Page 88 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

As Aileen let them in, Jackson smelled coffee and pancakes, and he had a moment to grin at Aileen, who was no less frowzy and sleep deprived now than she had been in the hospital the night before.

It had apparently been a long night.

“You made them breakfast?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Your young men made breakfast. They’ve been….” She looked over her shoulder at Geordie, who was slight and Black and moved like a dancer—or a pickpocket, which is why he’d been in jail—and Nilas, who was also not tall, but thick and muscular, with pale skin and black curly hair. Nilas had been a fighter—probably still had it in him—but he’d been put away for assault. Jackson always suspected the other guy had it coming, because he hadn’t seen even a flash of temper in the gentle Nilas.

He was standing over the stove now, wearing a gingham apron over his white T-shirt and jeans, flipping pancakes.

“I said I didn’t need any!” Geordie protested, elbow deep in a dish tub.

“And I said you’re too skinny,” Nilas retorted. “Look, I finally got good at making the faces, and we’ve got extra sausage. Let me show off here.”

“Trying to make me fat,” Geordietsked, and then glanced at the table. A fourteen-or-so-year-old adolescent whom Jackson had never seen sat there, his newly shaved hair a pale yellow and his bright blue eyes darting from one young man to the other, a hesitant smile on his face.

“Otto?” Geordie asked. “You want some more?”

“It’ll make me sick,” he confessed, staring down at his plate in embarrassment. “Ask Danny and Enrique.”

Jackson recognized Danny as the slight, bitter young man who had gone from a bad home to the Moms for Clean Living, and Enrique as the other boy who’d been strapped to the seat with him. They sat close now, although it was clear they’d both been bathed and had made use of the clothing stores, and while they were less emaciated than Otto, they were clearly appreciative of the food.

“I’m fine,” Danny said, although judging by the surreptitious looks he kept sending Nilas at the stove, he probably hadn’t eaten in peace in a long time.

“I’m starving,” Enrique said bluntly. “I mean, yeah, I just ate twice what we usually got fed at that fucking place, but I could eat way more.”

Nilas laughed. “So two more portions. Excellent. Aileen, you good?”

“I’m eating some of the fruit in the fridge,” the woman said. “But you arereallynice to ask.” She glanced at Jackson and Cody. “I have to admit, I was expecting to get here and go all den mother on this place, but Nilas and Geordie have been trained up.”

“Miss Jade wouldn’t let us get away with that,” Geordie said, and Jackson had to smile at “Miss Jade.” Her mother had been “Miss Toni” to Jackson, because you showed respect to someone when they made sure you were cared for, and he was glad to see the tradition passed on.

“This is a good place,” Aileen said, smiling at the boys. “If I can get some funding for a supervisor for these kids, I think, and if Nilas and Geordie don’t mind, we’ll keep taking your beds for a little while, Jackson. I know you usually have adults here, but….” She grimaced. “This is an unusual situation.”

“She means we’re all queerbies,” Danny said. “Gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.” He chuckled, like it was a sort of victory to just say that.

“That all you got?” Enrique asked. “Your dad did not havenearlythe imagination of my mom. Fudgepacker, cocksucker—”

Jackson cleared his throat meaningfully. “Please don’t,” he said when the boys glared at him, defiance plastered all over their faces. “Your language is your own, and I get it. You want to make your identity your own, and you take charge of thosewords that hurt you. But right now you’re using them to hurtus,the adults who are trying to protect you. It’s not kind.”

Enrique’s face was made of points, whereas Danny’s features were rounder and softer, but their expressions were mirrored as they glanced at each other and swallowed.

“Sorry,” Enrique said. “Just….” He shuddered. “Those women. We couldn’t even say fuckinggaythere, but we all knew that’s why we were stuck in those awful rooms with those awful pictures, learning Bible verses on our knees.”

“That’s no way to learn Bible verses,” Geordie said, coming to the table and drying his hands off on his apron. “I mean, my mom had her flaws, but we were always taught to sing them. I know whole tracts of the book.”

Enrique shook his head. “Man, I’ve been force-fed about as much of that book as I can stomach.”

“Don’t eat books,” Nilas said, coming to the table with a griddle in one hand and a spatula in the other. “Eat pancakes!” Carefully—and artistically—he spatula’d three minicakes and a banana-shaped cake onto each of the boy’s plates, and then, using bowls on the table, added a ladle of strawberries across the “mouth,” along with whipped cream eyeballs, nostrils, and teeth.

While the boys were cracking up over the “food faces,” Geordie had gone to the stove and come back with a plate of sausages and made sure each boy got two more. He turned to Otto and held out two more in tongs. “You sure you don’t want more, big O?”

“Later,” Otto whispered with a smile. “You fed me lots last night.”

“It’s been lonely,” Nilas admitted, taking the griddle back to the stove and pouring more batter on it. “I know you’ve been trying to vet more guys for the place, Jackson, but seriously, hanging out with these little dudes is way more fun.”

“You’re right,” Enrique said, meeting Jackson’s eyes. “You all have been kind. You forget, you know? People aren’t always shitheads.” He frowned. “Can I say that?”

“Yes,” Jackson told him. “The other stuff was being mean to yourself. It’s fine to say shitheads when they’ve been shitheads.” He grimaced. “But because theyareshitheads, I need to get some more information from you. Not that I don’t want to see how you’re all doing,” he added hastily.

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