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“I was sure you weren’t gonna show!” Walt shouted down the street.

Hollis couldn’t help but look around quickly before picking up speed. It was late; people were sleeping.

“That should be my line,” Hollis said when he got close enough to not have to yell it.

Walt laughed and shrugged.

He was still wearing Hollis’s coat, and for a moment Hollis envied him. His newer coat was a lot warmer than the one he was wearing. But that feeling didn’t last long. Walt looked bad.

Not the way someone did when they were sleeping outside, or if they got in a fight. He looked... sick.

Like someone who had been ill for a long time. Definitely more than twenty-four hours’ worth of illness. His hair was lank at the roots, his skin was papery and dry. He even looked thinner, though Hollis knew that shouldn’t be possible.

It had been only one day.

“I know, I know,” Walt said. “I swear to God I clean up well.”

Walt’s eyes were shiny, burning with energy he didn’t look like he could afford. He raised an eyebrow playfully, then shrugged as if to say, What else can we do?

“Yeah, I guess,” Hollis said dubiously.

“Don’t stare, you’re making me bashful.”

Hollis looked away.

“So, what’s the story, morning glory? Did the black-and-whites catch up with you yet?”

“What?”

“The fuzz. Police. They clear your name?” Walt clarified, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.

“No, I have to wait until Friday. In the meantime, I’m stuck at home. Anyone can say anything about me at school, and I won’t even be able to defend myself.”

“Ya do that often? You seem like you might have a viper’s tongue.”

“If you want to call it that, yeah,” Hollis said, folding his arms.

Walt nodded. He seemed pleased. “Good to know. At least you got that going for you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hollis asked.

Hollis thought they were about to go on a walk or something, but instead they were just lingering there in the center of the road. Walt hadn’t moved an inch from where he stood. Sure, his feet turned to face Hollis as he walked closer, but Walt seemed comfortable where they were.

Maybe Walt was just tired. He looked tired.

“Some people start with nothing. I gotta really build them up to be something better, solve their problems with nothing but wit,” Walt explained. “But, if you’re clever and everyone already knows that, it’s not hard to be charming. Being charming is just being clever without being a dick. Everything’s easier when you’re charming.”

“So, this is something you do often.... Is it, like, your job or whatever?” Hollis asked.

Walt grimaced. “Kind of? It’s basically the only thing I’m good at. Pays well too, sometimes.”

Hollis gave him A Look.

“I mean clearly not right now ,” Walt said, “but that’s how freelancing works. Some days are cream and caviar, others are sleeping in a hole I dug over a buried thermal spring so I don’t freeze to death. You win some, you lose some.”

“You should get a real job. How old are you?”

Walt’s face did something complicated. “Seventeen. But I’ve been on my own for a while.”

Ah. “Foster kid?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Walt shook his head. “It is not my favorite thing to talk about.”

Hollis smirked. He liked Walt. He was weird and kind of unnerving, but he was always funny.

“So, matchmaker. What would you do with me?” Hollis spun in a circle so Walt could see the full picture, throwing his arms out wide.

Walt put a hand on his chin theatrically and peered close.

“Well, for starters, you dress kind of bad, so I’d work on that first—and don’t start with me, I am literally homeless. You have no idea how I dressed when I could wear what I want.”

Hollis laughed. “Okay. What else?”

“Your haircut is bad; men today have no understanding of the impact of a good haircut,” Walt griped. “After that I’ll need to know more about your social situation so I can slow-burn a meteoric rise of some kind. You going to college?”

Hollis shook his head. “It’s the factory or construction out here for most of us.”

“Still?” Walt said, disgusted. “Small towns. Things never change.”

City people, Hollis thought meanly. They don’t change either .

“Whatever, I’ll figure out something. We can talk about it down the line,” Walt was saying, to himself it seemed. “It’s October, so there should be about eight months of schooling left. That’s enough time—”

“You sure you’ll still be here in eight months?” Hollis interrupted.

Walt looked up, startled, like he forgot Hollis could hear him. Then he grinned.

“Aw, baby, for you? I’ll stick around,” he murmured.

Walt was flirting with him, Hollis realized. He was flirting .

Hollis didn’t know how that made him feel. It was one thing to be flirted with in the hallways at school, by a girl who was confusing his standoffishness with being mysterious.

It was another to be looked at—beneath hungry lowered eyelids—by a boy who was visibly running out of options.

Accepting affections like that was for bad people.

Hollis wasn’t a bad person.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

Walt immediately rearranged his face. “I thought I might,” he admitted, wary.

Hollis frowned. “Not with me. You want something from me, you just ask.”

“Okay,” Walt said, his eyes darting to the ground. “Okay, fine.”

He looked up quick—so quick it startled Hollis a bit. Then he stuck out his hand.

“I’ll stick around and put you on the straight and narrow. All you gotta do is feed me and find me shelter. Six months and I’m out of your hair. Permanently, if that’s what suits you.”

Hollis looked at Walt’s palm.

He was just another kid out in the snow. Desperate.

Hollis could bring Walt home; his ma would know what to do. If that didn’t work, there were houses, abandoned and viable. He’d have to suss out the extended family of the people who once owned them, but they’d do. Food he had plenty of; he could swing by in the mornings and after dinner. An extra portion wasn’t going to break the bank.

It was fine. It was going to be fine. He even had a week to work on it.

“Okay.”

Walt grabbed his hand tight before Hollis could finish offering it.