“Then don’t worry about it,” Ace said, shrugging his shoulders. “Right thing ain’t always the government thing. I got no illusions.”
“I used to,” Constance said, sighing.
“Well, give your orders and then c’mere and meet your cargo. Jai’s got names and family members from most of them.” Ace felt the same bleakness that was saturating Constance’s expression. “Most of ’em have families, sir. These children may not speak English, but they’re missed.”
Burton’s CO squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, command falling like a mantle on his shoulders again. “Then we need to do right by them.”
“Yessir.” Ace turned to go talk to Jai about the children, expecting Constance to go do his ordering thing with the helicopter pilot, but Constance surprised him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Ace?” he said, the first time Ace had heard the man say his name.
“Sir?”
“Burton’s friends reflect well on him.”
Ace laughed outright. “Burton’s a better man than I’ll ever be.”
Constance shook his head. “No, sir. But I’ll let you keep yourself a secret. You seem more comfortable that way.”
Ace nodded his head. “Man, I just wish all the assholes in the world didn’t have to use this fuckin’ road.”
Constance chuckled, and Ace had no idea why. He just turned back toward the kids and figured the sooner he and Jai could get into that RV and get it back to the garage, the sooner Sonny might be able to forgive him.
Reflect well on Burton—ha! Burton was off saving the world or some such shit. Ace really only had one goal in life, and it was to keep his skinny blond dirty bomb of a boyfriend from detonating and killing them all.
It’s a good thing Sonny was his favorite thing in all the world; the rest of it wasn’t a hardship.
“Jai,” he said, striding up to the big man as he sat on his haunches. “How about you and me go to Vegas and kill some mobsters.”
Jai brightened. “You,” he said soberly, “are the best boss in the world.”
“Tell me that after Sonny yells at us for an hour.”
“Da.”
Meanwhile, back in Sacramento….
“PLEASE?” JACKSON begged, not sure if Ellery really understood how important this was.
“No.” Ellery Cramer, Jackson’s boyfriend, could be an amazingly sexy man. He had deep brown eyes, a decisive nose, a square—if bony—jaw, a brilliant legal mind, and a sense of humor that was both sly and devastating.
He could also be an unbearably prissy stickler for the rules.
“But I’ve only got a week to go!” Jackson wailed and then hated himself for it.
Ellery sat on the edge of the bed, all decked out in his summer-weight olive work suit and tie, even though it was their own damned legal office and he didn’t have to go to court. He could have been wearing basketball shorts and a tank top if he wanted, but of course he wouldn’t. Jackson had tried—tried—to set his phone alarm to get up before Ellery so he’d be all dressed and ready when Ellery was, but Ellery had caught on to that the week before and had started disabling Jackson’s phone in the middle of the night when he got up to pee.
Ellery Cramer only did things right, and infuriatingly enough, that included Jackson’s return date from his recent heart surgery.
“They didn’t even have to crack open my chest,” Jackson told him. Needlessly, of course, because Ellery had been in the waiting room during the entire procedure. “I was out in two days. It was practically outpatient surgery.”
Ellery regarded him flatly. Jackson had been out in two days because hospitals freaked him out so badly they couldn’t be sure his heart rate would slow down enough to let him heal, and because he got no sleep.
“It’s just,” Jackson continued, soldiering on in spite of the hard brown-eyed glare, “I really have been obeying all of the rules, haven’t I? And I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel up to it. I promised, right?” He smiled prettily. Once upon a time, he’d been mostly sure he could get away with anything from a lover on a wink and a prayer. It wasn’t that he thought he was handsome, but people tended to respond to confidence, and he had a certain swagger.
Ellery was not that lover. Never had been. But then, Ellery hadn’t let himself get brushed off and had stuck around long enough to see all the demons that swagger covered.
Ellery was made of tougher stuff than the parade of one-night wonders that had marched through Jackson’s bed before they’d met. And he knew it too.
“You did,” Ellery said. “You did promise.”
Augh, guilt! This was not supposed to be a situation calling for guilt.
“So, since I’ve been a model recovering patient,” Jackson said, pushing up so the covers fell away from his bare chest, “and I feel fine, and you’ve come running with me for the last week and taken my heart rate after swimming too, I thought that maybe—just maybe—I could, you know, get back into the game early.”
“No,” Ellery said.
“Please?” Jackson closed his eyes because he didn’t want to see himself turn into a big needy whiny baby. “Please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeze? Ellery, I’m bored!”
“Read a book,” Ellery said, his voice clipped.
“I’ve read books.” Mostly textbooks. Jackson had been taking online courses over the last eight weeks in order to keep his PI skills sharp so he could better help Ellery at the firm. Ellery claimed Jackson knew as much about criminal search and seizure laws as Ellery knew, but Jackson thought Ellery was probably blowing smoke, because Ellery was damned smart.
“God, read a novel. Think of ways to redecorate the house. Go to the shelter and adopt a cat.”
Jackson stared at him. “Adopt a cat?”
And finally—finally—Ellery looked away. “Look, it’s what my mother said when she was here in the spring.”
“She said our cat was inappropriate,” Jackson told him, feeling miffed.
“He licks his balls at every opportunity.”
“That’s unlikely since somebody got him fixed!”
Ellery’s brown eyes snapped. “I got him fixed so he wouldn’t run away and break your heart. And my mother also said that the cat was going to need some company when we both went back to work. And since you’re returning next week, I….” His brows drew down and his mouth pursed, and the resulting expression was grumpy and uncomfortable and very, very dear. “I don’t want him to be lonely.”
Jackson turned to the cat, who was sitting on the other side of the bed with his one remaining back leg shot up in the air as he—yes—licked where his balls used to be.
“Did you hear that, Billy Bob? Ellery loves you.”
The battered, mostly-Siamese cat looked up, his tongue halfway extended from his mouth, and blinked one-and-a-half crossed blue eyes at him. He had a snaggletooth, an ear that had healed ripped, and he’d lost his leg when Jackson’s old duplex had been shot up. His neck was as big around as Jackson’s wrist, and he tended to thug walk, even on three legs.