Which Nimble wouldn’t. He was going to get some rest and then be on his way. The only trouble was that now that he was alone, the parlor dark except for the one light he’d turned on, on a side table next to the couch, he wasn’t sure he could relax.
The storm seemed louder now that the house was quiet, and Nimble stood by the couch, listening to the low moans, thehigh-pitched shrieks that rattled the windows. Which had to be single-paned to let in that much sound.
As he went over to peer out, he could feel the cloud of cold coming off the thin glass. Aunt Oralee must have been quite hardy not to feel the chill. That or she’d been too poor to pay for an upgrade.
He turned off the small lamp and crawled onto the couch, pulling the quilt up to his chin. Enjoying the feel of the clean cotton on his toes, on his forearms, the soft sink of the cushion beneath his cheek as he rolled onto his side.
Even with the lights off, a glow shone through the window. He should have pulled the shades down, but hadn’t.
There was a certain stillness beneath the howling of the storm, and Nimble knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He was used to the motion of the train, the rock-rock-rock sensation that accompanied every moment, awake or asleep. The clack-clack-clack of the trucks on the rails.
The few times he and Blue and Star had slept in ditches or abandoned motels or even, once, a treehouse, the lack of movement had been at odds with the muscles beneath his skin. He’d grown used to being lulled into sleep like a baby in a cradle.
Now, though. This was madness. The couch was just too soft. Nimble sat up in the dark and listened to the wind.
The other thing, at the edge of his realization, was that he was no longer used to sleeping alone. Back in his parents’ house in Lawndale, sure, he’d had his own room, albeit a small one. But the rest of his family had been nearby.
After a year of sleeping in boxcars tangled up with Blue and Star in a tumble of shared warmth, trying to sleep alone created a maze of complaints in his head and a strangled feeling that left him stubbornly awake.
He needed to rest. That much he’d learned while being on the road. You had to rest to make it through the next day. So,without much thought, he slid off the couch, grabbed a pillow and the thick quilt, and lay down on the floor.
There he made his small bed, with half of the quilt under him to protect him from the scratchy wool rug and the other half over him to keep him warm.
The presence of Morgan, heavily asleep in another room, would also keep him warm. Because even though Blue and Star were gone, Nimble wasn’t entirely alone.
CHAPTER 9
morgan
Morgan woke up with a mouth full of cotton, groggy as he eased his legs over the side of the bed. He’d overdone the meds the day before; he knew the signs. The benefit was being pain-free. He could delay the next dose and be further on the way to weaning himself off Percocet completely.
He was going to have to watch what he was doing in future, or end up back in the hospital. And had he really let a perfect stranger help him into bed?
With a shake of his head and a deep sigh, he tightened the brace around his knee and retied the waist of his sweatpants. The room was chilly, but the furnace was kicking in, and where was his guest? Had he jimmied the cash register and sallied forth into the snow with a roll of quarters? Or was he eating his way through the kitchen?
The only way to tell was to go check. So Morgan pulled on a sweatshirt and, barefoot and shivering, stumbled as quietly as he could into the kitchen, which was dark apart from the tiny light over the stove. It was also empty of another human being.
From there he made his way across the landing into the parlor, where a wash of low morning light showed him thatNimble was sleeping on the floor. Cautiously, so as not to wake his guest, Morgan moved forward to make sure.
Yes, Nimble was asleepon the floor, the quilt wrapped around him, as though the couch wasn’t good enough for him. Or maybe it had been too soft.
His hair tumbled across his forehead, and dark lashes rested on lightly freckled cheeks. He was much sweeter like this, not the cocky, self-sure young man who’d stomped his way up the stairs the day before, carrying Morgan’s groceries and basically making himself at home.
Another step forward brought Morgan’s bare toes into contact with hard leather. The boots had been placed neatly side by side, but now Morgan had knocked one over, revealing a spot on the sole where a hole was starting to form, right beneath where the ball of the foot would rest.
No hat, no gloves, and now this? Why would someone live like Nimble was living? It was hard to understand, but then, maybe Morgan didn’t have the fortitude that Nimble had.
Morgan also noticed, just as he was about to turn away, that the sweatpants and T-shirt he’d loaned Nimble were now neatly folded just beyond the pillow where Nimble’s head lay. Perhaps Nimble felt more comfortable in his own clothes, however worn and thin. Morgan could understand that last part, even if everything else about Nimble was confusing.
He took a step back to leave Nimble in peace, but then he bumped into the doorjamb and cursed under his breath as the pain in his knee started to wake up. It was less painful than it had been directly after surgery, but it was taking such a damn long time to heal.
“Hey.” Nimble sat up, scrubbing at his eyes, and looked at Morgan. “Everything okay?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep. And soft. Concerned.
Something strung too tight inside Morgan eased. This was okay. At least for now, this was okay.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. Maybe I could make some coffee.” He paused, then added, “We can bolster ourselves before we check the weather report on how bad the storm is.”
That made it sound like he and Nimble were a team of sorts, which was wrong. He had no team. He was on his own, and Nimble would be on his way as soon as he could be, so there was no point imagining they were anything other than very temporary housemates.
