Work Text:
In the booth, days ran long. Or so they said.
Mike wasn’t worried. Waiting was waiting, whether you were staked outside some guy’s apartment or passing the time between cars. All you had to do was make your schedule and stick to it.
He had a routine. Worked pretty good most of the time. Crossword from the Times, just after getting in. Crossword from the Journal, plus a pimento sandwich: lunch. Sudoku book as backup, in case he got desperate. No matter what, he always had a thermos, a bag lunch, a book, and the paper.
Usually, he passed the time doing what he did best. He got to know the courthouse. Figured out who did regular trash pickup in the deck, delivered ink and receipt paper, ran the tow trucks—all the jobs people took for granted. Saw every dime-store defendant in the city, most of them in for low-level stuff: public urination, drunk and disorderly, what have you. Others who’d never come through the lot again. Saw the same group of lawyers and judges pass in and out in packs, like birds running south for the winter.
Enter Jimmy McGill.
##
He made discreet inquiries at first. Mostly to check whether this guy was headed for maximum security or a padded cell. He didn’t seem dangerous. But there was an unknown quality under all that charm. Reeked of desperation. Which pinged Mike’s radar.
“Oh my god” — this was Patty, the night clerk, who gave him a daily record of parking validations an hour before the courthouse closed. Early forties, with two kids under ten and a stupid ex-husband — “that guy is just.” She sucked her teeth. “Hm. Something else.”
“Oh yeah?”
What Mike wanted to know was whether this Jimmy was the kind of scumbag who took out his bad moods on small people. Or whether he was just your garden-variety snake charmer. But he wanted to let her talk. You got better information that way.
“You know what?” Patty said suddenly, shaking blonde hair out of her face. “I think he’s the kind of guy who sunk his whole life in one job. So, you know, if work goes bad….he’s out here yelling about a busted up water fountain or complaining about parking validation.”
“Hm.”
Now that, Mike knew better than most.
“Work goes good, he’s laying it on thick like he wasn’t just wailing about court checks a week ago. Hey, how you doin’, how’s the kids kinda thing. Better attitude. Better hair. I call that guy good mood Jimmy. Like he’s a totally different person.”
“Huh,” Mike offered, although it was funny enough. “I could see that.”
“Well, that’s public defenders for you.” She rolled her eyes. “Too smart to get a steady job, and too dumb to realize they’ll never make the big leagues.”
##
Mike also did some research of his own. Jimmy McGill—apart from driving a beat-up Suzuki Esteem—graduated from the University of American Samoa in 1999. Passed the bar later that summer. He’d been doing public defense for two years. Before that, a string of idiocies in Chicago that culminated in a dropped case.
The lawyer who’d defended him, Charles Lindbergh McGill, seemed to have the kind of career Jimmy wanted. Big law firm, wealthy clients. Vested partnership. But he wasn’t well. Hadn’t stepped into a courtroom in seventeen months.
Mike would have figured they were brothers from the name and photos alone. But every day without fail, that yellow Suzuki pulled up to the curb just outside an average-looking house, now disconnected from the electrical grid. Every day, Jimmy put his phone, watch, and wallet inside a mailbox. Then he hauled a bag of groceries, five papers, and a bag of ice inside. He’d stay inside anywhere from ten minutes to two hours before coming out, rushing back to the mailbox to collect his stuff before peeling off like a bat out of hell.
Mike could have followed him back to 160 Juan Tabo, where all signs pointed to a nail salon, not a law office. But he didn’t.
##
In the end, it took six months before Mike met good mood Jimmy.
Good mood Jimmy always remembered to buy enough stickers. He blared music at top volume, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel while Mike printed out the receipt. He’d hum or sing off-key with the radio, sometimes too blissed out to chatter. Other times, he peppered Mike with off-the-cuff questions.
“Hey.” He’d lean out the window of that lemon-colored Suzuki, flashing a bright smile. “You like Alanis?”
Mike didn’t know what that meant. They stared at each other for a few seconds, until Jimmy waved a hand at the radio, pitched his voice louder.
“New single’s pretty good.”
Okay. A singer, clearly. Woman, based on the voice.
“Never heard of her,” was all Mike said, noting the exit time on his clipboard before handing Jimmy his receipt.
“Now that is both completely expected and completely horrifying.” Instead of leaving, Jimmy put the car in park, leaned right, and rummaged around in the passenger door before coming up with a small clear box. Cassette tape. Green cover. “Here. Not exactly new, but she’s got a great sound. Kinda like if Linda Ronstadt and Tori Amos had a baby.”
The tap of moving tires against concrete meant they’d have another car in line pretty soon.
“Anyway.” Jimmy seemed to know this, too; gave him a nod. “Take it easy, okay?”
Mike tapped the button, let the gate up. It was only after Jimmy drove away, and he was left staring down at the cassette, that he realized this was a step beyond good mood Jimmy . Someone he’d never met before.
##
He didn’t expect Jimmy to be a competent lawyer.
Public defenders usually weren’t worth their weight in shit. Cops hated them. Real lawyers hated them. They were overstressed, overworked, and prone to imploding.
“They want all the records in eDocs now.” Jessica was a fresh-faced girl just out of high school, doing scut work for the clerk of court’s office before she started community college. She wore glittery eye makeup and the kind of outfits that made your eyes water, but she was sharp. “So I get to scan them in before I do all the normal filing and whatever. You want a scream, I’ll show you Jorgenson’s.”
