Chapter Text
It had taken all three of them to get Jack upstairs and into bed in the guest room, but they’d managed, and Llewellyn had been able to sleep beside him, though they’d set up a barrier to keep him accidentally hurting Jack by rolling onto him during the night, rolled up towels and extra pillows lined up between them. He’d wrapped himself around the barrier itself to be able to reach over and hold Jack’s hand, and that had had to suffice for the night.
The bruising doesn’t look much better by morning light… Llewellyn helps him to the guest bath-- late enough in the morning that he trusts Glen has already made use of any personal effects kept there. Indeed, if he has work, he’s likely already on his way there at the least.
He helps Jack wash away any lingering salve and balm and sweat, before he puts him in a bath. He doesn’t join him in this one, merely sits on a stool beside the tub so that he can carefully wash Jack’s hair while he enjoys the soak.
“Feeling any better today?” He dares ask, when Jack has had some time to relax into the bath-- not as hot as it could be, but Llewellyn hopes soothing.
“I’m not in jail. I have you. I’ll be all right. Just… maybe after everything else, this is silly…”
“I’m sure it’s not.” His fingers return to Jack’s hair, gentle.
“It’s Monday.” Jack sighs, swirls a hand absently through the water. The bruising down his torso looks especially livid underwater, the rest of his skin so pale… “I’ll have to call and cancel… I can’t show up at my mother’s like this. I know she’ll fret a little if I say I can’t go, but if she saw me now…”
“Mm.”
“I don’t… I don’t like to. I’m all she has left. I mean, she has friends. There are distant cousins. But… since we lost my father, it’s… the two of us against the world, sometimes. And I like to take care of her. She’s spent her whole life taking care of everyone else.”
“Is that where you get it from?” Llewellyn smiles, hand dropping down to knead at one shoulder. “You’ll do what’s best… you’d move heaven and earth to be able to keep your visits under other circumstances-- and there have been some circumstances-- I’m sure she can understand if you tell her just this once something has come up. Tell her a friend needs you tonight-- it won’t be a lie. Not if you can call me a friend.”
“I call you a friend when I’m speaking to my mother.” Jack looks up at him. “And I don’t need to move heaven and earth, I just need to be able to move you. Thank you… for still never letting me spend a Monday night in a jail cell.”
“I’ll confess your Monday night was the last thing on my mind, yesterday.”
“And do you need me, tonight?” Jack smiles at him, as much as his split lip will allow. He reaches up, cupping Llewellyn’s chin with one wet hand before scratching gently under it with one nail.
“Every night of my life.” He sighs.
“I know I’m not precisely alluring, but if you needed me, I’m not so hurt I wouldn’t have a good time. Just… just so you know.”
“A few cuts and bruises couldn’t stop you being alluring. Would it make you feel better?”
“Maybe…” Jack lets his eye drift close, lets his head rest against the rim of the tub. “I just want you to touch me, I think. Not… it wouldn’t have to be that. It wouldn’t have to not be. Your hands… I just feel better with your hands on me. About everything.”
“Well, you can have my hands, Jack. They are yours for the asking.”
He moves his stool around, so that he can kneel on it and rub Jack’s shoulders. He can’t get at his lower back for now, he doesn’t imagine lying on his front will feel good, but… his shoulders, down to his chest. They’re very nice shoulders, and it’s a very nice chest… It’s satisfying, hearing the soft groans and sighs as he loosens up the muscles stress and pain and fear have tightened. Being connected. Comforting, to have places he can touch and touch firmly, dig into, and know Jack feels better for it.
“You’re getting good at this…” Jack’s fingertips trail up his forearm, drips of water in his wake. “I love your hands, have I ever told you that?”
“You have.”
“Mm, once or twice, huh? Your big, strong, beautiful hands… I do feel better.”
“I’m glad. You’ve got nice hands yourself…”
“Oh, I’ve seen you staring.” He chuckles. “And I’ve seen the way you need to stop staring, sometimes. You like watching me work too much.”
