A Few Good Fish

by Amy Lane

  “Go make the copies,” he said. “Jade and I can sign the one we give to Pfeist, Harrelson, and Cooper.”

  “I’m gonna deliver those by hand,” Jade said with a snort. “Best day of my professional life.”

  Sure.

  AN HOUR later Jade was at the wheel, and all Ellery’s stuff was shoved in the back of the SUV. Jackson’s body hurt, bad enough that his hands shook as he fished his painkillers out of his pocket and washed them down with the soda he’d made Jade get as they rounded Howe.

  “You look like shit,” she said quietly. “You okay?”

  “I can’t believe we did that,” he said, smiling for her benefit.

  “I think Langdon thought you were going to go ballistic. He was lucky you’re still recovering or there might have been property damage.”

  That got a laugh. “I really am pissed,” he said, pondering. “I… I mean, you and me, we grew up knowing life wasn’t fair. Ellery’s just always… you know….”

  “Believed the system worked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hunh.” Jade chewed her lip, absentmindedly getting a bit of mayo leftover from her hastily eaten sandwich. “You say that, but, you know, he could have picked corporate law, right?”

  Jackson thought about it. “Well, yeah—”

  “Those corporate law guys make a fuckton. And they don’t get called in for pro bono at the prison once a month. I mean, yeah. A lot of criminal defense is wading in the slime bucket, but remember our system, Jackson. A lot of rich people made that slime bucket and are afraid of getting their toes dirty. I think Ellery knows exactly what’s wrong with the system.”

  “I just didn’t want my own slime to touch him.”

  Jade let out a breath. “You ever think that Ellery sees the goodness under the guy with the scrawny ass?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not my stunning technique in bed,” Jackson said bitterly. “Not after the last two weeks.”

  She laughed then, like he’d meant her to, and then his phone buzzed, effectively ending the conversation.

  “Hey, Ellery, what’s up?”

  “….”

  “Ellery? Are you there?”

  He distinctly recognized the sound of Ellery’s indrawn breath when he was trying to hold on to his temper.

  “Is there something you maybe wanted to tell me?” Ellery asked sweetly. “About work?”

  “Uhm… I’m sorry, man. They’re going to let you go. Two years severance, benefits—Langdon said he was waiting for after you got released from the hospital.”

  “Oh.” The syllable carried a weight of surprised hurt in it. “I assume they were going to ask me to resign?”

  “Yeah. Bullshit, but—”

  “No, no. The severance package is more than generous. The benefits too. And two years salary is more than I would have asked for myself. They were getting pressure from someone?”

  “The government?” Jackson was guessing at this point. “I guess Lacey still had friends.”

  He could hear Ellery’s swallow. “Oh. Well, then—”

  And Jackson felt awful. “I’m sorry, man. I was going to tell you when I came to pick you up. I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I just… wait a minute. You didn’t know. If you didn’t know about getting fired, what were you calling about?”

  “I was calling about you quitting!”

  Jackson looked at Jade. “How did he know?”

  She shrugged. “We were trying to get out of there before they opened the letter. I got no idea.”

  “Ellery, who told you? Crystal? AJ? Who? Mike doesn’t even know! I mean, we haven’t even gotten home with your stuff.”

  Ellery started to chuckle, and while the sound was strained, it was also whole and unbroken. “The internet, asshole. Pictures of your resignation letter blew up the fucking internet. That intern of Harrelson’s who’s always ogling your ass posted it on her feed, and she’s got, like, two hundred likes by now. It’s going viral.”

  Jackson tried not to boggle. “Jade, our asses are on the internet.”

  Her laugh was downright evil. “That is tremendous. Think we’ll go viral?”

  “Jade wants us to go viral,” Jackson told him.

  “Well, you’re well on your way.” Ellery’s laughter had faded, and Jackson could feel his hurt from seven hundred miles away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I… you’re so proud of your job. I just… I couldn’t work for them anymore if they were going to do that to you.”

  “I get that,” Ellery said, holding his voice together with an obvious effort. “Why did Jade quit?”