“Nah,” Mike chuckled, because Jorgenson was a regular. He was lucky he could park a car between the lines without lasting brain damage. “Heard McGill’s got all the weirdos, anyway.”
“Ch-yeah.” Jessica did a little shimmy next to the file cabinet, reminding him of the way Kaylee used to dance in her high chair during a real good lunch. “Freak city! He’s pretty much the only one crazy enough to take them.”
“Guessing he loses more often than he wins.”
“Don’t tell anyone I told you. But he’s actually, like, super good. I mean, he looks like an uber dweeb, but I heard him argue for this one guy once? Who, like, knocked down a bunch of displays in Smith’s with a baseball bat or something. Went totally postal because his long term girlfriend dumped him. So Jimmy spent the whole closing argument talking about the pain of a broken heart. How there’s nothing worse than, like, getting your romantic dreams stomped on when you’re young. Or even when you’re old. How it’s a bruising human experience every time, because you’re, like, putting every part of yourself out there, at your most vulnerable.”
“Wow.”
Mike remembered the defendant. Guy drove his car into the front window, got out, and beat down a display of Fourth of July snacks till security guards tackled him. Wailing for the ex girl the whole time. Not exactly Sleepless in Seattle.
“Seriously. He like, made the jury cry a little.” Jessica popped her gum. “And in the end he only got ten days in jail plus community service. No reckless endangerment. So.”
“Not bad for a public defender,” was all Mike said.
"Totally." Jessica nodded.
##
Jimmy kept calling. Even when he wasn’t dispensing legal advice. Sometimes it’d just be a quick question, way out of left field.
“Hey, Mike,” Jimmy said, the first time this happened. “You ever wonder why dolphins are cannibals?”
“Wrong number,” Mike answered, and hung up.
His phone rang again within seconds, and then there was Jimmy, back in his ear. “I’m serious! They eat other fish all the time. That’s not even a little bit strange to you?”
He sounded pretty loaded, but on the other hand, the only other thing Mike had for entertainment right now was fundraiser week on the movie channel, and some terrible late-night programming.
Mike turned down the volume on the TV. “Not especially.”
“Well, what, do you just have a—a second career in dolphin biology, or something?”
Mike shifted the phone to his other ear. “No. Dolphins are mammals. Not fish.”
There was a long silence.
“Hence,” Mike continued, “they’re not cannibals.”
“Huh uh. I’m gonna look that up.” There was a rustling noise on Jimmy’s end, like he was paging through the paper, or getting up from a messy sofa. “I’m gonna—get on Encarta and—and—prove you’re crazy.”
“Okay. You do that.”
They hung up. Twenty minutes later, Mike’s phone rang again.
“Yeah.”
“All right. So. Now I’m even more weirded out. Dolphins, technically, are mammals. Whoo hoo, throw yourself a big party for being right. But you know what else is considered a dolphin? An orca. Fucking—Free Willy! Isn’t that something?”
“Huh,” said Mike. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought about a dolphin. Or even the last time he’d been to the ocean. “Weird.”
“I know! Did not see that coming at all. They should put this on TV or something.”
“They probably do.”
If he talked to Jimmy for another twenty minutes—shooting the breeze about movies with whales, then about the greatness of Jaws, and finally which kind of monster movies Jimmy liked best, in that order—it was nobody’s business but his own.
##
One night, a Friday, Jimmy called at quarter to eleven.
“Hey, Ehrmantraut.” His voice was warm, soft, like he’d just woken up from a nap. “What’re you up to, huh?”
“At home,” Mike told him. It should have been obvious. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” The pause before that sentence said he did know, and he was pussyfooting around till he could get up the guts to ask. “Just thought you might want to come, uh, hang out. With me.”
“Now.”
Mike glanced at the nearest clock, as if it was gonna say a different time than his watch.
“Yeah,” Jimmy continued. “I mean, you wouldn’t have to—I get free roam of the place, this time of night. Could use the massage chairs. Have a beer. I’ll even, uh, paint your nails if you want. One-time offer. But I don’t know any of the designs, if that’s your angle. Kim always complains.”
It occurred to Mike, somewhere in the middle of this very long ramble, that Jimmy might be calling him because he was lonely. Mike had never been the guy other people called when they were lonely. Hell, he wasn’t even the guy you wanted to see on the other side of the door, nine times out of ten.
Amazingly, Jimmy was still talking. “Well, you drive a hard bargain, sir. If you really want, then I’ll see if I can dig up the salt scrubs. I think Mrs. Nguyen has ‘em in three or four—”
“Jimmy,” Mike interrupted, listening very closely for his reaction. “Are you saying you want company?”
Jimmy didn’t answer right away, but Mike heard the soft click of him swallowing.
“Uh. Um, yeah. That’d be—I think that’d be—good. If—if you don’t, um. If you think you might want to?”
Sighing, Mike cast around for the remote, and turned off the TV. “Okay. Be there in twenty.”
An hour later, he was sitting in one of the big rolling chairs, bottle of beer in hand and the radio on low on a nearby counter, watching Jimmy speed around the salon on one of the little miniature stools.
“It’s hot in here.” Jimmy’s hair was sticking to his temples and the back of his neck, and he was sweating. “Are you—do you think the A/C’s on the fritz?”
“Sit in a real chair,” Mike told him, “and stop moving. You’ll feel better.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jimmy did get up and drag another black rolling chair over toward Mike. But he didn’t sit down in it right away, just balanced his open beer on one of the basins and shrugged out of his jacket. Mike could see the damp half moons under his armpits when he did. He suddenly wondered if Jimmy might take off more than his jacket, in the name of being overheated. He wasn’t sure what he might do if he did.
