Mystified, I nodded, but my bemusement didn’t last long. Cash had brought rolls of material to insulate the van, and attaching it to the van’s interior turned out to be so easy I was embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it myself—for Meg and Fletch, more than me.
“There’s plenty left,” Cash said over his shoulder. “We can do theirs after, if you like.”
Where had this man come from?
I slid awkwardly out of the van to where he was standing by the third bag of tricks he’d fetched from his car. “What the fuck is that?”
Cash flashed me a boyish grin. “A telly, just a little one you can stick a memory stick in. Once upon a time, I had grand plans of living in this thing—hitting the road and never coming back.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “I guess I needed some stability more than the open road. Next thing I knew I was knee-deep in mortgage payments and ripped-up floorboards.”
I was more glad of that than I cared to admit, that his life had strayed off-piste enough to cross over into mine, but the sadness in Cash’s warm gaze eclipsed any relief I felt. My hand slid over his arm of its own accord and I knocked my head against his shoulder. “It’s not over for you, I can feel it.”
“That right?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
I shuffled away before he could answer, retreating to Fletch and Meg’s trailer to borrow their gas stove. It was ancient, and brewing tea was a drawn-out process. By the time I returned to the van, Cash was up to his elbows in electrics.
“Most of it was already here,” he said. “Told you…I got halfway in before quitting. Just a few connections and you’re golden. See this extension here? It runs off the battery, so it charges whenever you start the engine.”
“Can I plug my laptop into it?”
“And your phone. There’s a mains socket you can use anytime you’re near a hook-up, but I’m guessing you don’t spend much time on commercial campsites.”
“Nah, but we can plug it into someone’s house electric, though, right? If we park up on a driveway?”
Cash nodded. “I plugged it into mine before you left last week, so it should all work pretty well.”
He flicked a switch and the once dreary interior of the Transit was suddenly illuminated with soft light from the LED lamps Cash had installed. The TV flashed to life, and warmth inexplicably cloaked the air.
I glanced around. “Did you put a heater in here somewhere?”
Cash pointed to the lights installed under the front seats. “A tiny one. You’ll still need your arctic sleeping bag, but getting up won’t be so harsh if you flick them on first.”
“You’ve thought of everything.”
Another vague shrug. “I did once. Try not to think much at all these days.”
He shut the lights off and went back to fiddling with the mess of cables he’d pulled out from who-knew-where, while I settled onto the makeshift bed, clutching my mug of tea, and utterly transfixed by his nimble fingers. I loved his hands. Aside from recalling in minute detail thefucking amazingthings he could do with them, I saw a story in them too—many stories. Every nick and scar told a tale I was desperate to know, and only not wanting him to think I was a nosy weirdo kept me from asking a million questions.
But silence was dangerous, as was the contentment that came with having Cash close by. Watching him insert tiny parts of my world into a space that was undeniably his did odd things to me, but I was growing used to that. The way our acquaintance was perversely distant and intimate. Brand new, but so familiar. I loved it. I hated it.
And I really fucking liked him.
“Still awake up there?”
“Hmm?” I blinked a couple of times to find Cash right in front of me, lips twisted in another easy, crooked grin. “What?”
“One day we’ll spend more than five minutes together without you falling asleep.”
“I was up all night the first time.”
Cash raised a challenging eyebrow, but I had nothing else. Considering all that had happened since, that night was fucking sacred. I wasn’t in the mood to hear him dismiss it again.
I sat up from my half slouch and surveyed what he’d been doing while I’d apparently dozed off. The TV was now attached to the back of the front passenger seat, and he’d added warmly patterned fabric on top of the insulating felt on the walls. “It’s like a tepee in here. Are you trying to turn me hippie?”
