Page 8 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Ellery stared at him, and he knew Jackson and Galen were doing the same.

Galen spoke into the shock. “Baby, I love you because you said that with a straight face. But my God—”

“Don’t say it,” John muttered, destroyed.

“I can’t help it. You are such a—”

“Please?” John begged. “We’re in front of friends!”

Galen shook his head. “Kitten on the freeway,” he muttered. “Dear God, you have needed somebody to get you out of traffic your entire life.”

Ellery watched in surprised fascination as a mottled red crept up John’s neck and over his ears, blotching unevenly across his ginger-freckled face.

“It’s a good thing I have you, then,” he managed to say sulkily, and Galen gave a complacent shark-toothed smile.

“It is indeed.”

THEY LEFTsoon after dinner—although Jackson was absolutely adamant that they stay long enough for milk and cookies because, he said mutinously, theyallneeded to remember sweetness after that terrible conversation. Ellery insisted on cleaning up since Jackson had cooked dinnertwice,and Jackson used the time to text Henry.

When Ellery came to bed, after setting out kibble and water for the two miscreants so they wouldn’t decide to wake anybody up at fuck-you in the morning, he found Jackson sitting in bed with his knees drawn up in front of his body while he texted with the phone close to his chest.

The pose was very… self-protective. Vulnerable. And Ellery wasn’t sure what to do with that. Probe and find out why? Leave it alone unless Jackson said something? Trust that it would come out?

A part of him wanted to laugh at that—the kind of laugh that sounded overhearty and sarcastic—but the part of him that loved Jackson was so impressed with his efforts to take care of himself, to take care ofthemas a relationship that needed constant love and care, thought that was perfectly reasonable.

Jackson got tired of being treated as though he was wounded.

As Jackson texted, oblivious to Ellery hovering in the doorway, Ellery saw his lips twist in that sort of brotherly disdain he and Henry treated each other with. It was only amusing because most of the time they reallywerebrothers, as unlikely as that might have been when they started out. But now, after the two of them had watched each other’s backs for the better part of a year, Ellery saw the kind of partnership between them that he saw in the best police officers or military units. Give each other shit? Unquestionably. Have each other’s backs?

Until they drew their last breath.

“You wish, asshole,” Jackson muttered, his thumbs dancing on the keyboard. “As. If.”

Ellery’s lips twitched, and he went to his dresser to put on his pajamas, first removing his once-worn casual clothes and laying them in a neatly folded pile on top. He was in the process of pulling out a soft cotton T-shirt when Jackson said loudly, “Did I say you should get dressed?”

Ellery’s eyes flew open. “I beg your pardon?”

Jackson scowled at him, his fingers pausing on the phone. “Give me five minutes,” he said. “Five minutes to finish the conversation, and then you and me have to dance naked so I can keep my faith in mankind.”

Ellery was caught at a loss for words.

“I, uhm, thought sex would be off the, uhm, table—”

“Well, we’re not having it on the table, are we? We’re having it in bed!” Jackson held up a finger and texted madly before turning his attention back to Ellery. For a moment the tension of the conversation drained out of him, his green eyes grew soft, and Ellery knew for certain he had Jackson’s complete attention.

“Please?” Jackson asked, his entire demeanor in the here and now with Ellery. “Ireallywant to touch you.”

Ellery took in Jackson’s pose, registering that Jackson was shirtless, and his legs, which he’d thought had been covered with pajama bottoms, were under the covers and very possibly bare.

“Okay,” he said softly. “But I warn you, I’m likely to fall asleep if you text for too long.”

He slid into bed then and turned toward Jackson, relieved when that self-protective crouch relaxed a little. Jackson extended his legs under the covers and scooted toward the middle, sighing happily when Ellery spanned his hand across Jackson’s taut midsection.

Too thin, Ellery thought. But still stronger than it had been. The ribs weren’t prominent. And Jackson wasn’t trying to hide his scars; he wasn’t self-conscious, not anymore.

For a moment, as Jackson’s texting went fast and furious, Ellery closed his eyes and indulged in the soft skin and the silken hair of Jackson’s happy trail, finding the scars and tracing them simply because they led interesting places.

Playfully, Ellery slid his fingers down under Jackson’s navel and along the happy trail, only to be halted by Jackson seizing his fingers from over the covers.

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