“All right. Keep your shirt on, Matlock.”
Jimmy actually growled as he slung the jacket on the back of the chair. Sounded more pathetic than the caged puppies at the vet’s office. “Abso—solutely noooot. ”
He glared at Mike. Mike pursed his mouth to smother a smile. “Sorry. Gore Vidal.”
“Scuse you. Young Paul Newman.” Jimmy was still glaring, pointing at him with the side of the beer bottle. “I said Newman. ‘N I think you know that.”
“Yeah,” Mike drawled, “In this light, you’re a dead ringer.”
He let himself look at Jimmy, really look, same way he’d take the measure of anyone who rolled through the garage. From here, Jimmy resembled Paul Newman about as much as any middle-aged guy holding a bottle of salad dressing. His eyes were pretty blue, though. More of an O’Toole than a Newman, Mike decided. That wide-eyed innocence. Plus the ego.
“You’re, like. Really staring at me, man.”
Jimmy’s voice was low, unfocused. Aquarium light rippled across his face.
“Maybe I am.” Mike shifted in his seat. Heat prickled along his skin. “Guess that’s the price of celebrity, huh.”
“Cele—oh.” Jimmy huffed out a noise that could’ve been a laugh. Could’ve just been him trying not to hurl. “Yeah. Me and—and—Joanne gonna head on over to the next premiere and just—go to town on each other. Right in the limo.”
“Sure.” Mike took a sip of his beer, just to have something to do with his hands. “Too rich to own a bed?”
“You never heard’ve the legend of Newman?” Now, Jimmy was gaping. “I mean, you know, classic Hollywood and all that—the whole scene was—whoof—but, like. He played, all right? Men, women. Didn’t matter. He played. Had a three-way with Jimmy Dean and Eartha Kitt, way back in the day, before she was Catwoman. That was like….. C'est si bon era, even. Jeez. Can you imagine?”
Mike could, and had, since he was still wet behind the ears in fifty-four. Anything from a nice pair of legs to a stiff breeze got him trembling, back then. “She looked good.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Mike let the silence spool out until the click of the aquarium filter was the only sound filling the room. When Jimmy didn’t finish the thought—didn’t even try to make a joke—he knew for sure. But he still said it out loud.
“Guessing you’re more of a Jimmy Dean type.”
Maybe that was why he admired Newman. Handsome with or without the suits, dream job, breezing through life until real love hit him straight between the eyes. Even then, taking his fill of whatever came his way.
“Not exclusively,” Jimmy’s voice was unsteady. “I mean. Sometimes I—I do like, um. Taking a left turn out of Albuquerque.”
The breath Mike let out through his nose wasn’t a laugh. He’d stick to that story until he was six feet under.
“But I usually have to know her pretty well, first.” Jimmy made a what-can-you-do gesture with his hands. “Not a one-and-done kind of guy, these days.”
This, Mike understood. “Yeah.”
“Do—do you, um. Turn right or left? On Central?”
Jimmy said most of this to the tile under his wingtips, but when he looked up at Mike through those long lashes, Mike’s pulse sped up.
“I’m here,” Mike said evenly. “Aren’t I?”
Nobody goes to a nail salon at eleven at night unless they’ve got ulterior motives, he wanted to say.
“Yeah. Um. Yeah, you are.” Jimmy let out a high, nervous laugh. “Hadn’t considered that, to be honest.”
He looked like he was a split second away from getting up and sprinting into the parking lot. For some reason, Mike didn’t want him to bolt.
“Come here.”
Mike hooked a foot around the wheel of his chair, pulling Jimmy forward until the chair legs bumped together. When Jimmy was close enough, Mike moved in, barely remembering to angle his nose the right way before catching Jimmy’s mouth.
He’d never been great at romance. Not when he was young, and not when he was married. But he kept things slow and focused, out of some old-fashioned notion of respect. That was what you were supposed to do during the first time, anyway.
He was sure that advice hadn’t ended with “get your hand down the guy’s pants and jerk him off like you were waiting for a late train,” but that was what happened, in the end. He thumbed over Jimmy’s head with soft, patient strokes, kissing him long and dirty, until Jimmy gasped against his mouth, gripped his forearm, and spurted over his fingers.
“Oh,” Jimmy sighed, when it was over, dreamy as some co-ed who’d gotten pinned by her steady. His head was a pleasant weight against Mike’s upper arm.
“Oh,” Mike huffed back, hoping he hadn’t made things worse.
“Um. Can I—” and Jimmy raised his head, looking up at him with hopeful, round eyes. “Mike, is it okay if—?”
Rather than answering, Mike grabbed Jimmy’s other hand, and placed it directly on his zipper.
##
“Thanks for the ride,” Stacey told him, halfway through the drive to the hospital. Mike had just gotten off work when she’d called, spitting nails about the damn engine and her car not starting. “I know it’s early.”
“Sure.” He didn’t know why she was thanking him. She was family. “I was up anyway.”
“Night shift?”
Always quick on the draw. “Yeah.”
“Well, I still appreciate it. Hopefully you can get some food after—after this.”
Her voice changed toward the end of the sentence. Mike was in the middle of a turn, so he wasn’t able to look at her until a few seconds later. When he saw the empty cassette case in her hand, he knew she had his number.
They stared at each other for another second, and then Stacey’s hand shot out, quick as anything, smashing the TAPE button.
