Morgan sounded stern, like he was trying to work himself up to being angry and couldn’t make it. Which made Jack smile, and then, instead of curling up, he stretched out, arms and legs wide, the warmth of the fire spreading all over him like sun-drenched honey.
For some time the two of them were silent, while the cheery fire did its best to crackle and snap and sigh above the roar of the storm. Every now and then, when the wind ebbed, Jack could hear a page flick as Morgan read, and little by little, he sensed Morgan’s body relaxing above him on the couch.
“Would you mind?” Morgan asked in a low voice.
“Mind what?” Jack replied, not letting any kind of hope take hold.
“If I slept here on the couch tonight.”
That hope leapt in spite of Jack’s best efforts.
“Sure.”
“It’s so dang cold in the bedroom, so it’d be nice—” Morgan’s voice broke off.
Stretched out on his back, Jack became aware that his flannel shirt and T-shirt had ridden up a bit and that he was kind ofsprawledacross the futon he’d freshly made up, pretty much the most luxurious bed he’d slept in since he’d left home.
“Sure,” he repeated, before adding, “or you could sleep on the futon. God knows it’s big enough for two.”
“I guess it is,” Morgan said. “Guess I judged the size wrong.”
“That’s all right,” Jack said, looking up at Morgan through half-lowered lashes. Because while Morgan’d not said yes to joining Jack on the futon, he’d not said no, either.
“You know,” Morgan said, “there’s no TV up here, but I’ve got a laptop downstairs and a Netflix account.”
Before Jack could object that he did not want to get off the futon, even for Netflix, Morgan added, “Could you run and bring it up?”
“Sure.” Jack kept any reluctance from his voice. He scrambled up and dashed to the ice-cold office to grab Morgan’s silver laptop from the middle of the desk. Wondering why the store wasquiteso cold, he paused to look around and noticed that one of the windows had a crack in it. No, three did.
Maybe they should put plywood over them to keep the glass from shattering until it could be replaced. He’d seen his dad do that a time or two when he didn’t want to shell out for new windows.
For now, he raced back up the stairs to find Morgan obviously having gone to the bedroom to grab his bedding, which he’d dumped on the couch.
“Might as well be warm,” Morgan said with a shrug. “Thank you. And if I snore, I’m sorry.”
“Star snored.” Jack smiled at the memory. “Tiny little snores. Like a hamster or something.”
“Which one was Star?” Morgan asked as he set the laptop on a pillow, near the edge of the futon farthest away from the fire.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said, pushing himself away from the memories of those days.
“It does, actually,” Morgan said. He’d set Netflix toResident Alien, and the first episode started, but Jack was distracted by the way Morgan settled against a pillow right next to him on the futon. Their shoulders rubbed, and Morgan’s voice was soft, almost enticing. “They were your friends, right? Until they let you down.”
“They were.”
“How long did you travel together?” Morgan asked, adjusting the fold of blanket beneath his hip.
“I was on my own for the first couple of months after I left home.” Jack squinted at the images on the screen and tried to remember how long it had been, exactly. “Met those guys in August, maybe? Of last year. Now it’s October, so a little over a year.”
“Was it hard to keep track of time?”
Jack paused, then looked at Morgan, turning his body so their arms met in a band of warmth and their hips touched. “I don’t really want to talk about this right now.”
“Mmmm.” The sound came from deep inside Morgan’s chest, as though he was reconsidering his questions and pulling them back.
Jack turned his attention back to the screen, focusing on that rather than on how much he did not want to think about Blue and Star.
Morgan was determined about everything he did, which was why the feed and grain would be sold come spring. By which time Jack would be long gone from Montana and sitting on the beach in Santa Monica, eating a hot dog in the warm sunshine.