  “We couldn’t fit the whole message on my ass. I’ve lost too much weight.”

  Ellery’s laugh bordered on hysteria now. “Well, you could have left off the term ‘fuckwads,’ but they might have had to write ‘cowards’ on your balls, and that just wouldn’t do. Seriously. Why’d she quit too?”

  Jackson looked at her, driving confidently, loyal as a pit bull, beautiful like a goddess. They couldn’t let her down.

  “She seems to think we’re starting our own firm,” he said, hoping for the best.

  “Hunh.”

  “That’s my word.”

  “I can use it.”

  “That’s fine.” Jackson was getting irritated. “What does it mean when you use it?”

  “It means I was thinking about it already, but, you know, we were in the middle of things. I mean, Mother’s been looking at properties, and I probably would have drawn up a business plan by next year.”

  “Hunh.” Jackson’s brain went kablooey.

  “You didn’t think about it? I mean, all those times you ran down an alibi and came back and said, ‘Yeah, our guy totally did it, but the alibi will hold up if that’s the way you want to go.’ I knew what you were thinking.”

  “The criminals were less scummy than we were?” Because yeah, that’s what he’d been thinking.

  “That you wanted a choice. You wanted to say, ‘Yes, we’ll represent this person,’ or ‘Let’s represent the guy who got pulled in on a pocket full of X and is about to get sentenced to life instead.’”

  “You do what the man tells you,” Jackson said numbly.

  “Well, now we’re the man. How’s that feel?”

  “Terrifying. How are you even imagining this from a hospital bed?”

  Ellery chuckled weakly. “It’s exhausting, frankly. We can hammer out details later.”

  Jackson felt the moment his painkillers kicked in, and he yawned, about in the same place. “I’m all for that. Text me when you wake up.”

  “Sure. Call me tonight.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I want one of those pictures. It’ll go up in the new office.”

  Jackson guffawed. He couldn’t help it. “Dude, Jade nailed that one. She stopped for a frame on our way out of town.”

  “Excellent,” Ellery said grandly. “Put it up in the living room. And have one made for my mother. I think she’ll put it up with the grandkids.”

  “Now I know you’re stoned. Go to sleep, Counselor.”

  “I love you, Jackson. Good job on not torching the place and pissing on the ashes.”

  And Jackson was vulnerable enough to be honest. “That shit takes energy. God, I hurt.”

  “Saying that takes courage. Way better than the flashy exit. And the resignation letter is so much classier and more photogenic. Call me tonight if things get hairy.”

  “I promise.”

  “And I’m not talking about your ass—it’s scary how smooth it is, you know that, right?”

  “I’ve been told. Get some sleep.” Jackson hung up just as Jade pulled into the driveway.

  “Go inside,” she ordered. “I’ll have Mike unload. God, those boxes of books were heavy.”

  “Sure.” Jackson wasn’t going to argue. Not after what they’d just done together. “Jade?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. Like, without reservation. I’d di
e for you. Ellery knows it too. Just… you know. If I never come back from one of these little adventures, I just thought I should say it out loud.”

  Her eyes welled up. “I love you too. But you know, you’ve got to be more responsible now. You’ve got a business to run.”

  Jackson smiled and dragged his sorry ass off to bed. He had one more day to sleep before he flew down to get Ellery, and for once, being told to rest didn’t sound like a death sentence.

  It was like he had something to look forward to if he got better.

  Planning the New Pond

  ELLERY’S FATHER left for his flight about an hour before Jackson arrived at the hospital.

  “You’ll be okay?” he asked, his eyes crinkling in the corners like they did when he was concerned.

  “Yeah, Papa.” Ellery swallowed—it was what he’d called his father as a child, because the endearment, classic and a little old-fashioned, just seemed to fit his father so well. “Yeah, Dad. Thanks for coming out. It would have been a shitty week without you.”

  Sid kissed his cheek and hugged him. “Wasn’t going to be a walk in the park either way,” he said before taking a step back. “It’s good that Jackson left. You got to rest up, and he got to remember he could do it alone—but it wasn’t so much fun.”