—swallow it down, what a jagged little pill—
She crackled out a big laugh, the kind he hadn’t heard since before Matty died. Or ever.
Mike let her enjoy it, although he usually didn’t listen to music with other people in the car. “All right.”
Between giggles, she asked, “I mean, did you get tired of Bruce?”
Like anyone could. “Trying something new.”
“No way.” Stacey was still laughing. “No way, Mike. Where the hell did you get this?”
He knew why she’d ask. But the part he liked was coming up, and so he pretended he had to focus on the left turn so he could listen without interruption. Wait until the dust se-e-ttles!
Maybe it was just familiar, since he usually heard it blaring out the windows of a lurid Suzuki Esteem as it squealed up to the booth. Or maybe he could just hear Jimmy’s stupid falsetto echoing behind the riff. Same one he used to answer his phone when he put on that hokey accent. Law offices of James McGill, Esquire, how may I direct your call? Nobody with half a brain bought that ridiculous act. And yet he kept doing it.
“Friend lent it to me,” he finally said, after the first few lines of the chorus played out.
Stacey had gone quiet. He glanced over.
The lift of one eyebrow and the way she was toying the case between both hands made him wonder if he’d given too much away.
“So,” she said next, obviously aiming for casual, “is this a go-out-for-coffee friend or….?”
“Works at the courthouse.”
Stacey got quiet again. The silence lingered so long Mike was tempted to look over at her again, get an idea of what she was thinking. But that’s how you got caught out.
“What’s his name?”
Shit. Mike was positive he hadn’t said he . But he wasn’t certain. And he didn’t want to hear whatever question came next.
“Stace,” he sighed.
“All right,” she said, running a finger over the corner of the case in a way that meant she was absolutely going to say something else. “I’ll shut up. But if he gave you a tape, you should give him one. That’s, like, the etiquette.”
This made Mike turn. “Etiquette.”
“Yeah.” She’d opened the clamshell and was fiddling with the liner notes, something Mike had never bothered to do. “You get to listen to his music. He should get yours.”
“Oh yeah?” There was the sign for the hospital, up on the right. Mike put on his signal, took the turn. “Well. Think he’d appreciate Mr. Joel or Mr. Campbell?”
“Nah,” she answered, once the car had slowed to a stop. She’d replaced the liner notes, and shut the plastic case before placing it on the dashboard. “Give him Bruce.”
“Hey!” Good mood Jimmy was in full force today as he zoomed up to the window. “You’ll notice, sir, that I have once again purchased the requisite number of stickers.”
Be still, my heart, Mike had said last time.
“Again? I should kiss you.”
It was a joke. Kind of. But Jimmy blushed as pretty as if Mike had leaned out the booth window and actually done it. His smile was so wide that one of the dimples in his cheek popped out as he held out the ticket. Their fingers brushed when Mike took it from him.
Mike concentrated very deeply on the routine, and not the way his palms tingled. Clipboard. Register. Paper. “Here you go.”
Under the receipt was a small clear box. White cover. Dark-haired guy.
“Wh—” Jimmy did a double-take. But when he looked at the cover, his eyes lit up like Mike had just given him courtside tickets. “Hey, I love this album!”
“Good.” Mike picked up his pencil and paper again in an attempt to distract himself. Second crossword was only half-filled out. “Don’t lose it.”
“Oh, so it—this is—yours?”
Jimmy’s voice had dropped half an octave, same way it did when he was turned on. Mike had to set his jaw against the sudden fizz of excitement in his stomach.
“I get your music, you get mine,” was all he said.
##
One night, just before an early close, Mike took a lap around the lot, just to stretch his legs. He hadn’t had a car come through the gate for 45 minutes.
When he rounded the corner, he saw Jimmy sitting motionless in the driver’s seat of his Suzuki, feet planted on the ground, elbows braced on his knees, door wide open. Car off.
Mike didn’t breathe until he saw Jimmy move one arm to look at his watch. Then, Jimmy went right back to looking at the ground.
Mike glanced back toward the still-empty booth. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to leave his post until Dolores was in sight. Could get fired if anyone had to wait too long.
But Jimmy rubbed the heel of his hand across his eyes, and. Well. Mike was always a sucker for the sad ones.
He walked over. Waited until Jimmy could practically see the tops of his shoes before clearing his throat. “Lot closes in ten minutes.”
Jimmy didn’t lift his head.
Mike thought he knew every flavor of bad mood Jimmy, but this one was beyond the pale. Something was wrong.
He tried again. “They will tow you. Convention this weekend.”
“I don’t care,” Jimmy said in a flat voice.
No inflection, no anger, zilch. Worse than he expected.
“Okay.” Mike figured it would be counterproductive to pull Jimmy out of the car and throw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. But he wanted to encourage the guy to not get his car locked in Civic Plaza out of spite. Or fury. Or whatever he had grinding his gears. “Not going by Chuck’s, later?”
Gonna be hard to do that without wheels, he wanted to add.
Jimmy jerked his head up. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and his mouth quivered, but he steeled his jaw against whatever was fighting to get out, squeezing his eyes closed. When he opened them again, his voice was level and controlled. “No. I’m not. Ever again.”
The only thing worse than seeing Jimmy melancholy was watching his usual cheerful energy drain from his body as surely as if he’d been shot in the leg. He looked like he was a second away from taking a long step off the top of the parking deck. Or god forbid, bursting into tears. His mouth was contorted in the kind of frown that belonged on Looney Tunes.