“You’re too good at working with your hands, I’m only a man. I am only a man, blood as hot as any other, can I be blamed? If the sight of what you do with your hands sometimes affects me?” He noses into Jack’s damp hair. The scent of rose soap, not his usual familiar scent, but… nice.
“You’re the only man I know who likes seeing how sausage gets made.” Jack snorts.
“It’s just--”
“Oh, I know what it’s just.”
Llewellyn’s face heats, and so he keeps himself hidden down against Jack’s hair. “Well you’re very good at it, that’s all.”
Jack hums, turning towards Llewellyn’s forearm only to stop himself short when he can’t really kiss or even nuzzle at him without pain. “How’d you like me to be very good with my hands for you?”
“If you’d like to-- you don’t need to.”
“I’d like to. I just… want things to be normal, after. And we’re here and we always have such a nice time here. I know I’ve got to rest and I’ve got to keep the shop closed until I’m… less like this. I want one thing where I can feel like myself. And there’s nothing wrong with my hands.”
“There most certainly is not… And you are yourself. And… if there’s anything I can do to help…”
“If you don’t mind posting a sign for me later. And… tomorrow I’ll have the boy open up. If I can stay in the back and get things cut, maybe… but he can man the counter. Paul, he… he sweeps up in the mornings before opening, helps with odd jobs, and he runs deliveries for me. He knows some of the customers and I think he can handle the job. But he’s a delivery boy, not a butcher. His hands… But he’s a good kid. And I’m sure he’s worried.”
“I’ll post a sign. And tomorrow… we’ll manage. I don’t have to go into work-- I mean, I doubt my hands are any more capable than a delivery boy’s, but you’re in no shape to do any heavy lifting. I can help with that. Or I can hang around your office with you...”
“You’d get bored very quickly.” Jack laughs. “But for a little while at least… I’d like to have you there.”
Llewellyn kisses the top of his head, sighing into his hair. “Out of the tub, water’s going cold… let me take care of you.”
Jack accepts his help out of the tub, leans against it to allow Llewellyn to gently towel him dry.
“Oh, all right. And I’ll take care of you later?”
“Reward me with it, when I get back from your errand.” He suggests. “Give me something to look forward to.”
“Oh, shall I make it contingent upon your being a good boy?” He asks, one fingertip under Llewellyn’s chin.
“Oh-- oh, uh, yes. Yes, I-- will be so good.” Llewellyn promises, eyes wide. The room suddenly feels warm, and there’s something heavy in the pit of his stomach but it’s not a sinking heaviness, an uncomfortable heaviness-- it grounds him, a balance to the expanding lightness that moves up from his chest to his head. It keeps him tethered so he can’t float off from himself.
“Good.” Jack coos, and the look he gives…
Cruel paradox, that that look should come only after Llewellyn has suggested he might be willing to delay his pleasure, only to make the matter feel far more urgent.
He helps Jack to get dressed, and he walks him back to the guest room, promising breakfast in bed. Aldous had left a stack of books and his walking stick there, but for most of the day at least, Jack will be confined to this level of the house. The guest room, the bath… if the stack of books at his disposal isn’t interesting enough, there’s Aldous’ study and the shelves there, he’s been granted permission… it still feels terribly stifling to Llewellyn, and he hopes he can prove interesting enough company.
He’s surprised to see Glen not yet out the door when he makes it downstairs, and even more surprised to see he and Aldous in a clinch in the foyer. If his not-quite-advice had had any bearing on things, he supposes he’s glad.
“Oh--” Glen looks up to see him coming down the stairs. “Uh…”
“Are you running late for work?”
“Yes.” He glances over to Aldous, but Aldous is of no help if he was hoping for an explanation-- he’s merely beaming and pink-cheeked and mussed. Llewellyn has never once seen Aldous mussed before.
“Congratulations.” Llewellyn nods. “I’ve got to get breakfast. So…”
“Good luck.” Glen nods back, relaxing. “Well, I’ll… see you this evening.”