  Ellery grinned. “We do have fun,” he said, although he’d never tell Jackson that all their bickering was fun. Jackson was just perverse enough to stop if he knew.

  “He’ll be okay,” Sid Cramer said softly. “He loves you—it’s like nothing I’ve seen before, how that boy looks at you. He’ll find a way to make it work.”

  Ellery nodded and smiled, biting his lip. “Mother will be very disappointed if I end up with somebody else.”

  His father chuckled. “Indeed she will. I don’t know if she’s ever met her match in stubbornness before. She almost loves him more than she loves you.” He winked. “Almost.”

  Ellery was pretty sure he and Jackson were neck and neck in his mother’s affections. God knows, Jackson had exasperated them both to the point of fury on more than one occasion, and that only happened to somebody you really cared about.

  His father hugged him one more time and went downstairs to catch his cab, leaving Ellery alone in the hospital room with his paperwork and the suitcase Ace had brought from the Infiniti, looking more the worse for the wear.

  He had no emails to catch up on, no briefs, no cases.

  For a moment he felt sheer, unadulterated panic, but when he hauled in a gasp of air, his body reminded him that he was barely ready to go out into the big wide world.

  He settled back into the bed, since it was there, and pulled up a mystery suspense novel on his phone. There would be worrying and planning and frantic activity later, he was sure of it.

  Right now he had peace, and the man he loved was coming to get him, and he was going to relax.

  Jackson woke him up gently, shaking his shoulder and kissing his temple. “C’mon, sleeping beauty, you’re going to turn into a pumpkin if you keep snoring like that.”

  Ellery scowled at him. “I don’t snore.”

  “You were just now. I leave you for a few days and you pick up bad habits.”

  Ellery swung his legs around stiffly and let Jackson help him stand. “Then don’t leave,” he said shortly. “I mean, it was great that you got a chance to moon our former company without me to intervene, but seriously, it’s like you can’t be left unsuper—”

  Jackson kissed him firmly, cupping the back of his head and holding him still, and Ellery simply melted into his touch.

  “Mm….”

  “Yeah.” Jackson wrapped his arms around Ellery’s shoulders and pulled him in—again, not too rough but firmly, like he was letting Ellery know he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I missed this,” Ellery sighed.

  “Like water and sunshine,” Jackson agreed. “God, Counselor, there really oughtta be a law that we can’t split up, even for a few days.”

  “I’ll write one up,” Ellery mumbled against his chest. “We’ll sign it, it’ll be unbreakable. God, I want to go home.”

  Jackson’s chest rumbled against his. “Well, good—wait until you see our ride!”

  Ellery squinted as they drew near the SUV. “This is the Infiniti?”

  Sonny had gone all out. He’d reinforced the frame like it was a race car, added bulletproof tinted glass on the sides and back, added a roll bar over the front of the vehicle, adjusted the suspension, and added big off-road-certified tires.

  “Yup.”

  He’d also painted it oyster gray, with just a tint of blue in the mix.

  “It looks like a tank.”

  Jackson grinned. “I knew you’d like it!”

  “Everybody in town will notice this car!” Ellery said, a little horrified. He’d gotten Jackson’s first CR-V in the hopes that nobody would notice the car because everybody had one. Jackson was a private detective, for sweet Christ’s sake!

  Jackson shrugged. “Yup. And it’ll drink gas like it’s water. I’m thinking I should probably use some of my savings to buy a used Honda as a second vehicle. But you gotta admit, this thing’s safe.”

  He threw the luggage in the back, and Ellery used the handy new running board to heave himself up into the seat. The interior had been redone—not leather, but that stain-resistant fabric most cars had these days. As much as Ellery had appreciated the leather, he had to admit Jackson was probably more comfortable this way.

  The rest of the interior looked… stripped down, somehow. Like it was missing panels here and there that weren’t necessary but made car interiors look less like the inside of rolling tin cans.

  But there were still cup holders, an island in the middle, and interior lights, so Ellery figured it was probably streetworthy.