Mike blamed the cartoonish frown for what he said next.
“Ever been to Loyola’s?”
This got Jimmy to look up, and a glimmer of life to come back into his too-pale face. “Yeah. All the time.”
“Okay.” Mike let out a breath. “Well. My shift ends in ten minutes. Know how to get there from here?”
Jimmy shielded his eyes against the sun. “Probably.” He let out a sigh. “’M not really hungry.”
“Then don’t eat.” Mike tried to smile at him, prove he wouldn’t bite. Just come. “Buy you a beer. You won’t even have to spill it on anyone.”
Jimmy let out another heavy sigh. Mike wasn’t sure what he planned to do if the guy said no. Again. He usually believed in leaving well enough alone, but Jimmy looked like he might eat a gun if he sat here all night by himself. Fragile, not just blue. And that got under Mike’s skin in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Come on,” he said again, soft. He wouldn’t ask again. He wouldn’t beg.
“All right.” Jimmy lowered his arm, and braced both palms on his knees, pushing himself into a real sitting position. “Okay. You don’t have to—I’ll go.”
Relief coursed through Mike’s chest, but he just nodded, and gestured toward the passenger seat. “Good. Drive me back to the booth and I’ll close up.”
Jimmy did, and parked in the gravel byway just outside the gate while Mike counted the money in the register and reset it back to a flat one-hundred. Thirty dollars in tens, twenty-five in fives, twenty-five in ones. Ten in quarters. Five in dimes. Four in nickels. One in pennies.
The pouch with credit card receipts and a record of the day’s sales he left for Dolores, who’d hand it to the clerk of court once the courthouse opened. The money went into a deposit envelope to drop off at the bank.
As a rule, Civic Plaza employees were not supposed to make night deposits. But Mike’s boss liked him for some reason. Said he was trustworthy.
Ironic, as Alanis might say.
He mentioned this to Jimmy, once they got to Loyola’s and were situated in a booth. True to his word, Mike had Jenny bring over an ice cold draft, first thing. Jimmy’s expressions were pained and he was real quiet all through the first one. By the second beer, his mouth turned up at the corners. By the third, he finally let Mike order him a basket of fries, picking over it at first, then attacking them like he hadn’t had real food all day.
Halfway through the third, Mike felt it was safe to steer back to the subject at hand. “So.”
“So.” Jimmy made a come-here gesture with one hand. “Fine. Let’s have it.”
“What happened?” Mike asked, pushing his mostly-empty plate out toward the edge of the table. One end still had green chile sauce on it.
“You already know we argued,” Jimmy replied, but there wasn’t any heat behind his words. “Deduced it, rather.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, it—fucking sucked, okay? I mean, he really—” Jimmy mimed taking a blow to the chest “—right in the old ticker. You know? God!”
Mike knew he wasn’t supposed to answer yet, just let Jimmy blow off steam until he drove home to the point.
“I mean, he—it was my case, Mike. I lay in literal shit just to get my hands on everything those sons of bitches shredded. I’m the one who got all the clients lined up so this could be a multi-million dollar class action case. Interstate commerce. Without me, there wouldn’t even be— !”
Jimmy’s face changed, and his mouth turned down again. “You know, it’d be one thing if he just got resentful. Of—of everything I can do that he can’t. That would make sense. I would get that. But to think he’s been—that even Howard thinks it’s—”
“Explain the problem. Start from the beginning.”
Mike was tired of following him in circles.
“Chuck lied to me, okay? For years. Pretended he was happy I finished college, and got into law school, and passed the bar, and the whole time, he—” Jimmy lowered his voice, glanced toward the window. “Was just behind the scenes, fucking up all my chances.”
“Huh.”
What else could a guy say to that?
“You bet your ass, huh. He told Howard that HHM shouldn’t ever hire me. Spent god knows how much money and time trying to keep me from using my real name to practice law, because, oh yeah, apparently I’m a fucking joke of a guy who shouldn’t even be a lawyer. God forbid anyone in this town ever find out Saint Chuck is related to good ol’ Slippin’ Jimmy!”
“Fuck him,” Mike said loudly.
Jimmy didn’t seem to have heard. “I mean, sure, we’d all love to have gone to University of Pennsylvania, or Georgetown Law. But some of us couldn’t graduate high school at fourteen, okay? Some of us had to stay—”
“Hey,” Mike tapped him on the back of the hand, then felt weird touching another guy’s hand in public, and drew back. “I’m serious. Fuck the guy.”
Jimmy’s eyes were blown wide, and for once, he went quiet.
“Listen. You’ll never convince him that you aren’t still eight years old and scared of the dark. I—” he didn’t know he was going to say this until it came sailing out of his mouth “—felt like Matty was all of fifteen sometimes, even after he graduated the academy. Hell, even after they had Kaylee. Some days he was a man to me, but every minute he was still my boy.”
Jimmy was still holding his gaze.
“Whatever you did as a kid, young guy, who gives a shit. You’re not some dumb punk from Illinois. You’re a man now, and you stand on your own two feet. That means something.”
“Chuck doesn’t think—”
“I don’t care what Chuck thinks.” Mike rapped his knuckles on the table to prove the point. “You passed the bar. Won in court. You’re a lawyer now—and a damn good one, even stuck in the public defender rat trap. Fuck him.”
Jimmy nodded his head, his brow scrunching up like Mike had given him something important to think about. But it wasn’t until they were back in the parking lot that he perked up noticeably, and stopped walking, right next to the trunk of Mike’s car.