“Oh, yes, dear.” Aldous reaches up, coming out of his momentary daze to straighten Glen’s appearance up before opening the door for him. “Have a lovely day.”
“I will.” Glen promises, blows him a kiss from the porch before hurrying off.
Aldous leans against the door with a sigh that would be theatrical on anyone else, and which seems only genuine on him.
“When did this…?”
“Last night. Not that I kiss and tell. My goodness, though, that man…”
“You might want to check the mirror before you go anywhere.”
“Oh my.” Aldous pats uselessly at his hair, breaks out into a fresh blush and a fresh grin. “Can you believe? Him, wanting me?”
“I have been presented with enough evidence that I can only believe it. Can you help me navigate the kitchen? I’d like to try making a proper breakfast, for Jack.”
“Of course, please allow me to be of any assistance I may. I’m not much of a sous chef, but I do know where everything’s kept.”
Llewellyn knows Aldous’ kitchen better than he might have expected. Aldous stands over one of the stove burners with toasting fork in hand and Llewellyn does his best over the other to make eggs. His yolks break when he’s attempting to fry them, and so he winds up with something that approaches but does not achieve a scramble, but… still, they come out edible. He takes a tray up, toast and eggs and coffee fixed just the way Jack likes, and finds him sat up in bed, the pillows which had formed last night’s barrier keeping him upright now, book closed in his lap.
“Hello, you.” Jack smiles, patting the mattress. “Is that breakfast?”
“I made eggs. Aldous made toast.”
“You made eggs? That sounds lovely. I’m not sure I’m up to toast…”
“I’ll eat the toast.” He promises, handing over the tray and settling himself.
Jack has to eat slowly and carefully, is also careful sipping at his coffee, but he turns to lean his head against Llewellyn’s, after his first bite of eggs, with a satisfied hum.
“Good?”
“Good.” He nods.
“Could do with improving.”
“Llew, it’s-- sure it could, but given you never cook, can you accept the compliment?”
“Mm. Well, I suppose. If you like it.”
“It’s exactly what I wanted, thank you, I do.” Jack turns towards him and stops himself with a sigh. “I hate that I can’t kiss you. Come and kiss me.”
Llewellyn complies, tilting in very carefully to avoid his nose, getting as close to his full mouth as he dares, and granting him the very gentlest brush of the lips as he can. Lingering there, feeling a happier sigh, warm against his face.
“There’s my sweet lamb.” Jack cups his cheek. “Thank you.”
He feels that shiver of delight he’s beginning to find familiar-- familiar, and yet more thrilling each time rather than less. “You’re welcome.”
Having finished his own breakfast, he contents himself with cuddling up against Jack’s shoulder, touching him where he knows he’s unhurt-- the pattern of bruises is clear every time he closes his eyes, there’s no forgetting any.
“Is there anything else I can do, before I go and post a sign for you?” He offers, when Jack sets the tray aside at last.
“No, I’ll be fine getting some rest.” Jack says, and leans in to be kissed again. “The big key on the ring in my coat pocket will let you in the office through the back, you’ll find everything you need in my desk and then you can post… that I’ve had an accident, or a personal emergency. No details necessary.”
“All right.” Llewellyn kisses him. “I’ll be quick.”
He’s sorry not to have his bicycle, but he didn’t think to try and fit it into a cab with him the night before, when he was getting his overnight bag and dropping by the station. He can pick it up after the shop, and ride back. He winds up taking a cab much of the way to the shop.
The shop, which is… open. Hectic, and open.
Behind the counter, the boy, Paul, looks frantic. He’s apologizing to several customers that Jack isn’t in, and Llewellyn works his way carefully to the counter. He’s glad he’d noticed the shop was open, if he’d come around the back without passing by the front, he’d likely have given the poor boy a heart attack breaking into the office. He can see what Jack had meant about his hands. He holds one close to his body and there’s a visible tremor in it. He manages fine when it comes to handling the weight of things ready to sell, he sees him get a hanging goose down for one customer, and a leg of lamb for another, but he couldn’t do all the same work Jack does.
