by Kate L. Mary
He shrugs, his hands still in his pockets. “Good point. As I recall, you aren’t very good with subtle.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snap, narrowing my eyes on him.
Riley puts his hands up like he’s trying to put some distance between us even though he’s a good seven feet away from me already. He moves out of the shadows when he shifts and I’m finally able to see his face. His eyes are wide with surprise.
Have I met this guy? I don’t think so. As far as I know I never laid eyes on him until our first day in the school. I’d remember someone who looked like Riley. He’s pretty unforgettable.
After a few seconds of silence he lowers his hands and lets out a sigh. “You seriously don’t remember?”
He sounds so devastated that all my anger melts away. Shit. Am I supposed to know him?
“Have we met?” I ask hesitantly. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I honestly can’t place him.
“Dammit.” Riley shoves his hand through his still damp hair.
He turns away and starts mumbling under his breath, which makes me feel even shittier than before. I drop the towel and hurry over to him. I don’t really know why I care so much, though. Hasn’t my goal these last few days been to not make any lasting connections with the other survivors? Clearly Riley and I have some history, and it meant something to him, so that should be my signal to run away from him, not toward him.
But I don’t.
Instead, I keep moving until I’m standing in front of him. I wrap my fingers around his muscular arm, tugging on it until he turns to face me. His brown eyes sweep over me. Down my face and lips, over my neck to the swell of my breasts. I cross my arms, but I don’t think it will matter. Not with the way the air around us sizzles, and not when a heat I can’t even begin to describe begins to make its way through me.
Riley steps closer, stopping only inches from me. His teeth sink into his lower lip and his nostrils flare possessively, and all at once it comes screaming back to me and I can’t believe I didn’t remember it before.
“We slept together,” I say, really focusing on his tattoo for the first time. Thick black lines curl over his left bicep, swirling around it. I vaguely remember tracing the lines of that tattoo. “My twenty-first birthday.”
Riley nods, then shakes his head and looks away from me. “You snuck out. Disappeared. When I saw you here that first day, I couldn’t believe it. I thought you remembered me but you were just too traumatized to do anything about it. I was giving you space.”
“I was so drunk that night,” I mumble, shaking my head. “I didn’t remember…”
I allow the words to drift off because I don’t have anything else to say. Excuses have never been my thing. I’m an owner of my mistakes. Someone who hurries to admit when they’re wrong. Who apologizes. Tries to fix things. Some people have said that makes me a doormat, or a bitch because I’m so honest, but I don’t know… I just don’t like leaving things unsaid. Now that everyone I know is gone, I’m glad. My regrets are minimal.
But I still don’t understand why Riley cares about that night. We barely knew each other and now it just seems stupid.
Unless he was hoping to get a repeat performance out of me…
“So what?” I say, some of the bite coming back into my tone. “You thought that since we screwed once you could get some end of the world sex? That I’d just lay down for you, no questions asked?”
“No! I thought we had a connection, and when I saw you I—” He looks away and shakes his head like he wishes he were somewhere else. That makes two of us. “I know most of the people here haven’t accepted the truth, but I have. This is it for us.” He lifts his eyes so they’re holding mine, and my breathing almost stops. “I just wanted to make the best of this situation.”
He shrugs and goes back to staring at his feet, looking younger suddenly. Like a teenage boy who’s lost everything. I know how he feels. I’ve felt like a lost child more than once over the last few days.
It’s hard to know what to do right now. I could comfort him. I could wrap my arms around him and we could cry together for everything we’ve lost, or we could do what he’s suggesting. Have sex so we can forget this whole, shitty situation. Only, I’m not sure that would do either one of us any good. I’ve worked hard at keeping a wall around my heart since this thing started. It wasn’t easy, either, and there were moments when I didn’t think I would succeed.
