“Ooh. A smart man.” The stranger caught my wrist as the cat climbed to his shoulders, and raised my arm to the faint light. My sleeve gaped open. “Oh, fuck.” His voice shook. “You gave yourself a nasty gash here. Come on. The bozos who abandoned this place forgot to turn off the water. We can get you cleaned up.” Not letting go of my wrist, he tugged me toward the doorway to the back hall.
Oddly, the dimness became comforting as we passed out of the front room. Maybe because this place had never been this dark and silent in all my years. Our feet scuffed softly on the floor. I balanced to turn left, where light shone down the stairs from the second floor, and stumbled as he pulled me right.
“Watch your step. There’s an employee bathroom back here,” he told me, as if I hadn’t scrubbed that toilet as punishment a hundred times. “It has a glass-block window, so we’ll have more light.”
He hung a right turn and opened the bathroom door, ushering me inside. “Go on in. I think there’s still some old towels in the laundry. I’ll be right back.” The cat squirmed, and he lifted her down to the bathroom floor by my feet. “Keep her in here with you till I clean up that glass.” Blocking the gap with his foot, he made his escape, closing us inside behind him.
I stared down at the cat, which jumped to the top of the toilet tank to look back at me. Her short fur was mostly white with patches of orange tabby and looked as clean as it was soft. She twitched her ears at me and then began washing a paw with luxurious strokes of her little pale-pink tongue. Gradually, her eyes half-closed as if she was enjoying herself.
I remembered some old wives’ tale about putting butter on a cat’s paws in a new house, because if they licked them, they’d be content to stay. Maybe? “You like it here?” I asked her. “It was a crappy place to grow up.”
She rumbled a faint purr and swiped her paw over one ear.
“Such a pretty girl,” I told her.
“Isn’t she?” The strange guy hustled in the door behind me and shut it tightly, a towel extended in one hand. “Wrap that arm, fast.” The cat jumped down, meowing at the door, and he wiggled a finger at her. “If I let you out, you’re going to go walk on the broken glass, aren’t you?”
To my surprise, the cat shook her head.
“Promise?” He pointed at her.
The cat shook her head again.
“Ha. That’s what I thought.” The man dug in a pocket of his ratty jeans, pulled something out and tossed it to her. “Here, a treat to tide you over.” He turned to me and grinned.
My thoughts stuttered and died as our eyes met. He was young-looking, maybe mid-twenties, and scruffy, his hair long and uncombed, his cheeks rough. The light wasn’t bright enough to show the color of those eyes but I thought maybe blue. The smile curving his lips didn’t match the guarded look he gave me from behind that tumble of straight, brown-blond hair. Fake smile, for sure. And yet…
First impressions hadn’t been wrong. Damn, he was worth looking at, with a straight nose, full lower lip, and angular jawbones leading to a strong chin. His stubble stopped just short of a beard and it suited him. Taller than me by an inch or two, not enough to feel awkward. Skinnier too, although I was built lean myself. His sweatshirt had a hole along the neckline and the logo on the front was almost worn off. His jeans sagged on his hips.
His smile faded as I stared at him. “Problem?”
“No, of course not.” He’d broken into my grandparents’—mywine room, but I felt like the one in the wrong place. “I… I should wash my arm first.”
“Fuck. Yeah.” He looked away.
I turned my back on him to start the water. That was probably the last thing I should be doing with a homeless vagrant, but I didn’t feel scared. Flinching, I rolled up my sleeve and ran the cold water over my forearm, watching the blood trickle down to the drain.I don’t have to clean that sink.I jumped when Mimsy leaped to the porcelain edge, eyeing me. My step back thumped my shoulders against the strange guy, and he steadied me momentarily. He didn’t smell dirty, just a faint odor of sweat and man, something real in a world that abruptly seemed unreal. I slumped against him and he held me up.
“Hey, you okay? No other blood loss going on?”
I forced myself to straighten away. “No, just not fond of the sight of my own blood.” That was a white lie, but I didn’t have a truth to give him.
“You should cover it right away.” He grabbed the stained towel and wrapped it around my trickling cut, speaking quickly and lightly. “Put pressure here. Layers so it doesn’t bleed through. These towels were the discards, but after sitting around for months, I bet any germs are dead.”
Sitting around for two years.That’s how long probate for the estate had dragged out. Well, the inheritance was settled now. I ducked my head. “Thanks. I should be going.”
“I meant it when I said we could share.”
“No, that’s okay.” I put my hand on the doorhandle, then realized. “I should help clean up the glass.”
“Nah, man, don’t get that bleeding again. You don’t want it to get infected. Ain’t nobody got the money for that.”
“Okay, then.” I didn’t turn. “If I, um, come back here in a day or two, will you and Mimsy be here?”
He hesitated, then said, “Sure. Likely will be. We just got to town. I’d like to build up a bit of reserve before we hit the road again.”
“Oh.” My brain couldn’t make sense of anything except that I might see him again. “Should I leave the side door open?”
“Nah, make sure it latches tight.” He laughed. “Don’t want all the neighborhood users and losers coming in, right? Keep it you and me.”