“Paul, is it?” He flashes his badge-- not so much to Paul as to the woman ready to give him hell for pushing to the front.
“Y-yes, Sir. Paul Samuels, Sir.”
“Detective Watts. And you opened up the shop this morning?”
“Yes, Sir. Mister Walker gave me a key, Sir-- is he in any trouble?”
“No. No, he’s all right. He had an… accident, but he’ll be just fine. He asked if I couldn’t come around and check on things here, he’s not able to come in today.”
“Well I only opened up to get my work done early, I always do, but then it was opening time and he wasn’t here, I thought he was only running late. He does sometimes but not very often, and not very long. And we don’t much have customers so early even when he does, Sir. So I opened up the shop thinking he’d be in only I-- I only clean up the place and take the deliveries.”
“Well, you can close up if you need to and post a sign saying he’ll be back when he can, but…” He scratches at his cheek. “There’s some things you can sell as they are, yes? I don’t suppose you need to close up shop. I’ll post a sign saying he’s not in, you… see how many people you can see to.”
“Would you, Sir? Oh, thank you. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
“Whatever you feel you can manage. Good lad. I’m sure he’ll thank you when he’s back in, capable-- capable boy.” Llewellyn nods, reaching over the counter to pat his shoulder. He leaves him to the crowd-- can hear him raise his voice to inform everyone that there’s been an accident and Mister Walker would not be in today, as he heads into the office to write up a sign.
He swings by the station just long enough to collect his bicycle, before riding back to Aldous’ as quickly as he can.
Jack is reading in bed, when he gets in, his bad ankle up on a pillow. He sets the book aside again when Llewellyn comes in.
“Lamb.” He stretches out a hand to him. “Did you take care of my errand for me?”
“Your boy had the place open, he’s doing his best.” He takes that hand and bends to kiss it. “I told him you’d had an accident and you would be fine… I put up a sign to the same effect, to say he could sell anything that didn’t need your hand, and that you would be back at work as soon as you were able.”
“He’s reliable… I wish I could train him in the trade, but I couldn’t ask for better general help. He keeps everything clean and he’s fast with the bicycle cart, for deliveries. And I’ve left him to tend to customers before, days he’s in and I have other work to do. He can man the counter while I’m making sausage… but he’s never had the place open without me there.”
“He can shut down early if he has to, but he seemed determined to make a go with it. Knowing where you were helped.” Llewellyn says-- not that the boy had told him so, but… well, he knows what it’s like, coming in to work thinking you’d do your job, run around town a bit and clean things up, only for your boss not to be in evidence and to find yourself doing his while people ask you where he’s got to and you don’t know. He knows that well…
“Well… setting all thoughts of my shop and my delivery boy aside, lamb, you have been good for me. Ah… if that’s--?”
“Please.” Llewellyn groans, clambering onto the bed, only for Jack’s hand at his chest to stop him coming closer.
“Wait.” He looks him over, slow. “Undress for me. Let me look at you first. And… I’ll tell you, that you’re doing well.”
Llewellyn nods, grateful. That’s what he wants, what he needs right now. He needs to know that no matter how he feels he has failed Jack these past days, Jack sees better in him. Jack sees good in him. And perhaps this is what Jack needs, as well? Their lives have spiraled out of control of late, Jack has suffered for it… here, like this, Llewellyn can give him something to be in control of, and gladly. Not only that, but trust in his control. He hadn’t been able to sit back and let Jack handle it, when he had been behind bars, but he can bend to him absolutely now.
He undresses, slow when Jack tells him slow, and in exchange Jack tells him just how good he’s being. Jack directs him, what to take off, where to put each discarded item, when to stop and to let him look, when to turn around… and every time he does as he’s told, there’s a low and breathy ‘good’ to reward him.
By the time he stands naked before him, Llewellyn is hard.