“Hang on a second. You just—this was a date.”
“I don’t think so.”
It was Loyola’s, nothing special. Mike fished his car keys from his pocket.
“Oh no. Uh uh. You took me out just to, what, cheer me up?” Jimmy’s eyes gleamed, and that dumb wide smile took over his face.
“I ate. You snacked and had a few beers. Not exactly Valentine’s Day.”
“Yeah, but you paid, and you walked me back out to your car.” Jimmy smothered a laugh behind one hand. “Ipso facto, makes it a date by any recognizable metric in this country.”
“Objection,” Mike drawled, turning to the tree he was parked under as if it were the presiding judge. “Rules of dating change over time.”
Jimmy laughed again, gleeful, the sound ringing through dusk air. “Your Honor!”
Mike waved this away, although he was grinning, too. “Go make sure your car starts.”
Jimmy darted off. A few minutes later, he dropped into the passenger seat with a weird little growl, slamming the door closed after him.
“Ugh. Of course.”
“Your battery’s on the fritz.” Mike started the car. Given how sluggish the engine sounded back at Civic Plaza, it was a miracle Jimmy hadn’t stalled out at a random intersection. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
He was gonna make some smart-aleck comment about how Jimmy was the least likely person in New Mexico to get carjacked, given the shape his car was in. But when he glanced over, Jimmy was smirking like a spoiled indoor cat.
“Uh oh,” Mike said, a reflex.
Jimmy moved a little slower after a few beers, but it was pretty clear what he was after, especially when he shoved the armrest up with a weird little cackle.
Mike hummed low in his throat. “Counselor, I’d say this is what the uniforms call solicitation. ”
“Hm mm.” Jimmy’s mouth twitched up again before he bent his head down. “Only if you give me something of value, first.”
The Salvation Army sign was visible from the windshield, and there were still people coming in and out of the Loyola’s lot, about a hundred meters away. Mike shifted in his seat. “What happened to Mister just-paid-for-me, huh? Are potato sticks that valuable?”
Jimmy’s fingers popped his button open, and went for his fly.
“Christ,” Mike said, as the full absurdity of the situation hit him. Jimmy was going to blow him in a parking lot like a hard-up high schooler. “You’re a cheap date.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I wanna.” Jimmy took him out of his shorts, gave him an experimental tug. “Not only ‘cause you bought me fries.”
“Is that right?”
He expected Jimmy to hit back, make some comment, but instead his lips closed around the head of Mike’s prick, and Christ , Mike had forgotten how good it could be. A warm wet mouth, pressure, the gentle suction. He felt like an overexcited freshman, touching someone he wanted for the very first time. He felt every bit his age.
Jimmy groaned softly around the head of Mike’s prick, trying to get it deeper; Mike swore, and let his hand slip from the steering wheel, absently rubbing at Jimmy’s hair, then his neck, then the line of his narrow shoulders.
“That’s it, kid,” he rasped, swelling harder in Jimmy’s mouth as Jimmy took him down to the root. “Jesus, you got a mouth for this.”
Gasping, Jimmy pulled off, only to go right back with even more enthusiasm. He sucked at it like he couldn’t get enough, crowding his forehead against the waistband of Mike’s jeans, writhing against Corinthian leather when he couldn’t bend his legs or his head the way he wanted, whimpering the whole time. Like he was the one being taken apart.
Mike didn’t like to let his guard down in public. Hadn’t stopped looking over one shoulder since he was 17 and joined the Marines for a ticket out of town and four years of steady money. But, Christ, sometimes he just wanted to close his eyes and put the world away. And with Jimmy in his lap, nosing at his belly, with one hand clutching Mike’s thigh and Mike’s prick tucked into his cheek? It was almost too easy to surrender.
He rubbed at Jimmy’s temple again, brushing calloused fingers across that doofy hair swoop, those hollow cheeks, shiny red lips.
“So good for me, kid. Look at you, huh?”
Jimmy’s breath stuttered, eyes fluttering closed; Mike felt the sharp, sudden pull in his gut that meant he was close.
“Look at you,” he said again, helpless, before thrusting up into Jimmy’s waiting mouth. Jimmy shuddered and jerked like he was the one with hot lips around his prick. “Beautiful.”
When he came, he tipped his head back against the seat, letting the wave wash over him for a second before the real world came roaring back. And then he let his free hand splay into Jimmy’s lap, rubbing clumsily at the placket of his suit pants until Jimmy spurted down one leg, curling toward the seats with a groan as he shook and shook.
Afterward, they split the rest of Jimmy’s to-go iced tea, melted except for a few small ice slivers.
“I think—you might not see me a lot, next few weeks.” Jimmy touched Mike’s arm, rubbed the space below his shirtsleeve with one thumb. “I don’t know. Just feel like I gotta take some time, get my legs back under me.”
“Okay. I get that.”
Falling out with your brother wasn’t exactly a picnic. Not to mention, Jimmy probably had big money riding on the class action case. He’d have to hustle again, put together a couple new gigs.
“But I’ll call you,” Jimmy said softly.
##
More than a month went by without a word from Jimmy.
He wasn’t answering his phone. Wasn’t at work. Mrs. Nguyen said she hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks. Wasn’t off at Sandpiper with his elder clients, or at Chuck’s.
Chuck now had some young kid from the law firm delivering groceries and ice to him. New haircut, oxford shirt and a full suit, plus a tie in that stupid pale blue. He jumped in and out of the car like he was on fire.
Answered the question of whether Chuck and Jimmy had made up.
