I let him work, moving around the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee and setting out two bowls for soup. I’d made a batch the night before, not knowing why I bothered—nobody to eat it but me.
Now it felt like the universe had sent me a reason.
“Why don’t you go lay down for awhile?”
He stood, stretched, and said, “You got a bed or am I crashing on the floor?”
I jerked my chin toward the hall. “Bed’s through there. I’m making dinner. It’ll be ready soon.”
He looked at me, then the hall, then back before walking away. I watched him disappear down the hallway, the lines of his body gone loose and tired. When he was out of sight, I closed my eyes for a second, and let the relief wash over me.
He was safe. At least for tonight.
I could live with that.
And maybe, if the world didn’t fall apart by morning, I’d finally get a chance to show him what it meant to stop running.
I watched the doorframe where Bo vanished, listening for the sound of the bed springs or the signature crash of him face-planting into something solid. Nothing—just the hollow hush of a space built for one, struggling to fit a second.
I went to the kitchen, hands on autopilot, heated up the soup I’d made and then started the coffee brewing though it was hours too late for caffeine.
Maybe I just needed to keep moving.
“Food’s hot.”
A minute later I heard the soft pad of footsteps, and there he was, lingering in the archway, eyes a little glassy, but tracking me.
I jerked my chin at the table. “Sit.”
He dropped into the nearest chair, the movement barely controlled, every muscle telegraphing fatigue. He slid his sketchbook onto the table, still open to a half-done sketch: a rough outline of the shop’s bikes, shadowed by broad, smudged shapes I recognized as mine.
I slid two ibuprofen and one of the prescription painkillers the ER sent home onto a napkin and set it next to a glass of water. Bo eyed them, then me, like I was laying out a test he might fail.
“You gonna force-feed me?” he said, trying for a sneer.
I didn’t bother answering, just ladled out the soup and set the bowl in front of him, steam curling up between us. “Eat. Take these.”
He snorted, but the sound was more fragile than I expected. His hands hovered over the spoon for a second, like he was working up the nerve, then he picked it up and dug in.
First bite burned his mouth—I could see it in the way his tongue darted out, the hitch in his jaw—but he didn’t stop, just shoveled it in slow and steady. After a few minutes, the color started coming back to his face.
I watched him, arms crossed, not moving from my post by the fridge. Maybe I made it worse by hovering, but I wasn’t about to apologize. Not when he looked like a pile of wet laundry dumped on my best chair.
He swallowed a mouthful, then took the pills and chased them with water. His eyes darted up, wary. “So what’s the plan?” he said, voice gone hoarse. “You my parole officer now or did I just sign up for a sleepover?”
I poured myself a cup of coffee, black, and took a seat across from him. The table between us was scarred with old burn rings and ink stains—history of every meal and midnight project I’d ever worked here.
“You’re not going home tonight,” I said.
He let out a little huff, but didn’t argue. “And tomorrow?”
“We’ll see if you make it to tomorrow first.”
He bristled, poked at a potato chunk. “You always this dramatic, Moxley?”
“Only when I’m babysitting,” I said. It was meant to needle, but also to soften the edge. He’d always liked a fight, and I was happy to give him one if it got him fed.
He finished the soup and scraped the bowl, then set it down with a thunk. The painkillers must’ve hit, because his shoulders dropped and the lines on his face eased, just a little.
