“Bad night?” Miss Gina asked Ryan with compassion when he came down to breakfast Sunday morning.
“Bad dreams,” he replied. Glancing at the other lodgers seated at the table, he left it at that, not mentioning how his ribs played hell with his sleeping, as well. He didn’t want to play the pity card with people he didn’t know. As he took his seat, he realized he was the only one at the table under the age of forty. Two of the men, Walter and George, he’d met the previous day. The third introduced himself at Jim Thompson, while the lone female said her name was Elizabeth Nash, “Lizzie for short.”
When Ryan listened to them as they chatted with each other, it became obvious they’d lived at the boarding house for a while and thus were friends. Then Lizzie turned to him, saying with a grin, “Y
