Page 86 of Fish in a Barrel
“Yes,” Ellery said, closing the computer carefully and setting it on the end table, because that spill had been a near miss. “Why do you ask?”
“I’d like Lucy Satan to see me when I’m not a mess,” he said. “I figure my stitches will be out by then. I should be healthy. The firm’s almost been running a year. Wouldn’t it be nice to have everybody here and nobody hurt or sad?”
Ellery didn’t correct him this time, remind Jackson that his mother’s name was, in fact, Taylor and not Lucy Satan. He couldn’t. He remembered the year before, when Jackson had barely been well enough to travel and they’d gone to Ellery’s parents’ home in Massachusetts. He’d been so traumatized by their run-in with the Dirty/Pretty killer and his subsequent stay in the hospital that Ellery’s family had walked around him on tiptoes, doing anything they could to put him at ease. His mother—Ellery’smother—had elected to have Thanksgiving in the family room on TV trays so Jackson could curl up in a ball and sleep after a few bites. It was probably all Jackson had eaten all week. Suddenly Ellery very much wanted his parents to see them both happy and healthy, to see how much more solid Jackson had become since then.
Ellery’s mother had always loved Jackson. She would feel so much better about the both of them if she knew Jackson Rivers was capable of taking care of himself—and of Ellery too.
“It would be,” Ellery said, running his fingers along Jackson’s arm. “But I’m surprised you think so too.”
“Your mom is terrifying, Ellery. She’s larger than life and super smart, and she loves you like a mama mountain lion loves her cub. But that doesn’t mean she’s not good people. I’d just like Lucy Satan to see that her baby boy is okay, you know? He’s not saddled with a neurotic mess. His boyfriend is okay too.”
“I was never saddled with you,” Ellery said softly. He turned off the TV and the light before lying down behind Jackson, close enough to tangle calves, but not close to his back.
“I beg to differ,” Jackson slurred. “But it’s okay. I’ll heal from this. This isn’t so bad. You and me, we can host dinner. We can have Galen and John and Lance and Henry—”
“We can’t take Lance and Henry from the flophouse boys,” Ellery murmured. “We’ll have to have them here.”
Jackson made a tiny sound that probably meant he was thinking about all the people. “My brother was coming down from the mountains, and Jade was coming over, and—”
“Shh…,” Ellery calmed him. “Maybe we can have an open-house thing. We’ll have a caterer and all the food out, and people can visit whenever they can fit us in. It’s sort of like an all-day party.”
“Sounds complicated,” he mumbled. “But you always know how to make things work.”
“Never needed to until you came into my life,” Ellery said quietly. “Never cared about so many people. Just so you know, I’m always grateful for you. You are my Thanksgiving.”
Jackson let out an inelegant snort. “The way my body looks, I’m more like your Halloween.”
Ellery resisted the urge to thwack him on the back of the head. “Your body isn’t scary. It’s seasoned,” he said with a sniff. “And as long as it’s keeping you alive, I have no problems with it.”
“Augh!” Jackson gave a muffled groan into his pillow. “It’s the perfect line. I should have you on your hands and knees and be pounding into you going, ‘You got a problem with my bodynow,Ellery? Hah?’”
Ellery erupted into snickers and allowed his fingers to brush Jackson’s neck, well above the stitches. His body reacted to the image, and hewaspleasantly aroused, but more than that, he was pleased. Because Jackson hadn’t tried it. A year ago, he’d be trying to sex Ellery up and prove he was okay, but he wasn’t. He was letting himself be cared for. Letting himself heal.
“Another week or two, and yes,” Ellery said softly. “I plan to be having lots of problems with your body.” He leaned forward enough to kiss Jackson’s neck. “But not now. Sleep, baby. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Jackson mumbled. “You’ll never know how much.”
But Ellery did. Sure, from pretty much the beginning of their relationship he knew Jackson cared enough to die for Ellery—he’d tried to a couple of times and had come damned close. Jackson had already proved that he would kill for Ellery as well, although Ellery knew it haunted him. But right now, allowing himself to be comforted, asking about family, about holidays, about how he wanted Ellery’s mother to see him whole and healthy, Ellery knew the truth.
Jackson Leroy Rivers wanted tolivefor him. And not just subsist—to live fully, like an adult. To have a share of happiness. To allow himself to be loved.
Ellery couldn’t ask for anything more. In his entire life, he couldn’t recall ever wanting anything with the purity and the passion that he wanted time, so much more time, with Jackson.
We All Have a Past
THE MORNINGbefore, it had been the police pounding down the door that had woken Jackson up.
This morning it was Ellery’s mother’s ringtone on his phone—“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Or as Jackson sang it, “Lucy in the Satan Tree with Boostifer,” which was something he’d thought of coming out of surgery the first time he’d met the woman and that Ellery really never would understand.
“Lucy?” he mumbled, unsure if his rather loopy, pain-med-and-antibiotics-relaxed state had summoned her in his mind or in reality. “Did you hear me talking?”
“No, darling,” Ellery’s mother said, her very upper-class Boston accent seeming to brace him for harsh winters and people of fortitude. “What were you talking about?”
“You guys are coming for Thanksgiving,” he mumbled. “Making sure.”
“Well, we plan to,” she purred. “That is if there’s anything left of you in a month. Did something happen last week that Ellery forgot to tell us about, dear?”
Oh God. “I, uh, got a little bit sick. Ellery was pretty busy this weekend taking care of me. It was no big—”