“Ohh, lamb, look at you…” Jack licks his upper lip. Beckons him onto the bed. “Come here. Come and sit by me. I’m going to make you feel so good… and you’re going to keep on being good for me.”
“Yes-- anything.” And this time he’s allowed to take his place on the bed.
“Close your eyes… can you do that for me, lamb?”
“Yes.” He sighs, does so. Jack’s hand caresses his thigh, warm. Slides up and down, eases from the top to the inner side, urging him to spread his legs just slightly.
“Good boy.” Jack’s thumb makes little circles. “You’re beautiful, did you know that? Such a beautiful man… touch your chest for me, we have the house to ourselves right now so make as much noise as you like, just… touch yourself. Gorgeous… those hands on that body. Do you do this, for yourself? Do you do this when you’re alone? When you’re thinking about me?”
“I-- not… not like this, normally? I… in my room, I-- I keep it quick, and quiet. I think of you! I-- I still have your picture.”
“You look at that?”
Llewellyn nods, face heating.
“Sweet lamb… I’m glad. Hey, now-- no, don’t be ashamed of that. I want you to think about me… I want you to look at me. I want to be a part of your pleasure…”
“I always think of you, when I do it. I-- dream about you, sometimes.”
“I dream about you, too. I dream of a big, white bed… where I take you. Where I spread you out, and you… you’re always so at ease in my dreams. And so so am I. And I take my time making love to you…”
“We don’t take our time, in my dreams.” Llewellyn admits. “It’s… we’re-- wild.”
“Oh, I like that, too…” Jack’s voice is low and dark and promising. His hand is steady, and so warm. “When I’m up to it, shall we be wild?”
He nods, eager, cock jerking. Images from his dreams replace all the awful mental pictures he has of Jack’s current injuries-- he sees him healthy and strong, he sees the two of them twisted around each other, mouths open and wet and hot against each other’s skin. “If-- if you want. Anything you want.”
“Take two fingers, lamb, and suck on them for me, get them wet. Then I want you… Circle a nipple, can you do that?”
He can, though he squirms doing it, sensitive. Almost too sensitive to be good, with the air against wet skin. And as he does, Jack’s hand slips between his thighs to fondle his balls, slow and teasing.
“Pinch it? And just… give it… a little tug.” Jack instructs, and despite the knife’s edge of sensitivity he’s already at, Llewellyn obeys, yelps. “Oh, lamb. Oh, you’re so good for me. You’re so good… and you’re so eager to please me. And I love you so much… How do you feel?”
“Too much… too much.” He gulps, moving his hands down to his side, clenching at the bedsheets.
“All right, I’m going to take care of you.” Jack promises. “You can relax now, you’ve done so well for me. I’m going to finish you, no more teasing. God, Llewellyn, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever touched. The most beautiful thing I ever could.”
His hand is firm now, around Llewellyn’s aching cock, spreading the slickness he’s been leaking with each pump and twist of his hand. He can hear the way Jack’s breathing is ragged, too, just looking at him, just doing this for him, a soft groan for the sight of him. This is nothing like doing for himself in his lonely room… this isn’t in the same world. He’s used to keeping quiet when it’s him, but Jack is working him now and he can’t stop himself moaning.
“That’s right, that’s good, that’s so good… finish for me, lamb, I have you.” Jack groans, and Llewellyn does.
Jack plays through the mess that drips down from the base of his breastbone down his belly, often seems to contemplate the mess Llewellyn makes before he cleans him. This time, when he looks at the pearly white that clings to two fingertips, Llewellyn leans in to lick those fingers clean. He can’t pin down the birth of the impulse to any conscious thought, he’d merely done, but Jack groans, with just a little whine at the back of his throat, when he does it.
“Can I please you?” Llewellyn asks, voice ragged.
“Yes… please do. I-- I need you now.”
