Mama Mathers approached the window and looked outside.

He might have wanted and done the same connection if it was a boy. If it was Byron, or Tristan. Not because he was that way, but…

He didn’t have much.

There was a knock at the door. He reached for the note, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

“Come in.”

Erin. She’d showered, and she had a stack of lunchboxes under her arm. Three. She wore a t-shirt with a blurry skull design bleached onto the front, crosses for eyes and separating the teeth, jeans, and high boots.

“What’s that?” he asked, indicating the lunchboxes.

“Food. I asked my mom for breakfast to go, and lunch too, and she went overboard. I thought after a day like yesterday, you might want to take it easy. Hot breakfast, coffee in a thermos, and some lunch for later.”

“And the other?” he asked. His voice was more hoarse than it had a right to be. He felt the disparity between dusty, injured, weary himself and clean, beautiful, vivacious Erin.

“Breakfast for me, duh.”

“Oh,” he said. His thoughts went in the wrong direction. Mama Mathers paced the length of the room.

His life wasn’t his anymore.

“You can crash in your workshop today, figure your things out. If you want dinner, I can bring that to you too.”

“I have to go,” he said, aware of Mama Mathers’s stare. “I need to talk to the others, and I need to deal with my cluster.”

“Okay,” Erin said. “I can drive you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I can drive you. It’s fine. When do you want to go?”

“As soon as possible? I need to shop for stuff, for my hands, and I want to stop by the library. We could eat on the road.”

“Perfect,” she said. “I’m ready to go, so get your stuff.”

He nodded, stiff.

“Can I?” she asked. She pointed.

Tired, dazed, trying not to think, he was momentarily dumbfounded.

She pointed with more intensity, until he looked down. Her sweatshirt.

He handed it to her, then turned to get his arms together. His stuff hadn’t been touched from the night prior, but there was other stuff he wanted to bring, just in case.

“Did you jerk off onto my sweatshirt?”

He looked at Erin, stunned. He looked at the wet spot of drool.

“I—no. Drool,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Fuck, you look like you just ran over my dog. I was joking, I wanted to try to get a smile out of you.”

She smiled, encouraging.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He was so far from smiling, he couldn’t even process the idea. He was all too aware that Mama Mathers was watching the exchange.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” he said, again, automatically.

“It’s okay. Let’s get on the road and get the stuff you need.”