I woke up sore and groggy sometime around noon. As I laid there, blinking up at the ceiling, the reason for my aching muscles and bruised hand began creeping back into my mind and I found myself wondering if he was still around or if he'd slipped away while I was asleep.

As curious as I was about him, I knew my life would be much, much simpler if he was just gone, if he'd just vanished like something out of a bad dream. I didn't know much about Jack but I had the strangest feeling that he was the kind of guy who could really complicate a girl's life. And that was the last thing I needed.

Hauling myself out of bed, I found an old, bleach-stained pair of jogging shorts and pulled them on under the oversized t-shirt I slept in. It wasn't my sexiest look but I wasn't trying to impress anyone. When I opened my bedroom door, I was met first with silence and then the smell of cigarette smoke.

I found him right where I'd left him, slouched back against the couch cushions with his socked feet propped up on my coffee table and a cigarette burning low between his fingers. He was totally still, staring off into space with a blank expression. Even when I walked into his line of sight, he didn't react.

Frowning, I walked a little closer and leaned down, putting my eyes on level with his. "Jack?"

When I said his name, his eyes snapped to mine. At first, it seemed like he didn't recognize me. I watched his gaze move over my sloppy outfit, down my bare legs, and then back up to my face. He blinked those dark eyes and suddenly the recognition was there.

"Are you okay?" I asked him uncertainly. He raised his brows and, with some difficulty, took a drag off his cigarette. "Okay, that was a stupid question. Uh…are you in a lot of pain? I can get you something to take for it."

He watched my lips move with a vague sort of curiosity but didn't seem interested enough to respond to my question. Keeping his eyes on mine, he turned his head and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the air beside me.

"Can you speak?" I asked as I started to grow uncomfortable with his scrutiny. His only answer was a half-hearted shrug. "Well, can you try?"

His eyes narrowed and he seemed to consider it for a while. After clearing his throat, he grimaced as much as the stitches would allow and, barely moving his lips, muttered a soft, "No."

"There you go," I said, smiling. He didn't smile back but instead leaned around me to stub out his cigarette on my coffee table. "Are you hungry?"

He hesitated for a moment and then gave me a decisive nod. Glancing back at the coffee table, beyond his feet and a couple of cigarette butts, I saw a half-empty bottle of water which told me two things. One, he'd been up snooping around in my kitchen at some point and two, he was able to drink.

"Hope you like soup," I told him, ignoring the feeling of his gaze burning into my back as I walked into the kitchen.

I hummed to myself as I opened a can of tomato soup into a bowl, splashed in a little milk, and slid it into the microwave to get hot. In the meantime, I put a Pop-tart in the toaster for myself. It wasn't exactly a five-course meal but it was better than nothing.

Jack sat back and watched as I walked back into the living room but offered no help as I juggled his bowl, my plate, and a glass of water. Maybe George has a point, I thought, a tad resentfully.

"Be careful. It's hot," I told him, sliding the bowl over in front of him. He looked longingly at my Pop-tart but picked up his spoon as I sat down in the chair to his left. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

Already hunched over his bowl, he merely shrugged.

"Okay," I said, mostly to myself. "Are you in some kind of trouble? I mean, are the police going to be looking for you?"

Jack froze but didn't look up. After a moment, he shook his head.

"Are you sure? Because you know, you can tell me. I'm not going to run down to the station and turn you in or anything. I don't trust the cops any more than anyone else in this neighborhood." I winced, watching as he spooned the still-steaming-hot soup into his mouth without so much as flinching. "I just want to be prepared, you know?"

"They're not," he mumbled.

"So, what's the deal?" I asked around a mouthful. "Why did those guys do this to you?"

Staring down into his soup like it held all the answers, he said, "Dunno."

"Jack, come on," I said skeptically. "I heard them saying something about you stealing from them-"

The words were barely off my tongue when his head whipped around and he gave me a look so dark and so mean that I completely lost my train of thought. I gaped at him and he held my eyes, unblinking, until I finally looked away.

"Alright, moving on." Clearing my throat, I set my plate down on the table. Suddenly I wasn't so hungry anymore. "Do you have somewhere to go? A home, I mean?"

I could feel him watching me but I was determined to avoid his eyes, afraid of seeing that darkness in them again. I looked at the table, his twitching hands, anywhere but his face. The silence stretched long between us until I finally looked up to see him shake his head.

"Where have you been staying?"

Using the spoon, he gestured vaguely towards the window and the city beyond it which I took to mean as "wherever I can". At that point, I was 99% sure I couldn't trust him but looking at his too-thin frame and the way he was eagerly downing the soup despite the pain, I decided he was probably telling the truth.

"So, where are you going to stay now?" I asked, though I had a sneaking suspicion I already knew the answer. We both did.

He looked up and then over at me, startled. His brow furrowed as he studied my face and then murmured, "Here?"

His tone was questioning, maybe a little hopeful. I sighed, resigned to my fate.

"Fine," I told him, aware that I was probably making a terrible mistake. "You can stay for a little while as long as you promise you're not some kind of psycho serial killer."

He huffed out a laugh through his nose and, with his finger, drew a "cross" over his heart.

With that settled, I decided it was time to run to the grocery store and stock up.

I was only gone for an hour but I returned to chaos.

Jack was still on the couch but it was clear he'd been busy while I was gone. Cartoons were blaring on the television and the floor was scattered with my books and DVDs. I could almost picture him standing in front of the shelf in the corner, glancing at each cover before carelessly tossing it over his shoulder.

As I walked further into the apartment, I heard the kitchen faucet running and found the refrigerator door standing wide open. His empty soup bowl was lying in pieces in the sink as if he'd tossed it in from across the room.

Dropping the grocery bags on the counter, I turned to look at him for some sort of explanation but his eyes darted towards me and then quickly back to the cartoons.

"What the hell, Jack?" I asked, stomping over to turn off the television. "This is unacceptable-"

When I turned back around, he was already on his feet and digging through the grocery bags. Marching over to him, I ripped the carton of chocolate pudding cups out of his hands and he frowned at me as much as he could without moving his mouth.

"Listen to me. This is my home," I told him, my anger overriding the hesitation I'd felt towards him earlier. "You can't stay here if you're going to make a mess and destroy shit. I don't have time for that. Do you understand?"

He stared me down, but I held my ground, lifting my chin to glare back at him. After a few moments of this, he finally huffed out an irritated little sigh and nodded once.

"If it happens again, you're out," I said, finally relenting as he tried to tug the pudding out of my grip. "I mean it."

As Jack started in on his pudding, I started cleaning up his mess. By the time he was done, I was on my hands and knees across the room, sorting through the mess on the floor. As I bent over to retrieve a DVD case from under a shelf, I heard the rasp of a lighter behind me.

"You know, you probably shouldn't be smoking," I told him. When he didn't reply, I glanced back over my shoulder just in time to see him sheepishly lifting his gaze from my ass. "Really, Jack? Really?"

He didn't even have the decency to pretend to be ashamed. His eyes crinkled up at the corners and I realized he would be smiling, maybe even laughing, if he could. It was surprisingly charming. Shaking my head, I turned away to hide my own smile.

Don't even think about it, I told myself. You're stupid but you're not that stupid.