  Sonny and Ace would know.

  Oh! And the seat belts were extra special race-webbing across the chest with three buckles on the side.

  “This is… inconvenient,” Ellery muttered.

  “There’s suicide lap belts for short trips,” Jackson told him in complete seriousness. “But our next stop is in two hours to pee, so it’s best to buckle up the whole enchilada.”

  Ellery chuckled and did as requested and then sighed. “The seats seem way more comfortable. How is that possible?”

  Jackson chuckled too. “I got no idea, but right? And oh my God—purrs like a kitten. I mean, it’s a little louder inside because they removed some of the insulation, but seriously, this is as quiet as I’ve ever heard an engine. I don’t know what this thing’s destiny is, but I’m thinking it’s not going to be just another Jackson Rivers vehicle casualty, you know what I’m saying?”

  Ellery grinned at him, because he was as excited as a child. “I do,” he said quietly. “Can’t wait to see what it does on the open road.”

  Jackson’s laugh was as free as he’d heard it, even before the Kaden Cameron case, when Jackson was cool and detached and out of Ellery Cramer’s league.

  For a moment driving felt like an adventure, and everything was in their grasp.

  Three hours later, just on the other side of Bakersfield, Ellery wasn’t sure he could even get out of the car if he had to.

  “Jackson?” he said weakly, calling uncle.

  “You hurt too?” Jackson swung the car into the nearest off-ramp, where a circle of moderately priced hotels stood like beacons to the lonely.

  “God, yes! Why didn’t you say anything?” Ellery dug out his painkillers and grabbed the mineral water Jackson had brought for him to wash it down.

  “If you could do it, I wanted to get home, but Jesus, between the flight and the drive—even when I was a passenger after Ace picked me up. God, either we’re getting old or—”

  “Or we almost died,” Ellery said sourly. “The Holiday Inn Express looks like the best one. Can Jade take care of the cat?”

  “I’ll text her. She might even bring Albert over so those two lovebirds can reunite.”

  Ellery grun
ted. The last time Jade had done that, Billy Bob had broken every vase on his mantel. “Terrific.” He sighed as Jackson pulled up in front of the lobby. Wasn’t home, not yet, but it was sanctuary for a little while.

  Twenty minutes later Jackson had him propped up on the pillows in the bed, watching something mindless with lots of explosions on television. Jackson ran around, situating their clothes, their toiletries—things Ellery would do but he’d never seen Jackson do, not once, when they’d been in a hotel room together.

  “Stop fussing,” Ellery muttered. “Bring me my water and your soda and come sit next to me. God, Jackson, I just want to touch you.”

  Jackson stuck his head around from the bathroom. “Pervert,” he said. “I mean, seriously—all the super-hard shit we’ve done, and it all comes down to a grope in a cheap hotel.”

  “You’re hysterical. Get over here. Now!”

  He did, stretching out so his head was near Ellery’s chest and his arm was thrown over Ellery’s hips, far away from any of the surgery stitches or the soreness.

  “Did you take your own pain meds?” Ellery asked through a yawn.

  “Yep.” Jackson yawned too. “God, you feel good.”

  “Then why aren’t you touching me?” Ellery had scars now. Bad ones. He’d stared at his pale abdomen for ten minutes in the mirror that morning, wondering if Jackson would see the damage and not the man.

  “I’m afraid of hurting you,” Jackson told him. “It’s still tender. I mean, mine’s still tender, and yours is worse. Don’t worry. I still want you—did you think that was going to change?”

  Ellery half laughed. “You think I don’t worry sometimes too?”

  Jackson lowered his head and kissed the bare strip of skin between Ellery’s sweatshirt and the waistband of his sweats. “Please don’t,” he murmured, placing another kiss right below Ellery’s navel. Ellery moaned a little at the extravagance of kisses on his body. “My damage is my damage, but you… you’re still… well, bossy and persnickety and sort of prissy and….” He punctuated the list with little kisses, delicate and tender, as he pulled Ellery’s sweats down inch by inch.