“We’re bound to find something good down there,” I say.
“You’re really coming? You know it’s going to be cold, right?”
“How cold could it be? It’s already like hell froze over.”
CHAPTER 62
The answer to “How cold could it be?” is “Extremely fucking cold.” I had a vision, admittedly a ridiculous vision, of reaching somewhere warm upon arrival at our destination. But it’s dark stores and snow and frozen zombies all around when we reach the first shopping center. My first order of business is to make a trashcan fire and stand shivering over the flames until my hands work again.
It’s peaceful, though, and the mountains outside of Anchorage are stunningly white. The only difference in temperature between indoors and out is the lack of snow, but I kind of enjoy walking around the empty stores. Every kid has dreamt of having an unbridled shopping spree, and each of us gets to fill our backpack with whatever we’d like as long as we can wear it back.
But first, we have to kill all the Lexers so we’re not unpleasantly surprised come spring. Fred Meyer is empty of food but full of things that might come in handy, such as tools and garden supplies. We start at one end and sweep the store with our spikes until someone calls the all-clear, then it’s on to the next store once we’ve locked up.
Peter and I head to a bookstore for comic books, where he laughs when I scare the crap out of myself twenty times. I know the Lexers are frozen, but that doesn’t stop my natural instinct to jump when I see one unexpectedly. We stuff X-Men comics and graphic novels in our bags. Now, besides baby stuff, I only need an espresso maker for Peter.
We clear an outdoor store and a supermarket that has enough food to make killing a whole lot of zombies worth our time, but I’m no closer to finding what I need. I’m so cold that I’ve decided to give up and think of something else when I see a gourmet cooking store tucked into a high-end strip mall down the way. It’s my last hope, and I make an excuse to plod through the snow with Nelly.
“What do you need over here, anyway?” he grumbles.
“It’s for Peter. For Christmas.”
“What about me?”
“Pepsi, remember?”
We break the glass door and peruse the rows of wire racks filled with fancy kitchen equipment. I wander around all the shiny steel and enameled pots until I find a small Italian stovetop espresso maker in the back. I shove it in my bag and pick up a Dutch oven that weighs a ton and cost over $300 once upon a time. It won’t fit in my bag, but Nelly has room.
I put it in his arms and say, “Please?”
“No way. You know I have to wear this thing all the way back.”
“Pretty please?” I clasp my hands together. “It’s not for me. Peter used to have one the same color.”
“Another thing for Peter? And all I get is Pepsi?”
“A lot of Pepsi, which is the best present ever and you know it. This is from the kids. Can you just do it already? He did save your life, you know.”
Nelly drops his head back the way he does when he’s going to give in. “Fine.”
By the time we’ve gotten back, I’m frozen to the core. It was slower going with the full trailers, and my special fur boots and mittens and face mask did the job of keeping frostbite away, but that’s about it. I stand in the cabin, too cold to undress or take off my backpack or do anything except want to die.
“What’d you get?” Bits asks.
“It’s a secret,” Peter says.
“What’s wrong with Cassie?” Hank asks.
Peter knocks on my head. “She’s frozen solid.”
He helps to remove my backpack and coat, and then seats me by the fire while he wrestles with my boots. It takes him, along with Bits and Hank, a good five minutes to figure out my double knots. My mouth has lost the range of movement needed to form speech, and I watch them and quake until I’ve regained feeling in my face and limbs.
“I am never doing that again. Ever,” I finally say. “Thank you. I would’ve stood there all night.”
“For a minute there I thought you’d have to wear those boots all night,” Peter says, and shakes out his fingers. “All right, time for bed, guys.”
The kids go without a fuss because they know there’s Christmas stuff in the bags. I head for bed and huddle under the down comforter, but the cubes of ice at the end of my legs, formerly known as feet, won’t warm up. Peter brings in the lantern and gets on his side. I hear several pages of his book turn before he says, “What are you doing? Dancing?”
“I’m putting my feet on my calves to warm them, but I have to keep switching.”
“Put them on me.”
I was going to ask, but I didn’t want it to be weird. Nelly has made me very conscious of what’s over the line and what isn’t. I’m not even sure what’s over the line anymore. “Are you sure? They’re really, really cold.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know they’re cold. I’ve felt them before.”
“It’s your funeral,” I say, and press them to his side.
He jumps. “Holy shit!”
“I told you. It’s a whole new level of cold.” He clamps his elbow over them while I bury my head in my pillow to wait out the pins and needles. When feeling has returned, I pull them back. “Thanks. Where’s Barnaby when you need him? It’s a one dog night.”
“He’s still by the fire.”