I watched the news, saw the virus spread. I knew they wouldn’t be able to contain it, but I didn’t allow the desolation everyone else was feeling to penetrate my walls. Not even when it got closer and the first few cases were reported in South Carolina, then in my own town. I kept myself together when the first of my friends got sick, then when Mom came down with it. Dad and I stayed strong. We worked together, tried our best to keep her comfortable while she died a slow, painful death.
Even on that horrible day when Dad and I went out to find food and were overrun by the walking dead, we kept our heads. We ran. We tried to fight them off. I held myself together through it all, not letting it destroy me as I ran, listening to my dad scream as they tore into him. I did it all by keeping the walls up and letting them down now would be stupid.
“I can’t do this,” I say, causing Riley to lift his head. “I’m sorry.”
I sweep my bat up and head out of the locker room, ignoring the hurt expression on Riley’s face because that’s what I have to do in order to survive this.
Damn Riley.
He doesn’t let me get far. Only out the door and five steps down the hall, then he’s running up behind me. “Kyra!”
The sound of his voice echoing through the empty hall should make me move faster, but instead I freeze. My heart is beating like crazy when I turn to face him, and seeing the expression of remorse on Riley’s face is enough to knock my walls down.
“I’m sorry,” he says when he stops in front of me. “It was just a thought, you know? A way to forget everything that’s going on around us.”
I let out a deep breath. “If I thought it would work I’d be all for it, but it won’t. You have to know that.”
Riley nods and his eyes move to the floor. “I know. It would work at first, but the second it ended everything would come back and reality would suck all over again.”
“Exactly,” I say with another sigh.
We stand in front of each other for a few seconds in silence. Finally, Riley runs his hand through his hair and lifts his head so he can look me in the eye. He nods down the hall and grins. “Breakfast?”
“Might as well,” I say falling into step beside him as we head toward the cafeteria.
Chapter 2
When Riley and I walk into the cafeteria, almost everyone stops what they’re doing so they can stare. A few people narrow their eyes on us and it dawns on me that we’re both still wet from the shower. Even though I turned down his romantic proposition, everyone present probably assumes we were going at it anyway. Great. Maybe I should have just done it. At least I’d get the fun that came with the label of apocalyptic whore.
Riley doesn’t even blink. He heads to the kitchen without checking to see if I’m following, and the casual way he acts makes me feel a little easier. Maybe people don’t really think we just screwed in the bathroom. Maybe they’re just thinking about how horrible an icy shower sounds.
Right.
Tori stops me before I have a chance to get all the way to the kitchen.
“Where have you been?” she asks, raising her pierced eyebrows suggestively.
So much for that theory.
I roll my eyes. “Taking a shower before the water turns off.”
She snorts and shoves a few strands of dark hair out of her face. Her gaze darts toward the kitchen, which Riley just disappeared into, and when she looks back her gray eyes are sparkling behind her thick, black frames.
“Right. Not that a shower doesn’t sound good, but a piece of that sounds even better.”
>
She’s the closest person to our age if you don’t count the teens—which I don’t because sixteen is way too young for me to have a normal conversation—and I’d guess Tori’s around forty-one. There are a few streaks of gray in her dark hair, but the pixie cut is cute enough to take about seven years off. She has hoops in both eyebrows and a stud in her left nostril, then there’s the Monroe piercing. I saw a few tattoos once when we were in the locker room together, too. I heard her tell someone she was an art teacher or something. I haven’t paid a lot of attention.
I twist the bat between my hands awkwardly when I feel myself being pulled into the conversation. Before today I did everything possible to ignore the other survivors, but now things feel different. I’m not sure why talking to Riley opened me up, but it has. Only I kind of wish I could go back.
“Yeah, well, be my guest,” I say, focusing on my feet. My leopard print ballerina flats are looking a bit worn, and totally out-of-place during a zombie apocalypse. Why the hell did I choose these shoes to wear that day?
“I wish.” Tori rolls her eyes so far back all I can see are the whites. “I mean, we’re all screwed, so we might as well do whatever we can to enjoy the little bit of time we have left.” She blinks a few times, then turns away. “A shower sounds like a good idea.”
