Nimble’s legs sprawled before him, drawing the denim, with those grease stains that would never come out, tight over his thighs. The jeans practically hugged him. Well, that was what happened when you put jeans in the dryer: They shrank.
Morgan dragged his eyes away and looked at the table, set for two with green bowls and green plates and shiny cutlery, a glass butter dish sparkling in the light. The oven was on, Morgan could see, set to low, as if something was warming inside.
“Hey.” Nimble sat up, scrubbing at his eyes. His hair was rumpled and fell in spikes along his forehead. “It’s almost ready. Do you want to eat?”
It was very distracting watching Nimble unfold himself, then curl upward to stand, a shiny line of energy that radiated at Morgan with unexpected warmth.
“What did you do up here?” Morgan asked, not willing to admit how much he wanted to simply sit and eat. Or how nice it was to have someone there, someone who cooked for him and, it seemed, cleaned the kitchen of its long-term dust and grime. “Did you actually mop thefloor?”
“Swept and mopped,” Nimble said. “Wiped stuff down. Was restless.” He smiled, a half curve of his mouth as he dipped his chin, disarmingly cute, even as Morgan took in the frayed edges of the now washed yet still stained T-shirt.
As if oblivious to Morgan’s stare, Nimble walked to the stove and lifted a lid, and yes, there were potatoes boiling and tossing in the hot water. Yukon Golds, by the look of them.
“What are you making?” Morgan asked, taking a step closer to the amazing smells.
“Beef stew from a can,” Nimble said, turning back to the stove. “I doctored it with a little red wine that maybe you didn’t know you had.” He laughed as he stirred the stew and put the lid back on, off-kilter so the steam could escape, and turned down the burner. “Found the potatoes before I found the noodles. You boil them, then pour the stew over them so it fills you up.” Nimble glanced at Morgan as if to make sure he knew the wisdom of this. “Forgot how nice it was to be inside with a storm outside.”
“What do you usually do?” Morgan asked, again moved, in spite of himself, at how hard a life hopping trains must be. And glad for the opportunity to focus on something other thaneverything about Nimble that pulled at him and made his life feel just a little bit better than it had before Nimble had arrived.
“If you’re lucky enough to be in a boxcar, tuck yourself in a corner, blow on your fingers, and hope for the best.” Nimble looked at the long window over the sink, where he’d raised the blinds to watch the storm. “Blue and Star kept me warm, just like I kept them warm.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Nimble shook himself. “It’s all ready, if you want to sit.”
Morgan didn’t make Nimble ask him twice. He sat in the chair kitty-corner from the one Nimble had been dozing in and, with a sigh, let himself be waited on.
Just this once, right? It couldn’t hurt to let someone help him, and Nimble was humming under his breath again, happily domestic in spite of his grease-stained clothes and way of moving that seemed to fill the room with energy.
“I didn’t cook like this growing up,” Nimble said as he took the bowls to the stove, fished out the potatoes to smash them in each bowl, then ladled the stew over the potatoes. “But it’s nice to have a stove that doesn’t move, and I can at least manage simple things.”
Morgan could see that the meal was not only going to fill his belly, it was going to put him in a happy coma.
But Nimble didn’t sit down yet, and Morgan, spoon at the ready, stopped, watching as Nimble opened the oven and used a kitchen towel to pull out a small baking tray with four rolls on it. These he plopped into another bowl, which he placed on the table, close to Morgan.
“You want some wine?” Nimble asked, pointing with his thumb at the dark bottle on the counter.
“Not with the meds.” Morgan shook his head, at which point Nimble grabbed the amber bottles, placing them next to Morgan’s bowl along with a glass of water.
“Milk it is, then,” Nimble said, bringing out the carton from the fridge and setting two more glasses on the table. He sat down with a grin, as though the substitution of milk for wine had made his day.
Morgan took his pills, then spread butter on a roll and bit into it, quirking his eyebrows at Nimble. “What kind of bread is this?” he asked, savoring the taste, the pleasure of butter on hot bread.
“Some kind of German bread,” Nimble said. “Was in the freezer with heat-to-serve instructions. It was a little frost-burned, but it still tastes good.”
“My aunt must have ordered it,” Morgan said, doing his best to ignore the way Nimble dug into his simple meal, hair shaggy around his face, pleasure rolling off him as he ate, lips shiny from butter.
In the before time, with Bradley, Morgan would have teased thatat least someone is enjoying their mealand gotten a laugh from his boyfriend.
He couldn’t do that now. Teasing created intimacy, and the meal was intimate enough, with Nimble inhaling his food, making it look like a feast, gulping his milk and swiping at his milk mustache with the back of his hand, eyes glinting.
Nimble had poured Morgan a glass of milk, and Morgan drank it, even though he generally thought milk was for kids. But there was Nimble, working his way through a second glass, as if he couldn’t get enough. All in all, Nimble had two bowls of stew and extra potatoes and gobbled down three of the rolls.
Morgan tried to keep up but couldn’t, though he did finish his own roll, which he used to sop up the remains of his stew.
“I should wash the dishes,” Morgan said, pushing back from the table and grabbing his cane.
“I got ’em, you gimp,” Nimble said. “Made you a fire. You should go and sit.”
