JACKSON DECIDED on cargo shorts—but ones in decent condition, and a new T-shirt—one they’d gotten from the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a sea otter on the front. It wasn’t snarky, but it wasn’t a suit and tie, and it was cute as hell.
He figured adulthood didn’t have to be all bad, right?
He’d just finished washing morning dishes when there was a knock on the door.
Henry Worrall had served in the military for nine years before he’d been forced out by an abusive boyfriend, and his posture and close-cropped blond hair remained to prove it. But when Jackson opened the door, his lips twisted into a smile, and his blue eyes lightened fractionally, proving that a new perspective is only as far away as you make it.
“So, you’re done with this vacation bullshit?”
“Don’t attack the cat on your way in,” Jackson said, turning to lead him into the house. “He’s already had his share of blood today.”
Henry snorted. “That cat could eat out your throat and then take out the neighborhood.” Henry and Billy Bob had a long history of enmity under their belts. “Are you ready to do, like, real work again?”
Jackson grunted his frustration. “Picking up files is as real as it gets,” he said reluctantly. “After that, you drop me off at the office, and I sit still like a good boy and do my desk work.”
“Oh my God, are you whipped.” Henry smirked.
“You’re looking good today,” Jackson said dryly. “Wipe any runny noses? Diaper any rash?”
Circumstances had landed Henry a job working at Ellery’s firm, with Ellery’s first partner in law, Galen Henderson. They had also landed Henry a living situation in which he mentored a group of young men who were supposedly grown and on their own. And making their living in pornography. Living in the “flophouse” for a few months before moving out with his boyfriend, Lance, had been partially responsible for mellowing Henry out from his straightlaced, straight-passing life when he’d first gotten out of the military.
Working along with Jackson, Ellery, and Galen to help clear himself of a murder he hadn’t committed had done the rest.
And the mentoring had never really gone away. In Henry’s words, a lot of the guys living in the two-bedroom apartment while they tried to figure out their lives had “more balls than brains,” and Henry and Lance did a lot of counseling in the guise of hanging out with the boys from the flophouse.
In response to Jackson’s question, Henry gave a solid grunt. “Yes. Yes, I wiped noses this morning.”
Jackson gave him a sympathetic look. “Cotton?” he posed delicately.
“He’s….” Henry grimaced. His first language wasn’t really English. It was more like Repressed Male, and he spoke it well. “Sometimes, some people, you just want someone to show up and say, ‘You. You are my Cinderella. I shall take you to a castle and we shall talk and be equals, but I will always, always take care of you.’”
Jackson shuddered. “Gah!”
“Yeah, I know,” Henry said with a sigh. “Not my thing either. But seriously, and I say this with all the love in the world for this kid, he can pay rent, and he can shop, and he’s going to school for a degree in something that will never get him money, but inside”—Henry held his hands to his chest—“he is never going to be not broken.”
Jackson blew out a breath. “There’s a lot to be said for broken but functional,” he said after a moment. “Sometimes it takes the right person to be the glue.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m his glue for now, but that’s not healthy.” He blew out a breath. “I’m just as glad he’s out of porn, though. It’s like every guy who came on to him was ‘the one,’ and that’s not a good place for someone who’s getting paid to put out.”
Jackson grimaced. “No. No it is not.” He snagged his wallet and a small messenger bag, then shoved his house keys in his pocket. Billy Bob was up on the table again, eating his second breakfast, and Jackson scratched him at the base of the tail because fuck that guy if he wanted to go nuclear.
Billy Bob purred and continued to eat, and Jackson figured they were good.
“Speaking of broken,” Henry continued as they ventured into the oppressive heat of mid-August, “how’re you doing?”
Jackson paused to give him an unamused look. “Heart’s fine, Henry. All checked out. Eating well, exercising well, being a good boy. Wanna see my blood pressure and my last X-rays?”
“Nope, because Lance talks to your doctor and then he talks to me, and I know all that shit,” Henry said mildly, apparently HIPAA laws be damned. “That’s not the broken I was talking about.”
Oh dear lord. “Feelings?” Jackson asked, appalled. “You want me to talk about my feelings? Werewolf fucking Jesus, when did that happen?”
“Oh my God, you people gave me so much shit because I was repressed when I got here. You wrote the book on emotional repression. I’m just asking you if any of the shit you had to sort when we were running around trying to clear my name got sorted.”
“Oh, who cares,” Jackson snapped. God yes, he’d been talking to Ellery’s rabbi, who had appointed himself Jackson’s personal counselor for life, and yes, he felt a little better about things than he had before he’d driven himself to the damned almost-heart-attack. But part of the reason he wanted to get back to the office wasn’t so much to avoid the personal tinkering he had to do in order to make his relationship—and, face it, himself—work better, it was to have a place where he didn’t have to confront hard personal truths.
Activity and puzzle solving was oh-so-much easier, and sometimes he needed a break from his own head.
“I do,” Henry said brightly. “Emotional enlightenment works great that way.”
“I’m fine,” Jackson told him. “I’m practically giddy.”
Henry paused as they neared the cream-colored Lincoln that Galen Henderson, who technically employed Henry as his private investigator, lent out to Henry so Henry could drive him to and from work. Galen had been injured in a horrific motorcycle crash nearly five years ago and had battled addiction to painkillers afterward. He could walk now and drive a car, but not without pain. His boyfriend liked to spare him that, so they’d hired Henry to drive for Galen when Henry had first come to Sacramento.
Then there had been the inconvenient murder charge, and Henry had proved to have a knack for helping Jackson search out the truth, so Jackson had gained himself a protégé, and Henry had gained himself a calling.
“Still having nightmares?” Henry asked softly as Jackson reached to open his door.
Jackson grunted and was about to blow Henry off when his last discussion with the rabbi flashed through his mind. Allow other people to worry about you. It’s a kindness—it gives them something active to do while you go help people.
“What was it you said?” He rubbed his chest. “Always broken? My nightmares and I go way back. It’s going to take a lot more than a really decent relationship during a real bastard of a year to fix that.”
“Wow,” Henry said, sliding into the car.