Shit.
I watch her walk out of the cafeteria feeling a little bit like I’ve just been slapped. I guess it’s not just Riley and me who have accepted the fact that we’re living on borrowed time.
Double shit.
I head to the kitchen only to find Riley coming my way. He has a plate in each hand, loaded down with steaming food. Eggs and bacon. Toast. Some fruit. All the food that will go bad if we don’t use it soon.
“That for me?” I ask, not able to hide my surprise.
“Of course. It’s the least I can do after propositioning you.”
I let out a laugh, which earns me a glare from another woman. She’s probably fifty, although she dresses like she’s six-years-old and this is 1992. The floral dress she’s wearing was probably sold by K-Mart at one point, although I bet she bought it at a yard sale. She’s tall and thin with severe brown eyes that snap my way and swim with the judgment of a person who has spent her life looking down on others. Her thin brown hair is pulled back into a braid that hangs down to her waist. She’s plain and as dull as her life probably was before this. I can picture her going to prayer meetings with other women who are just as eager as she is to rip their neighbors to shreds.
I’ve encountered her type before and have no desire to be anywhere near her now that the world has come to an end, so I tilt my head to the other side of the room. “Let’s go over there.”
Riley nods and smiles at the woman who is still giving us the evil eye. I don’t know him well, but I can already tell he’s a nicer person than I am.
“What’s her deal?” I ask, laying my bat on the table as I slide into a chair. We’re far enough away now that she can’t hear me.
Riley shrugs and takes a big bite of eggs. “Same as us.”
“Right,” I say with a snort.
“She’s lost her family, Kyra.”
“That may be true, but she’s not like us. She still thinks the world is the same. Just wait. She saw us walk in together, and just like everyone else in here she assumed we had sex.” Riley’s eyebrows wiggle in a suggestive way, but I ignore it. “She’s gearing up for a lecture about how we need to repent or we’ll go straight to hell.” I crunch into my bacon and trade glares with miss holier-than-thou across the room.
“Just ignore her and she’ll leave you alone.” Riley shrugs once before digging in, acting like I’m the ridiculous one.
Just like I thought, Riley is the nice guy who’s used to being friends with everyone. He was probably on the football team in high school, but was also friends with the smart kids and the party guys. When there was a social event he was the center of attention. I can almost picture him standing in the middle of a crowd chugging a beer as everyone around him chants his name. Probably wearing the crown he got when he won Prom King. Yeah. That’s Riley. Mr. Popularity.
“So you were what, the class president in high school?”
He stops mid chew and his eyebrows pull together, and I instantly regret the question. I don’t want to know him, and I doubt he wants to think about the past.
“Forget I asked,” I mumble.
“No, it’s okay.” He pats my hand like I’m a child and he’s trying to reassure me that I haven’t said something totally ridiculous. “I actually was, but only my junior year. Why do you ask?”
“You just seem like the type, that’s all.”
I scoop another forkful of eggs into my mouth and chew slowly, doing my best to savor them. Who knows when I’ll have them again?
“What about you?” he asks. “Cheerleader? Homecoming queen?”
I snort again and cover my mouth to stop eggs from spraying everywhere. “Not exactly.” Riley raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything, giving me time to chew so I can answer. Once I’ve swallowed I say, “I was the bitch.”
“The bitch?”
“Yeah. I have this habit of saying whatever’s on my mind, which didn’t make me very popular in school. I mean, I’m hot, so the guys still wanted me, they just didn’t want to date me.” I shrug like it’s no big deal, which it isn’t. It wasn’t then and it’s even less so now since they’re all dead and roaming the earth as mindless zombies. “I’ve always been who I am and my real friends loved me for it. I figured everyone else could just go screw themselves.”
Riley busts out laughing, which makes that scary woman across the way shoot us a look so evil I start to wonder if she’s possessed. If she is she’s screwed. We didn’t get lucky enough to get stranded with a priest.