At first, Mike was relatively calm. He’d known Jimmy was going to be away, so it wasn’t as if he’d been caught off-guard. But as a couple of days turned into a week, then two weeks, then three, and then four…..it left a bad taste in his mouth.
Guys like Jimmy didn’t up and disappear for no reason.
In the end, Mike found him at the Hyatt Regency northwest of Bernalillo, staying under an assumed name.
The day after he found out, he called out of work, put on a dress shirt, and drove over there, where a helpful concierge pointed him to the pool, and then a young guy named Rolando led him poolside. Floating in the lazy river, in an open button-up shirt that looked like the result of a factory explosion, sipping something pink, was Jimmy. Or rather—
“Mr. Cumpston.” Mike sure as hell wasn’t gonna let the boy introduce him. “We had a meeting.”
Jimmy flushed red. Hard to tell if it was from embarrassment or sun poisoning.
“Well,” Mike said, glancing pointedly at the puffy white clouds in the distance, “if you’d like to take a raincheck, I’ll be in the business center.”
The business center was a beige room just off the main lobby, overlooking the parking lot. It wouldn’t have been Mike’s first choice for a private conversation. But it could double as a quick exit, should that become necessary. And it was empty. People didn’t go to hotels like this because they needed to fax the office.
He waited five minutes. No Jimmy.
So he left.
He’d no sooner stepped out of the portico and into bright sunshine again than he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Hey. Hey!” The slap of flip flops on pavement would’ve told him it was Jimmy, even if he hadn’t said a word. The hand around his elbow definitely would’ve. People didn’t usually rush up and grab Mike by the elbow in parking lots. Or, at least, they hadn’t since he was fourteen and finally got his growth spurt. “You’re not even gonna stay for a drink?”
Jimmy’d buttoned his shirt, but he hadn’t put on any real clothes. His shorts dripped water down his legs. And he was wearing a man’s pinky ring: gaudy and too-loose, tied to fit using a bunch of red string. Somehow that pissed Mike off the most.
“No,” he said, flatly.
Jimmy reared backwards like he’d been slapped. “But…..”
“You disappeared.” Mike pulled his arm away, adjusted his jacket. Usually it was easy to stay quiet, let other people do the talking for him. But for once, he had a lot of thoughts clawing to get out. So many they made his stomach cramp. Do you know how hard it is to disappear? You forget it’s my job to find people. I couldn’t find you. “Message received.”
He’d seen a yellow Suzuki out of the corner of one eye every time he’d worked the booth. Tracked every glimpse of shaggy brown hair or a stupid linen suit with sharp eyes. Sat by his phone, watching it more closely than the TV, just waiting for the right call, the single piece of information that would break the case right open. Nothing.
He’d stared at the ceiling above his bed, wondering when the worst call might come.
Grumbling under his breath, he turned back toward the lot, started walking.
Jimmy followed. “Wait a second, Mike. You—just hang on. We can go sit down in the bar and—and get into all of it. We’ll split some apps. You can tell me how stupid it is to pay fifteen dollars for a plate of nachos. Huh?”
Mike rounded on him. “You wanna talk to me, then you tell me why you cut and run, right now. Or else forget it.”
“I—”
Hesitation flickered over Jimmy’s face.
“Well, Counselor?” Mike wasn’t in the mood to wait around. “What happened?”
Jimmy didn’t answer right away. Judging by the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot, and the pained scrunch of his brow, he was about to drop a bombshell.
“I, uh,” and Jimmy’s voice wobbled. “Went to a funeral.”
Pure relief poured into Mike’s stomach, like the first sip of cold beer on a warm summer day. “Oh.”
He wasn’t gonna ask who it was. Jimmy kept going anyway.
“My buddy Marco, out in Illinois. He—he—”
Jimmy’s breath hitched, he shuddered, and started to cry in big, heaving gulps.
Watching Jimmy sob uncontrollably into his hands made Mike want to grab him by both shoulders, shake him out of it, the way they always did in the movies. But it made another, newer piece of him want to stand guard over Jimmy’s hunched form until he calmed down. Or punch whatever cosmic moron kept throwing him curveballs. It was the same part of him that couldn’t stand seeing Kaylee cry, even when she was upset over something as stupid as not having crayons in the car or ripping a leaf in half.
Shit. He really was getting soft.
“Hey,” was all he said. Reaching out, he drew Jimmy toward him with one hand, pressed firmly against where his shoulders met his neck. “Come on.”
Jimmy was shaking so hard he stumbled on his feet, but he went like a lamb, clutching at Mike’s jacket with a wet, desperate noise and burying his face in his shoulder.
You’re all right, was all Mike could think, wordlessly patting the back of his neck, then soothing his other hand down Jimmy’s back until those hiccuped sobs turned to snotty harsh breaths.
“S-sorry,” Jimmy finally whispered, lifting his head. Hot breath gusted across Mike’s jaw. “Didn’t, um.”
“Your friend died.” Mike wasn’t sure what his face was saying, because Jimmy was staring up at him like he’d just grown five extra ears. He was shivering, his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were fever-bright. “It’s all right.”
“It isn’t.” Jimmy was getting his legs back under him, but he didn’t pull away. “It wasn’t.”
He spilled the whole story, after that. Most of it slotted neatly into place along what Mike already knew: the dumb crew he ran with in Illinois, all the petty scams, Chuck bailing him out when his temper got him into real trouble.
“Told me it was the b-best week of his life.” Jimmy admitted, after he’d said his piece.
