Page 13 of Shelter for Morgan

“Okay, okay! I’ll be nice, I promise!”

Morgan, Morgana in his head, laughed out loud and the sound of it echoed off of the empty spaces in his apartment, changing the very fabric of his world.

He just didn’t have a way to explain it.

He couldn’t even quite understand it at that moment.

She folded her arms a moment later. "You know," she gave him a bright smile, "You're pretty easy to talk to."

Rhett felt those words right in his heart.

He kept to himself a lot at work, which is probably why they saw him as aloof from the group, but while he cared deeply for his coworkers and their families, he felt more comfortable as an outlier instead of someone who got into the thick of things.

Talking to Morgan, or rather reacting to her words, made him want to learn more.

Want to talk more.

He knew that she felt odd about staying with him earlier when he admitted that he thought 'she' was going to be a 'he.'

He could leave it alone, but he knew he should say something to help her feel more comfortable.

Rhett had learned that through watching his friends go through the early parts of their relationships.

He leaned down and picked up the bag he'd set down just a few moments before. When he straightened, he looked her right in the eye. "I think we're going to get along just fine."

CHAPTER THREE

Morgan hid away in her bedroom for longer than she'd planned.

She didn't even want to call it hiding, but she was struggling to hold onto her earlier feelings. She'd told herself to be nice, but not effusive. She'd told herself to be open, but not eager. She'd told herself that she could handle it if Palmer didn't remember her.

And then he'd said he thought that Jacob's sibling was a boy.

Oh, bother.

Yes, she quoted Pooh characters, but not from the books.

The cartoon.

Growing up she was always a TV girl. When the boob tube, she giggled at the thought, came on, she was entranced.

The only reason she went outside was if she was forced. And usually, it was Jacob dragging her outside.

And that was likely the reason why she'd put on a bunch of pounds when he was acting more like her dad than her brother. He was working and while he was doing that, she had time to get sucked into TV and not have to do anything.

Oh, she wasn't blaming her brother for her weight gain.

She just didn't want to do things. They'd just lost their parents and he'd had to get a job and make the payments on the house that their insurance didn't pay for, but she'd lost her way a bit.

The television was an easy escape.

The shows on TV were predictable in a way that life wasn't.

When they went for a drive, they came home in Classic TV shows.

The drama was in the home.

Every problem could be fixed in a half an hour.

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