He eases Jack’s pajamas out of the way, draws him out. So hard, just from what they’d done already, not being touched himself… and so thick. He knows now how it feels to have that cock inside him. How good it feels to be stretched around him, how perfect the shape of him is… but he likes the shape of him for this, too, for laying across his thighs and turning his mouth to the pleasant task of bringing Jack release. To lavishing him with kisses, one hand around him. And Jack’s hand is in his hair, firm but never demanding, making his scalp tingle, making all of him feel right, until Jack is warning him and this time he doesn’t pull back.
His rhythm is a little off, he doesn’t swallow as smoothly as he could have liked, but he doesn’t choke or gag, either. And Jack keeps petting through his hair, with his clean hand, murmuring loose praises.
“I love you so much.” He sighs, resting his head on Jack’s thigh,
“I love you.” Jack trails a hand up and down his back, gives his backside a gentle pat. “My beloved… you really know how to take the tedium out of bedrest.”
“Me? You. You… all of that.”
“Did you like it? It was all all right?”
“It was everything I needed.” He groans. “You were.”
“And you… so sweet, Llew. I-- you’re so sweet, and I… when you’re sweet like that, I know it’s… it’s just you, the way that you are. You’re so sweet and it’s just you, the real you. Anyone who ever told you you lacked feeling, I don’t know… I don’t know how a person could look at you and miss the love in you, the kindness.”
He turns his head to kiss the top of Jack’s thigh, happy.
They rest there a little while longer, before Llewellyn goes down to Aldous’ kitchen to find something they can eat for lunch-- something easy on Jack, who can only open his mouth so far without his healing lip threatening to split again, and who’s still too sore to do too much chewing. He winds up making eggs again, just because he knows he can make them and Jack can eat them. They turn out better.
Late in the afternoon, he accompanies Jack down the hall to Aldous’ study, where he has the only phone on the upper level, pulls the chaise over closer to the desk so that Jack can keep his ankle up even as he calls his mother-- and Llewellyn can scan the bookshelves for anything of potential interest, though he can’t not listen to Jack’s side of the conversation. He goes to the shelves at the far end, so that at least Jack’s mother’s voice is indistinct, offers him that much privacy.
“Hello, Mama? Yes, it’s me-- Actually-- Actually, Mama-- No, I’m calling because I’m not well tonight… No… No… Yes… I think I’d better not-- Well, no… Mama, you don’t want to see me this way… No, just-- it was just a little accident, I’m fine… Mother, please… Yes… Yes, with friends… No… No, I’m a mess, that’s all… It looks worse than it is, I promise… Oh, no, I-- Yes… You would? Well… I’ll ask… Yes, I-- Yes. Yes, I love you.”
He hangs up with a sigh, but there’s a lightness around him, and nothing in his tone had ever been more frustrated than fond.
“We’re going to have to get me downstairs.” He announces, when he sees he has Llewellyn’s attention.
“You’re going?”
“We are. If… if you’ll take me.”
Llewellyn takes a deep breath, and waits for the panic that had seized him once before.
It doesn’t.
“I would like that, very much. If she expects me.”
“She is. If you couldn’t-- I could take one of the others and… it would be fine. But I want her to meet you, Llew.” He reaches out, Llewellyn moves to kneel beside the chaise, to place his face in Jack’s hand. He’s rewarded with a gentle stroke to his cheek, and then a gentle scratching along his jaw. “She says she’d rather see me in whatever state I’m in than picture something worse.”
“She can picture something worse?”
“She’s probably imagining me without an arm as we speak. No, no, she… she’s not-- She’s just worried more since we lost my father, that’s all. It’s hard on her. She’ll like you.”
“I hope so.”
“She will.”
He makes himself as presentable as he can, and he hopes that it’s presentable enough. Jack seems to think so, anyway, fusses over him and calls him handsome five times if he says it once. They don’t make it downstairs until Aldous comes home, to be able to help them, but coming down this evening is easier than going up the previous evening had been, and Aldous calls a cab to come and pick them up.
