Page 77 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“The wedding,” Jackson said, and right when Ellery’s heart thought it would drop through the bed and bury itself in the core of the earth, he added, “I’m worried I won’t measure up. I’m…you know.” He gave Ellery a weak smile over his shoulder. “You know your son’s a catch,” he said, some of his roguish charm surfacing. “I… I don’t want to let him down.”

In one of those gestures that were the core of Ellery’s mother, she smoothed the hair back from Jackson’s forehead. “You are everything I’ve ever dreamed about for him,” she said, and Ellery’s eyes burned. “But I want your heart whole and well. From what I can see, you’ve spent your entire life doing nothing but caring for other people. And not just caring,doingfor them. Often at your own expense—witness tonight’s unexpected rescue.”

Jackson glanced away sheepishly. “You told?” he asked Ellery, sounding like a child.

“Yes, Jackson. My mother shows up on our doorstep to help us with a case, and I briefed her on current events. This is all obviously my fault.” He kept his voice sarcastic on purpose. He needed Jackson to feel normal.

“I love you like a son,” Taylor said primly, “but that doesn’t mean that Ellery isn’t thegoodson.”

Ellery was draped practically over Jackson’s shoulder, and he saw the tiny corner of his mouth turn up.

Bless his mother. Godblesshis mother.Okay, God, I get it now. How we see you in everyday works.

“Understood,” Jackson said, some of the defensiveness bleeding from his posture.

“Good.” She had both his hands in hers now, and Ellery knew from experience that they’d be freezing. “So you’re worried about letting Ellery down. That’s a place to start. Impossible, I think, because you work your heart out for him, but it’s a start for what we’re doing here. Now think. When was the first time you felt like this? When was the first time you were afraid you weren’t enough?”

The silence was four thousand, three hundred and eighty-two years too long.

“This is stupid,” Jackson said after a breath hitch. Abruptly he stood and slid off the bed, ducking smoothly out of Ellery’s hug and Taylor Cramer’s grip. He went to the dresser and began to rifle through clothes.

“Sit down,” Ellery’s mother said, and while she sounded affronted, she didn’t sound shocked.

Ellery was shocked. Nobody—nobody—defied his mother.

“Look,” Jackson said, and Ellery could hear the fine edge of desperation in his voice. “Lucy, I appreciate the effort, but—”

Taylor Cramer made a bored sound. “You may put on your pajamas, but you are sitting back down.”

“I was, you know, thinking of going out for a run,” Jackson said, a rather green conciliatory smile on his face.

“And I was thinking of having you restrained,” Ellery’s mother said, “but I rather decided I respected you too much to do that. Kindly show me the same consideration.”

Ellery stared from his mother to Jackson and back, not sure who would win this contest of wills but on one level absolutely fascinated. In his entire memory, he couldn’t recall a single human beingevergainsaying his mother the way Jackson had, and given that Jackson wasterrifiedof Ellery’s mother, Ellery had to give it to him in the balls department.

Jackson Rivers would face down any demon.

Except his own.

And that’s where Ellery’s fascination ended and his terror began.

“Jackson,” he said, his voice shaky in the silence. “Jackson, baby, I’ll back whatever you do. If you go running, I’ll run with you. If you decide to hop on a plane to Rome, I’ll go there too. But….”

Jackson had glanced at him and then away as Ellery had first said his name, but now, as Ellery faltered, he gazed at Ellery more fully, a stricken expression on his face.

“But what?” he asked, like the words had been forcibly ripped from his chest.

“But this thing,” Ellery whispered, “that’s keeping you up at night. That won’t let you go. This thing you’re so afraid of. It’ll get you in the end, baby. Unless you talk about it. You almost passed out tonight, you crashed so hard—because you hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in amonth.Please. We’ve gone through so much. You’ve doneso muchto make yourself healthy. Don’t let whatever this is destroy it all.” Ellery’s eyes stung, and he thought crying in front of his loverandhis mother while in his underwear in bed must have been one of the big things he’d feared in high school, but right now it didn’t even hit his top ten. “I’ll follow you until you shrivel up and fade away, but I’m telling you, that’s not what I hoped for when you asked me to marry you.”

Jackson made a sound like he’d gotten thumped in the liver. “What are you hoping for?” he asked.

“Sunshine,” Ellery said, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Flowers. Our friends and family there to wish us well. Many more years doing what we love. Hope. New plans. New people. Old friends, old family. All of it, together. Don’t you understand, Jackson? I see all these thingsin you.”

“But I’m not worth it,” Jackson said, his voice cracking. “I told you that from the beginning—”

“You have never,” Ellery hissed fiercely, “not onceever,let me down.”

Ellery could hear Jackson’s swallow from the dresser, and he slid the T-shirt in his hands over his head as though his body was functioning without his brain.

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