Ellery said lamely. Toby had called him, and Ellery had made the appointment before texting Jackson.
And then he’d l
ooked at Jade, and she’d looked back, and she’d shaken her head and said, “I can deal with all this other shit. Just go.”
Jackson should have beaten him here by about ten minutes, but he was ten minutes late.
“So maybe he’s getting himself together,” Toby said gently. “Not every guy wants to come apart in front of his significant other, you know.”
“No guy wants to come apart in front of his significant other,” Ellery snapped. “There are entire books written about the fact that men are socialized to communicate worse than twelve-year-old boys at a sock-hop. I don’t give a shit. If he’s coming apart, he’s coming apart, and I want to be here, and oh my fucking God, Jackson, what the hell?”
Jackson—face and knuckles bloody, left cheek bruised, eye blackened, shirt torn, dust coating him like a fine mist, had just rounded the corner, looking shocked as hell to see Ellery standing there. He turned his head for a second, as if he was going to talk to someone behind him, and then Henry blundered into his back and bounced off.
Henry looked, if anything, worse than Jackson. His face and shirt were smeared with blood, his nose was swollen, and his eyes were blackened for good measure.
He too had bloody knuckles and was wearing dust like body spray, with a few streaks of grease on his T-shirt.
The two men looked a lot like… well, exactly like….
“You tried to kill each other, didn’t you?” Ellery asked, horrified.
“No!” Jackson protested, while Henry said, “Yes,” nodding emphatically.
Jackson glared at him like he could change Henry’s answer by will alone. “No.”
Henry looked vaguely uncomfortable. “No?”
“No.”
“Fine.” Henry gave Ellery a ghastly smile. “No.”
Ellery took a deep breath. “Who started it?”
“Henry,” Jackson muttered, and to his credit, the kid nodded.
“Yeah. That’s fair.”
Okay. That was promising. “Who finished it?”