7. Morgan
morgan
If Morgan had to have one more conversation with another human being, explaining his tiredness and explaining the purple cane and pretending his knee wasn’t killing him, he didn’t know what he’d do. Throw himself in front of the next train that rattled by the feed and grain, probably.
During the two days he’d been living above the feed and grain, Mabel had come by several times with her dog, Mister Rocket, a frighteningly awake Jack Russell terrier who had alerted Morgan, and everyone, to the presence of mice and maybe a raccoon in the storeroom.
The dog’s sharp barks and laser-focused eyes had been followed by Mabel’s pointed questions and remarks. Why haven’t you set traps? You need humane traps, are you aware, and how are you going to re-home the raccoon?
It had been an interrogation as much as anything else, and he’d had no answers for her. Then and there, he doubled down on his decision to sell up and move back to Denver as soon as he could. That was his goal, as it would be any sensible person’s.
Gus Odell had also come over uninvited, with his stories about days gone by and about his beloved wife, now sadly passed, and how the feed and grain had been a cornerstone of Hysham for ever so long, and how the trains used to run multiple times a day, a living heartbeat to a small, sweet town on the high plains of Montana.
You’ll get used to it here, son, Gus had said in a friendly way, but also a way that informed Morgan that Gus thought it was his job to get used to it, otherwise, well, everyone would think—everyone would know—that Morgan was a failure.
He’d not been a failure at his job back in Denver. He’d been a good boyfriend to Bradley. At least he’d thought so. At least until the accident.
At the hospital after the accident, Morgan had grown a shell around himself, a place where people weren’t invited. The doctors, sure, he had to let them in. And the nurses, when they would come to take his temperature or distribute meds or adjust the saline bag.
Those were necessary staff interactions, including a quick meeting with a physical therapist consultant, who told him he needed PT or his knee would freeze up as it healed. He needed to stay mobile and flexible. He needed to take his meds and then wean himself off them.
Morgan had been doing his PT, being a lifelong obeyer of rules, but once out of the hospital, he’d been hit with the double whammy of learning his Aunt Oralee had passed away and Bradley leaving him.
To Hysham he’d gone, thinking to sign some papers and be on his way. Only to find himself stuck. No, not just stuck, mired and exhausted, fighting off the townspeople’s kindness.
He realized he was awake and staring at the ceiling, thinking dark thoughts that went round and round in a series of brain-scraping whirlwinds.
Beneath him, the couch was wide and long and comfortable, as he already knew. He’d spent one of his two nights here already, putting his head down with his knee propped up on pillows for a quick afternoon rest, only to wake up with the glow of sunrise easing into the room.
Now, in the semidarkness, with the snow scratching at the windows and the low moans of the blizzard creeping up the walls, Morgan’s head pounded, and his mouth was cotton-dry.
He could hear the dryer running, and he could hear the echoes of himself promising to make soup or whatever.
Back in Denver, he’d never have entertained the idea of lollygagging while a guest was working. And he never would have let someone he hardly knew have the run of the place. Yet here he was, doing both of those things.
He needed to get up, but where were his shoes? Ah, there they were, tucked together at the end of the couch.
Normally, he’d wear lace-up leather boots when the weather turned cold, but since the accident, they were too heavy and too complicated to put on and take off. Hence the slip-on sneakers. They weren’t warm enough for winter, let alone blizzards, but he had no other options.
Nimble, he’d noticed, wore black army boots that were scuffed at the toe, like they’d walked a lot of miles.
Nimble had been places and seen things, wild and free, and yet he’d handled the groceries like someone had domesticated him at some point. And, unlike Bradley, he’d handled Morgan as well as someone who’d been trained to nursemaid a full-grown fool of a man who couldn’t keep track of his own meds.
Nimble also smelled like diesel fuel, a thick, slow scent, as though he’d hung around a garage for a good long while. His jeans, as much hole as denim, had been grease stained; his leather jacket, worn in places, equally stained.