It would be a pleasant walk, if it wasn’t for Jack’s ankle, to get from Aldous’ place over to his mother’s. Between the borrowed walking stick and Llewellyn’s arm, they manage to reach the front door. The woman who answers is familiar now, from seeing her portrait in the shop’s office often enough. She’s nearly as tall as her son, her hair dark and streaked with iron grey, neatly kept, an apron over her dress. Jack hasn’t got her coloring, but he has her nose.
“Oh! Look at you, Jackie…” She tuts, her hand hovering at his cheek a moment, not making contact. “Come on in, come in, what happened?”
“It’s fine, I’m going to be all right. This-- this is Detective Llewellyn Watts, Mama. Llew, may I present Charlotte Walker?”
“Enchantée.” Llewellyn takes her proffered hand, bowing slightly. He can’t remove his hat until they get Jack settled inside. It’s a good-sized house, and cozily appointed. Not richly, but warmly, with color everywhere, and everything soft and worn with time. Art covers the walls. One large portrait of Jack’s parents hangs over the mantle-- his father, Jack resembles. Has the same jawline, the same sandy hair and sea-blue eyes. A wedding portrait, it looks like.
“So this is the famous Detective Watts.” Mrs. Walker beams, as they get Jack to the davenport, get a footstool in front of him.
“Mama.”
“Jack tells me sometimes about your cases.”
“He does?”
“He thinks very highly of you. I hope you like chicken, by the way. I have one stewing.”
“Oh, I like everything.” He promises. “I-- he speaks very highly of you, as well, of course. I mean… well, what I suppose is the normal amount. To-- to speak highly of your family, to… to friends.”
“I’m sure. Well he’s always been very devoted to family.” She doesn’t sit, just stands over her son, to gently neaten his hair. “And now it’s just us. At least, for now. A future addition would not be unwelcome.”
“Mama, I’m not--”
“I know.” Her voice is soft, and Llewellyn feels like he’s missing several conversations that pass between them, her hand gentle in his hair, his expression pained and hers… hers so like him somehow. “I know.”
“I-- I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. And I’m not.” She does touch his cheek, careful. “Jackie, I love the son that I have. I want the world for him. Now… what happened to you? Really?”
“I was beaten up again. And… it-- it’s never been bar fights.”
“I know.”
“It was outside a pub, but… it wasn’t a fight. I was… picked up. By the police-- It’s not important. Llewellyn took care of me. He’s a good man, Mama.”
“Llewellyn-- I hope you don’t mind, if I’m informal, I just feel like I know you so well.” She turns to him, motions to the davenport. “Sit, sit, please. You took care of things, for my son?”
“My inspector did. A favor to both of us… but, he’s a customer, of Jack’s.”
“He told me how you asked him.” Jack gives him a look. “This wasn’t a favor because I’m a good butcher.”
“Well, you are.”
“I’m glad he has you to look out for him, then.” Mrs. Walker-- or, ought he call her Charlotte?-- pulls her chair closer and sits across from them. “I’ve always had to worry about this one. I know he doesn’t like me to, but a mother does.”
“I-- I will. I mean, I hope not to have to, like this, but I would.” Llewellyn nods. There is much he feels uncertain of, just this moment, but one thing on which he could never be uncertain is this. “I wouldn’t let him be in any trouble if I could help it. Well-- that is-- on account of he, he really is a good butcher. Or, a good friend. But also, I mean, I don’t know how well I’d eat if-- So… ah…”
Jack takes his hand, squeezing gently. “He’ll take care of me. And I take care of him.”
“I’m glad. I think I like this one, Jackie.” She leans forward, patting Jack’s knee. “Very handsome. I just hope he likes to eat.”
“Mother, please.” He ducks his head, cheeks pink, smile bright. “He does.”
“I do.” Llewellyn nods.
“Good, because there’s also a pie in the oven. Welcome, Llewellyn. I’m very pleased to finally meet the man my son speaks so well of. And I hope I’ll see more of you.”
He looks to Jack, uncertainty and hope clashing in his chest, and beneath the cuts and the bruises, he sees something relaxed.
“I hope you will.” He says, and he thinks that’s right.