Chapter Six #2
I nuzzled deeper into his shoulder, and his arm came around me, settling along my back.
“Drift’s beans were transcendent. Tell him I said transcendent. That’s a big word. I’m using big words. The medication is making me eloquent and honest, and I think your eyes are the most beautiful things I’ve ever—”
“Spencer.”
“Hmm?”
“Sleep.”
“I’m staying?”
Crowbar’s arm tightened around me. His chin rested against the top of my head, beard scratching softly against my hair. “You’re in no condition to be alone tonight. You’re staying.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay, pookie.”
A rumble went through his chest. Not quite a laugh, not quite a growl.
The fire crackled. Noodles snored. Somewhere in the yard, Holler dropped something, and Drift yelled at him, and Deadeye was telling a story that made someone bark out a laugh. The string lights swayed in a breeze that carried smoke and pine and warm traces of summer.
My last conscious thought was that Noodles needed a middle name, and that maybe, just maybe, I’d found people who wouldn’t make me pay for the crime of existing.
Then I was gone.
* * * *
Something rich and savory cut through the fog of sleep, pulling me toward consciousness like a hand reaching into deep water.
Bacon. Definitely bacon. And something else underneath it—butter, maybe, or toast, or the kind of warmth that only came from a kitchen someone was actually using instead of just storing ramen in.
I opened one eye.
The room was unfamiliar. Not alarming-unfamiliar, not wake-up-in-a-stranger’s-basement unfamiliar, but the kind where your brain has to shuffle through its filing system before it catches up.
Wooden walls. A dresser with a leather jacket draped over a drawer knob.
A window with curtains that were just fabric, no pattern, no pretense.
The sheets smelled like sandalwood and motor oil.
Crowbar’s room. Crowbar’s bed.
I was in Crowbar’s bed.
The events of last night reassembled themselves in fragments—the urgent care, the sling, the barbecue, the pain pill that had turned me into a one-man variety show. I pressed my face into the pillow and groaned as specific quotes surfaced from the wreckage of my memory.
You’re a panther, pookie.
I was going to have to change my name and move to another continent.
I’ll clean it with my mouth if I have to.
Two continents away. Maybe three.
My arm ached, a deep, persistent throb that radiated from my shoulder to my elbow, but the sharp, blinding edge of it had dulled overnight.
The sling was still on, twisted slightly from sleep but holding.
Someone had taken off my shoes and tucked a pillow under my left side to keep me from rolling onto the bad arm.
That kind of careful, deliberate positioning wasn’t accidental.
The bedroom door pushed open with a soft creak, and Crowbar shouldered through carrying a tray. An actual tray, the wooden kind with low sides, loaded with a plate of scrambled eggs, four strips of bacon, two pieces of toast cut diagonally, a small bowl of strawberries, and a glass of orange juice.
Noodles trotted in behind him, ears bouncing with every step, and launched herself onto the bed like she’d been shot from a cannon. She landed on my stomach, and I wheezed.
The toothpick was in place. His hair was damp, and he was already dressed, wearing a plain white T-shirt I was trying very hard not to stare at.
I was staring at it.
“Morning,” he said, setting the tray across my lap. The legs clicked into place, and the weight settled without touching my bad arm.
“Morning.” My voice came out scratchy. “You made me breakfast.”
“Drift made the eggs. I handled the rest.” He dropped into the chair beside the bed—a wooden chair he’d clearly pulled from somewhere else in the house, because it didn’t match anything in the room. Like he’d planned to sit here. Like he’d been waiting.
He scooped Noodles up one-handed, settling her against his chest. She immediately started gnawing on his shirt.
“About last night…” I started, reaching for a piece of bacon because if I was going to die of embarrassment, I was going to die with a full stomach.
“What about it?”
“I said things. Many things. Possibly all the things. The medication turned off my filter, which, to be fair, was barely functional to begin with, but there was a level of…” I bit the bacon. Chewed. Closed my eyes. “Oh, this is perfect. Did you put pepper on this?”
“Cracked black pepper and a little cayenne.”
“You seasoned my bacon.” Something warm bloomed behind my sternum. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me, and I’m including the time a guy bought me flowers, except they were gas station flowers and he’d stolen my debit card to pay for them, so the bar is underground, but still.”
Crowbar’s jaw tightened, and I watched him file that information away the same way he’d filed the arm, the sling, the restraining order. He didn’t push. He just absorbed it, let the weight of it settle into whatever internal ledger he was keeping.
“Eat,” he said.
I ate. The eggs were fluffy and buttery, the toast was golden, and the strawberries were sweet enough to make my eyes water, though that might have been something else entirely.
Crowbar sat in the chair with Noodles on his chest, watching me eat with an expression that had no business being on the face of a man named after a blunt instrument.
“So,” I said between bites of toast, “on a scale of one to witness protection, how badly did I embarrass myself last night?”
“Solid eight.”
“Eight.” I bit the bacon. Chewed. Considered my options. “What pushes it past a seven?”
“Pookie.”
“Right.” I ate another bite and stared at the ceiling. “And the mouth-cleaning comment?”
“That was a seven on its own.”
“So combined we’re looking at, what, a fifteen? Is that how math works?”
“Not how math works.”
“Good. I failed math.” I scooped up a forkful of eggs, and the taste was so good I almost launched into another Drift appreciation monologue before catching myself. Noodles pressed her nose against the edge of the plate, and I angled it away from her. “No. These are mine.”
She whined, a theatrical, full-body sound that said she’d been practicing in a mirror.