Nimble had been shivering in those wet clothes, not even noticing his own condition, it seemed. Shrugging off the cold and the wet as if content simply to be indoors, like a rescue dog who had never slept on a pillow, let alone a blanket.
Well, the shower would do him good. And Morgan needed to get off the couch and at least attempt to put something together for them to eat. That’s what a decent host would do. What Morgan should do.
With a hard grip on the cane, he pushed himself off the couch, breathed a bit as he shifted from foot to foot to find his balance and get the blood moving, then stumbled out of the dark parlor, across the landing, and into the bright kitchen.
The groceries were all put away, paper bags neatly folded and stuffed between the fridge and the wall.
The table was set for dinner. On the counter, next to a loaf of bread and the red toaster and the glass butter dish, were three cans of soup.
Progresso brand. One chicken noodle, one tomato, one split pea.
Next to the cans was a very nice, well-seasoned wooden spoon. On the stove was a medium-sized saucepan, its lid tilted to one side.
While Morgan had been passed out, Nimble had done all of this, arranging things so Morgan could heat up the soup without much effort.
Or at least start to, because by the time he was at the stove, leaning one hip against the counter while he attempted to pull open the can of chicken noodle, he heard Nimble coming along the hallway to the kitchen.
“Do you feel better now, all cleaned up?” Morgan asked, focusing on the task at hand, head down, doing his best to be a good host even though, as the question died away, he realized how judgmental it was.
“Much better,” Nimble said. An arm reached into Morgan’s view, bare up to the white T-shirt sleeve. “Here, I’ll do that.”
“What? No.” Morgan turned to see Nimble standing there. And stopped, a waft of fern-scented aftershave swirling around him.
“It’s easy; it’s no problem,” Nimble said with a casual shrug.
Nimble had cleaned up nicely, his hair inky black, sweetly drying into waves. He’d shaved, revealing the strong line of his jaw, which, oddly, made him appear a little older. His green eyes gleamed, and he looked a million times better than Morgan felt.
Nimble had freckles dotted across his nose, now that the dirt was gone, long lashes around his green eyes, and a generous smile. He moved closer to take the can of soup from Morgan.
The T-shirt he’d borrowed, flecked with damp spots, was too big for his slender frame—except in the shoulders, where he filled it out.
The sweatpants were too big as well, though it looked as if Nimble had pulled the waist string as tight as he could. It still wasn’t enough. They just about fell off his hips, and, as was easy to see, he wasn’t wearing any underwear.
He was barefoot, and Morgan had the suspicion that Nimble simply hadn’t wanted to look through Morgan’s things any longer than he had to.
Morgan should do more, be more attentive to his guest, but the fact was, he was just plain tired, and it wasn’t going to get any better. He ripped his gaze away. It was rude to stare.
Nimble took the top off the can of soup, and Morgan stepped back and let him, his grip tight on the handle of the cane. Why on earth he was trusting a stranger with any of this was beyond him. And why he was staring was another problem.
“Sit. I’ll make the soup.” The terse command had a cheery undertone, as if Nimble wanted nothing more than to heat up a can of soup on a snowy evening.
A smile played around his mouth, quirks at the corners, as if this act, this very thing, was what he loved most in the world. Had been looking forward to all day.
Puzzled, Morgan sat at the kitchen table, slumping a bit as the ache in his knee faded into the background and the muscles along the backs of his legs lost some of their tension. He was still woozy, but sitting in the bright kitchen seemed to be helping.
“Okay.”
He watched while Nimble dumped the contents of the can into the pan and stirred with that wooden spoon. He even made toast and buttered it, putting a plate in front of Morgan just before he thumped two green soup bowls onto the table.
Morgan blinked at the pile of toast and then at the bowl, the surface of the soup steaming gently. He’d not even seen Nimble finding the bowls and knew he should be more alert in the presence of this near stranger.
