Less Than Nothing by R.E. Blake

going to sleep. He grins and lies down with his hands folded on his stomach, using his jacket for a pillow.
    I stand watching him for several minutes, and there’s another stirring from the far side of the darkened balcony. Derek looks about as interested in attacking me as the waiter did in giving us free wine, and after he throws me a final look that clearly says, “You going to stand there all night?” I move to him and set my backpack down. I’ve used it as a pillow before, so that’s nothing new. I slide it next to his head and untie my Chucks and, after slipping them off, lie down next to him.
    His breathing is deep and regular. I’m as jumpy as a meth fiend in withdrawals, but slowly the tension seeps out of my shoulders and back, and I start to relax. When he speaks, it’s so quiet I almost don’t hear it.
    “Sorry about the bogus dinner.”
    I smile. He’s apologizing for the first real meal I’ve had in months. Maybe he’s not a serial killer after all.
    “Good thing it’s against the rules to sing happy birthday or you’d have me up all night, wouldn’t you?”
    It’s his turn to smile. I can make it out in the dark, his teeth seeming to glow in the dim light from the lone lamp downstairs.
    “Nah. I’m actually beat. But thank you for making it my most memorable birthday ever.”
    “You must not get out a lot.” I pause. “What’s with the bard thing?”
    “What?”
    “Bull. He called you the bard.”
    Derek snorts. “Oh. That’s nothing. It’s a long story.”
    “Seems like I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
    He stirs, and a part of me trembles – and not from fear. I’ve never felt this way before, and I do my best to stifle the unexpected sensation. He moves a few inches closer and turns his head to face me. I continue staring at the ceiling, which I can see is ornately sculpted.
    “I had a copy of Romeo and Juliet when I first started crashing here. Bull gave me nothing but shit about it for the first few weeks, and when I finished with it, I left it for him – he’s not a huge reader, in case it isn’t obvious.”
    “The Bull nickname was the giveaway.”
    “Anyway, I guess he read it to pass the time, and now there are two people in this dump who’ve read Shakespeare.”
    I close my eyes, the last of my anxiety draining away. “Three,” I say.
    He nods to himself and returns to his original position, closing his eyes as his breathing slows. I can barely hear him when he whispers his final words of the night – words that keep me awake for another half an hour before I’m able to drift off.
    “Sleep well, Sage.”

Chapter 9
     
    I start awake, and it takes me a second to remember where I am. It’s been so long since I slept more than a few hours at a time I feel drugged and disoriented. I’m lying on my side, curled in a fetal position, and as I crack an eye open, I realize there’s an unfamiliar weight on my waist.
    An arm.
    Derek’s arm. Around me.
    A beam of sunlight’s shining through a long crack in the theater ceiling, and I can see dust motes floating in it like a slow motion snow flurry. In the dim light I can make out how trashed the interior is, at least the section in my view. There’s graffiti everywhere, spray-painted A for Anarchy symbols next to elaborate works of art featuring street scenes from around town – vatos in zoot suits next to low-rider cars, the Golden Gate bridge with a marijuana leaf superimposed in the clouds above it, Fisherman’s Wharf with stylized caricatures of fat, clueless tourists toting oversized cameras.
    I can feel Derek behind me, softly breathing, and I try to decide how I feel about the arm thing. My initial impulse is to pull away, but a split second after that I realize that I don’t completely hate it. In fact, it feels kind of nice to have him sleeping next to me.
    Last night I was treating him like he was a molester. Now I’m spooning and happy about it?
    If you’d told me thirty-six hours ago that