Mike considered this. If this Marco had gone straight, and was doing nothing but plumbing for the brother-in-law, just seeing Jimmy streak across his path like a damn comet might’ve put a smile on his face. Hell, maybe working a nine to five had him bored out of his mind. Having Jimmy there in the flesh, cracking jokes, watching that beautiful mind work up pure chaos and somehow turn it into a game they could win, even for one night?
“Maybe it was.”
Jimmy made a mournful little noise in the back of his throat, like a trapped dove. “Then why do I feel like I killed him?”
Mike shushed him. “You didn’t. Okay?”
He didn’t realize he was brushing his thumb across the back of Jimmy’s neck until Jimmy gulped in a sharp breath, and shivered a little.
“You’re still, um.” Jimmy swallowed hard. “I mean, your hand.”
“Yeah?” Mike usually wasn’t one for talking, this early in the game. But he knew Jimmy had a mouth on him. “You like that?”
“Feels good.”
His eyes had darkened, and his mouth opened a little. Mike knew for damn sure they needed to continue this in a room with a door and a real bed.
“Come on,” he said again, squeezing the back of Jimmy’s neck one last time before dropping his hand, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m parked over here.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said.
They didn’t talk on the ride to his house. Only thing Mike could hear over the noise of the traffic, and Jimmy fidgeting in the passenger seat, was Alanis, turned down so low she was barely audible: I’ve never wanted something rational.
After he unlocked the front door, and locked it behind him, he went for Jimmy like a lion in heat. Didn’t even bother taking off his jacket. They peeled off layers as they stumbled toward the bedroom, and when he finally got Jimmy on his back on the mattress, Jimmy gasped high in his throat. The front of his neck was dotted purple and red.
“Please, Mike. Oh, please.”
“I’m gonna,” Mike told him, loosening his belt buckle and letting his pants drop to his ankles.
He got the jelly from the end table and slicked himself up, barely registering Jimmy’s breathy little noises while he did it. And then he pressed forward, sank one finger into the tight heat of Jimmy’s body, savoring the low groans and slurred half-sentences as he worked him open. Jimmy was always loud, always responsive, but tonight he was on another level. One brush down his stomach had him spouting off at the mouth, and two fingers inside him got him panting Mike’s name, as surely as if he’d been sprinting down the street.
When Mike pulled his fingers out, started to bore in, Jimmy’s legs shot outward, and he arched his back with a rasped,
“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck!”
“Yeah,” Mike answered, low. Christ, he was tight. Felt good. “I’m gonna. Hold on.”
“Mike.” Jimmy was breathing hard again, grasping at his shoulders as he slowly bottomed out. “Mike, god, that’s good. That’s—you’re so fucking good.”
“Nah.” Mike gritted his teeth as a wave of heat threatened to take his legs out from under him. “You’re just easy, kid.”
Jimmy’s legs wrapped around his waist, guiding Mike forward until he was pressing his full weight into him.
“Nnnh—oh. God! God, there.”
“Yeah?” Mike rolled his hips, tested the angle.
“Fuck yeah.” Gasping, Jimmy pulled him even closer, till they were pressed chest to legs with no space between them. Mike could have kissed him from this angle. More important, he wanted to. He never wanted to. “Real hard.”
“You’ll feel it in your teeth,” Mike promised.
He fucked him fully, then, deep fast thrusts that moved the bed in fits and starts and made Jimmy whine low in his throat every time he bottomed out. And if watching Jimmy shudder and scrabble against the blankets made him dizzy with want, had Mike scrambling to keep him on the edge as long as possible, just so he could watch the way his muscles rippled under dim blue light? Then that was between him and the walls. And if he groaned like a stuck pig when he came, grasping Jimmy’s face between both hands, while Jimmy mumbled soft nonsense into the space between them? Same difference.
##
When Mike opened the door at nine thirty the next morning, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, he expected to see Mrs. Marwa, the nosy neighbor across the street. Maybe face a few pointed questions about his garbage cans.
“Hey,” Stacey said instead, her smile open and warm. Kaylee was on her hip, smiling sleepily at him with a shy little, “Pop-Pop!”
“Morning, honey.” He thought fast. “We didn’t have plans.”
“No,” Stacey admitted, hefting Kaylee a little higher, “but we had to run a bunch of errands, so we were in the neighborhood. Plus, somebody wanted to tell you how Lucky’s doing.”
“I bet you did, sweetheart.” Mike patted Kaylee’s little arm, just as Jimmy called out from the kitchen,
“Hey, Mike, how you want your eggs? Scrambled okay?”
Stacey’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair.
“Yeah,” Mike answered, as tonelessly as if he’d just been asked to file a case report. He cleared his throat. “Crack a few more, though.”
“Oh.” Jimmy had already stepped out of the kitchen and was within sight of the front door. He had on a very girly yellow apron over his t-shirt, one Mike did not remember buying. But at least he was wearing jeans and a shirt. “Company. Hi.”
“Hello,” Stacey answered, grinning so big it almost split her face. God, she was gonna be insufferable after this. “You must be Jimmy.”
“I am! Hey.” Jimmy seemed stunned that she knew him by name, if the blush creeping up his collar meant anything other than oops . “So, you guys are staying for breakfast? I hope?”
Kaylee, who’d seemed tired before, perked up when she heard that word.
Stacey looked at Mike. He nodded. She put Kaylee down.
“Yeah." She cleared her throat, pitched her voice louder. "We could hang out here for a little while.”