What the hell had he been thinking, letting Nimble stay? But that concern, stray and harsh, was quickly erased as Nimble slid into the seat kitty-corner from Morgan, a huge sigh of pleasure escaping him as he grabbed the spoon in his fist and smiled at his soup.
“Have you been on the road long?” Morgan asked.
It was an invitation to share that he would not have dreamed of extending to anyone in the small town of Hysham.
But somehow, in his med-muddled state, with dinner prepared and before him with nary a word on Nimble’s part and no effort on his own, it had slipped out.
A good host made conversation, and that was the truth of it.
“A year, I guess,” Nimble said, scooping up a spoonful of soup and shoving it into his mouth. Then, with rough manners and a lot of gusto, he ate the soup and three pieces of buttered toast besides. “Maybe more.”
While Nimble feasted, Morgan sipped his soup almost daintily from his spoon and nibbled at a single piece of toast, which was very buttery, the butter sliding onto his thumb and tasting nice.
“That’s a long time,” Morgan said involuntarily, as though he were a robot with his polite switch turned to On. “I feel as though I’ve been living out of my suitcase for that long, even though it’s only been a week or so.”
“You don’t got a lot of stuff,” Nimble said. Then he paused, his gaze flicking to Morgan, a worried crease between his dark brows, as if he felt he might have been rude. “I mean, that makes sense if you’ve only just moved in.”
“I did,” Morgan said. He crunched through the slice of toast and made himself eat at least half the bowl of chicken soup as he turned the idea over in his head. “My Aunt Oralee died, so here I am.”
“Aunt Oralee,” Nimble echoed as he picked up his soup bowl and tipped the remaining contents into his mouth. Then, with a sigh, he put the bowl back on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She the one who collected all the Jadeite?”
“The what now?” Morgan sat up and pushed his bowl away. He wasn’t all that hungry and just wanted to put his head back down. But Nimble had asked a question, so Morgan ought to at least try to be interested.
“Fire King Jadeite,” Nimble said. “My Nana had it, too. It’s from the fifties. It’s all green, like jade, you see.” There was a sparkle in his eyes as if the memory of eating at his Nana’s table was a fond one. “Super cheap back then, but now it’s kinda pricey. You could sell it.”
Morgan had better things to do than try to flog a set of lime green dinnerware, so he scowled as he stood up.
“Look, I sleep better on the couch, so you take the bed,” he said.
Nimble started to protest, but Morgan waved him off.
“It’s easier to prop up my knee and stay in one position so I don’t fuck something up. You take the bed.”
“I’m not taking your bed,” Nimble said. “I’ll set up some pillows for your knee.”
Morgan's head was spinning, and the floor was tilting. He needed to lie down before he fell down. He vaguely heard Nimble asking him a question with a teasing laugh, something about remembering to brush his teeth, but he couldn’t focus.
He let himself be led to his room, Nimble’s arm around his waist. Let Nimble help him off with the robe and into bed. Let Nimble bring him a glass of water to drink.
He should not be falling asleep with a stranger in the house. One half of his brain screamed this at him while the other half was entirely too grateful for the help Nimble had given him.
Nimble arranged the pillow beneath Morgan’s head and shoved another pillow under his left knee. I’ll leave the bathroom light on, Nimble seemed to be saying as Morgan’s eyes slid shut.
And when Nimble flicked off the overhead light, Morgan focused on the sound of the storm howling outside, imagining the curtain of whiteness burying him until he couldn’t move.
Which would be a vast improvement on everything else going on in his life. Better to be buried alive than to have to answer any more of Mabel’s questions: Did you get those humane mousetraps I told you about? Did you find a place to take that raccoon? Do you want to pet my dog?
She was relentless. So was Gus. So were the guys at the coffee shop, and the cashier at the grocery store. How are you today, sir? Do you need any help, sir?
Good grief, couldn’t any of them mind their own business?