“That’s what I liked about you that night at the bar, you know,” Riley says, grinning at me over his piece of toast. “You said what was on your mind. I mean, I could tell you were drunk, but you didn’t give me any bullshit lines. Even the drunk girls came up batting their eyes and trying to hint around that I should buy them a drink. But not you.”
“Oh Lord, I can’t even imagine what I said.”
Riley chuckles around a mouthful of toast. Once his food has been properly chewed and swallowed, he says, “You came waltzing up to me in a dress so tight I could see the outline of your belly ring, swaying your hips like you knew you were the shit, and said, ‘You’re going to buy me a drink because it’s my birthday.’”
“That sounds about right,” I say, shaking my head. “What did you do?”
“The only logical thing. I told you I wouldn’t buy you a drink, but if you came back to my place I’d give you the best birthday present you’ve ever had.”
I cough when bacon goes down the wrong pipe and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. “You did not say that!”
“Not only did I say that, but you agreed without even a moment’s hesitation.”
My eyes are watering from almost choking, but I can’t stop laughing. People on the other side of the room have started to stare, joining miss high-and-mighty in her judgment. I don’t care, though. Sure I’ve lost everyone I love, and yes thinking about it makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry until we all drown in the tears, but right now I’m having a nice conversation with a hot guy—possibly the last one of my life—and I’m going to enjoy it.
Riley leans closer until our faces are only inches apart. “We’re making a scene.”
“Whatever,” I say, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “You made me laugh which is something I never thought I’d do again.”
“Don’t forget the fact that I proposition you for apocalyptic sex.” He grins. “The offer still stands, by the way.”
I roll my eyes even though my stomach flips. “Fine. You made me laugh and made an offer I could refuse. I’ve had a nice morning when there’s no earthly reason anyone should ever have a nice morning again. Everyone who thinks we’re being inappropr
iate or whatever is going through their minds can just go screw themselves.”
Riley snorts, then pops the last bit of bacon on his plate into his mouth, chewing slowly. “Don’t piss them off too much. We have a good group of people here. Resourceful.”
I shrug grudgingly. “Yeah, yeah.”
“It’s true. Jim took a few empty cans, some toilet paper rolls, and rubbing alcohol and made those can heaters. We’ve been able to use them to cook and light the place, and they give off a hell of a lot of heat considering how small they are—which will be good come winter. And they burn for a really long time.”
Winter? How long does he think we’re going to be here?
“It’s impressive how much he knows,” Riley says.
“Okay, you’re right.” I roll my eyes again even though he has a point. It’s not like I would have been able to figure out the fire-in-a-can thing.
Riley scrapes the last few crumbs on his plate into a neat little pile, then shoves them onto his fork. I grin when he carefully raises it to his mouth.
“It would be easier to just lick the plate,” I point out.
“You make fun, but it won’t be long before you’ll be wishing for a few crumbs to lick up.”
Just like that the happy atmosphere is gone, sucked from the room so suddenly that I can’t help wondering if it was ever here to begin with. I inhale deeply, squeezing my eyes shut to ward off all the emotions just fighting to get out. It isn’t any easy task.
“Shit,” Riley says, taking my hand. “I’m sorry.”
I open my eyes, meeting his intense gaze, and force myself to laugh it off. The sound hurts coming out of my throat. “I’m starting to regret turning you down. Maybe it would be a good distraction.”
He gives me a half-hearted smile. “Until it was over. Remember?”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh.
Without replying, Riley picks up both our plates and heads to the kitchen.
I stay where I am, watching him as he crosses the room. He pauses to talk to almost everyone he passes, and they all smile when he says hi, acting like he’s an old friend even though we’ve only been here for a few days. An older woman whose name I don’t know pats him on the arm as he goes by, and a sixteen-year-old boy whose face is covered in acne follows Riley like a puppy. Even during the apocalypse he’s Mr. Popularity.