He might have some regrets about that. In truth, he already did. That he was scheduled to leave sometime next month, a thousand bucks richer but heartsore in a way he’d not anticipated.
Mentally shaking himself, he got up from the futon and stoked the little stove, putting in the thickest chunks of wood so the fire would last for hours, keeping them both warm.
Outside, the wind had settled into a constant low moan that Jack thought might be caused by gaps between the panes of glass and the frames.
Inside, the parlor was warm, colors and sounds flickering from Morgan’s laptop, and Jack lay back down and stretched out, adjusting his pillow beneath his head, looking over the tips of his socks and watching the screen out of the corner of his eyes as Morgan did the same.
They were both still on the futon. Morgan was well within reach, and Jack’s body sighed at that almost-contact. The proximity of another human being settled him in a way that he remembered from the boxcars and coal cars and flatbed cars. As long as Blue and Star had been near, everything had felt balanced and right.
“I’m never moving again,” Morgan said as one episode ended and another began. “But I think I should get under the covers before I fall asleep.”
Jack nodded and got up to let Morgan pull the covers back. While he was up, he turned off the lights, then slid beneath thebedclothes a little bit closer than he had been before. Morgan didn’t say anything about that, and Jack smiled, pleased with himself.
“Have you seen this series before?” Morgan asked.
Jack shook his head. “No. It’s funny, though.”
Truth be told, he didn’t care what they were watching, and that was probably evident in his tone. When he looked at Morgan, though, ready to defend the fiction that he was interested in the show, Morgan caught his gaze and held it.
Morgan had the most beautiful blue eyes, tired and soft, and he didn’t seem to mind that Jack was so close. Maybe he was too tired to worry about it. Maybe his meds were kicking in. Whatever the reason, Jack tucked away that moment of happiness and looked at the laptop screen and sighed.
The futon was amazing. Morgan was amazing. And Jack was warm all over, the warmest he’d been in a long, long time.
CHAPTER 21
morgan
The storm had died down during the night, so it was clear and cold just before lunchtime on Wednesday as Morgan did his best to focus on his accounting task and not on Jack. Who’d slept on the futon next to him after they’d watched Netflix in the glow of the small fire in the cast-iron stove.
Their conversation had been nonexistent, but that hadn’t been a problem. Jack’s nearness, the hard curve of that flannel-shirt-covered shoulder, had been. That and Jack’s scent in the warm air, soap-clean with a lingering trace of diesel beneath. The fire had glinted dark orange against his hair.
He needed a haircut, though there wasn’t a barber in town and Morgan wasn’t up to coming at him with a pair of scissors. Jack probably wouldn’t sit still for it anyway, and, in any case, the length of Jack’s hair shouldn't be what Morgan was thinking about. He needed to focus on the task at hand: updating the books.
His cell phone rang, jerking him back to the present. With a sigh, seeing it was Mabel, he answered it.
“Hello, this is Mabel,” she said, and Morgan sighed again.
“Hello, Mabel, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve made peach cobbler,” she said brightly. “I know nobody is supposed to be out on the roads, but if your truck can make it, you and Jack can come by today and make an old woman happy by giving her and Mister Rocket some company. Besides, I made a double batch, and it’s just too much.”
Jack was standing at the door.
As Mabel blathered on, Morgan held the phone to his chest and hissed, as though his conversation with the old lady had been going on for half an hour or more, “It’s Mabel.”
Then he went back to the call and did his best to cut her off. “That sounds fine,” he said, over whatever she was saying. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Bye for now.”
With a click, he ended the call and looked at Jack, remembering just in time that he needed to nip their relationship—whatever was happening between them—in the bud. Be ready to take Jack to the airport or bus station or whatever and move on with his life. Focus on the task at hand.
“She okay?” Jack asked. “She need help with something?”
Of course Jack would ask. Of course Jack would care. Of course, he would connect himself to people in a town that wasn’t his.
Even if the expression on Jack’s face when he asked about Mabel was soft and sweet, making Morgan want to get up and kiss him, he wasn’t going to.
“She made peach cobbler,” Morgan said, putting dire resignation in his voice. “Too much for her and that dog to eat, apparently.”
“I could go get it,” Jack offered. “The sun is shining.”
