Page 56 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“You’re so strange,” Waylon decides, but he still takes him with him to work on his homework, which is pretty damn impressive.

Jackson steps out of the bathroom and motions back toward it. “I got you all set up. Towel and washcloth are on the sink. I set out some clothes for you. Anything else you need?”

“Nah. That’s all. Thanks,” I say. I was going to say something about wearing his clothes loud enough that Leland could hear, but I oddly can’t find it in myself to care. Instead, my mind is back to wandering over Ellis and the way he’d silently stood in the room after that call.

I guess I’m not used to working with people who aren’t already deep into this kind of bullshit. I don’t know what it’s like actually caring about someone enough to risk your life for them. I mean… I’ve grown to know Micah, Leland, Jackson, Cassel, and the others as time has gone on. And I think they’ve shown me more than once how far they’ll go for each other. I definitely would do a lot of shit to help them and already have… but I’ve never had family like Ellis does. Or a normal life I want to protect.

Being careful to keep my shoulder from getting wet, I wash up as best I can and head back to the room where Ellis is helping Jackson get an air mattress set up.

“Thank you so much for letting us stay here,” Ellis says.

“Of course,” Jackson responds as he starts stretching sheets over the mattress. “Don’t worry about it. Lelandlivesfor things like this.”

Ellis gives him a sweet smile. “I… feel like if you’re running a PI office, I should pay you, though. I’m not sure how much something like this costs, but I’ll do whatever it takes to pay it off, I promise.”

Jackson shakes his head. “You’ll do no such thing. Don’t worry about payment at all. Alright?”

“Yeah, but you guys can’t just do this for nothing. You’re doing so much.”

“Lelandlovesthis stuff. Like… if you hadn’t come along, he’d have been miserably moping around because he had to work on a cheating case again. And then he’d stick his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong, and we’d be off dealing with some other bullshit. Trust me, we’d rather help you than deal with any of that. Now get some sleep. Cassel’s going to be digging into all of this to see what he can figure out, and we’ll meet up with him tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Jackson heads out, and I look over at Ellis, whose face is bruised in multiple places. Even after the shower it doesn’t look much better… maybe even worse now that the dirt and stuff has been washed away. He really looks rough after that asshole had him beaten up. His lip and cheek are cut, and he has a few scrapes on the side of his face that I can’t help but feel guilty about.

I really didn’t know, but I should have done better.

Now that Jackson’s gone, Ellis is back to just sitting there in silence.

“Tavish!” Leland calls from outside the room.

“Uh… I’ll be back,” I tell Ellis, not sure what else to say before hurrying out of the room.

“What’s that look for?” Leland asks, brow furrowed.

“What look?”

“The look like you just saw something horrific and you’re terrified.”

“I’m not terrified,” I mutter as I follow him downstairs.

“Sure look terrified to me. Oh no! Did you see your own reflection?”

“Don’t be a dick. My reflection is enough to make everyone stop and gasp,” I say.

Leland snorts, weirdly not believing that.

“Ellis looks all… upset or something. He’s like… staring off and quiet, and… my brain is telling me that this is when people comfort someone, but I don’t do that shit. I don’t know how.”

“I sure as fuck never did either,” Leland says. “Stupidest thing I’d ever heard of. Feelings? Who the fuck needed them?”

“Right?”

“But Jackson showed me that I didn’t have to be so damn terrified of them and proved to me that they might actually make me feel like more of a person. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still stupid as fuck, but I guess they’re not as… horrible and disgusting as I once thought. Even talking about this makes me feel murdery.”

“Me too.”

“I see we can finally agree on something, sloth bear.”

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