“So you filled the role of dog,” I say, and reach to ruffle his hair. “Good boy.”
He catches my wrist and holds it in the air, wearing his usual teasing half-smile with a slightly-cocked eyebrow, but my reaction is anything but usual. I notice the shape of his lips and the way his t-shirt is just fitted enough to hint at what I know is a lean and sculpted chest. I imagine him pinning my hand above my head, those lips and that body on mine, and remember the taste of his mouth with sudden clarity. A flush rises from my abdomen to my cheeks when I allow myself to wonder what being with this version of Peter would be like. There are so many reasons it would be a bad idea—Ana, our friendship, Bits. Once it was done we couldn’t ever go back.
I realize I’m staring when he lowers my hand to the bed with a friendly pat, but not before I see something flicker in his eyes—surprise, uneasiness or maybe even the same desire. The air is charged like that day we first saw the Rockies. And it strikes me, like one of those bolts of lightning that flashed overhead, that Peter already has my heart, and I want to seal the deal with my body.
“Should I get the light?” he asks. The set of his features hasn’t changed and whatever I thought I saw is gone. But when he averts his eyes and waits patiently in the few extra seconds it takes me to find my voice, I know I saw something.
“Sure,” I whisper.
I lie in the dark, wondering if he felt what I did. I’m afraid he didn’t and afraid he did at the same time. I’ve been convinced that I love Peter in a way that isn’t romantic but not exactly the way I love Nelly. We have a connection that I attribute to Bits, but maybe it’s been there since the night we met, when he gave me a glimpse of who he really was—who he is now. He would draw me in, but he also pushed me away so consistently that I’d finally decided he wasn’t worth my time, energy and love. I was wrong.
I watch the sky through my window and wonder if this could have been written somewhere up there. If it’s possible the stars have led me to a cabin in Alaska and a bed shared with my best friend. It doesn’t lessen what I had with Adrian. Maybe love doesn’t have to be quantified as more or less—it’s just different than anything I’ve ever felt. This has grown out of heartbreak and friendship, out of forgiveness and being truthful about our real selves. I’ve been around for Peter’s worst moments as well as his best. And I love everything about him. He’s perfect for me.
CHAPTER 63
There’s one good thing about living with the person you’re secretly in love with, which is also the most torturous—they’re always around. I can hide my feelings and act normal for the most part, but when I find my
self swooning at the muscles in his forearm that still has a trace of summer tan, I tell myself to get a grip. I force myself not to daydream about what I want his rough, capable hands to do to me. And I know from past experience that they’re extremely capable.
I would move to the couch rather than lie awake at night with every nerve ending tingling in anticipation, but I’ll take a platonic bed-sharing arrangement over nothing. I’m thinking on this while I make the bed—or as close as I get to bed-making, which is to confirm the covers aren’t in a ball—and freeze with my hand to my mouth. I’ve become Dan, waiting for someone who might never be ready to love me back. It’s not the most uplifting of thoughts.
I have the day off and plan to paint while Hank and Bits are at school and Peter’s on guard. The kids are already gone and Peter’s lacing up his boots in the living room when Nelly, who sees the door as a formality with which he’d rather not be bothered, breezes in. “What are we doing on our day off?” he asks me.
“I’m painting,” I say, and point to the corner window where I like to paint in what little light we get this time of year.
“Bor-ing. Let’s do something fun.”
“Does it involve going outside? Because I wasn’t planning to do that until dinner time.”
Nelly sinks to the dining table with his chin in his hand. “Stop being a hermit. C’mon. We’ll bother Pen or something.”
“Working,” I say. “She’s on lunch today.”
“They’re like slave drivers here. She’s about to pop and they’re making her work?”
“They are not, and she still has almost two weeks. Stop being so dramatic.” I sit at the table and decide Nelly’s right. “So what are we going to do?” He whoops in delight.
Peter dons his coat and covers his hair with an equally black hat. “All right, have fun whatever you do.”
“Don’t forget your water bottle,” I say.
He touches my shoulder on his way past. “Thanks. We’ll meet at dinner?”
“Yeah. I’ll bring the kids.”
“Okay. See you then.” Sometimes, when he looks at me like this—dark eyes locked with mine—I think that maybe it’s not just me. It’s probably wishful thinking. And although Hank is probably right that wishes don’t work, I could kick myself for wishing that things stay the same because I want things to be very different. I watch him leave, trying not to think about how his shoulders are solid under his coat and how his jeans sit low on his hips and slouch perfectly on his shitkicker boots. To think I once made fun of those jeans.
“—it warms the cockles of my heart,” Nelly finishes.
I return to the conversation. “What does?”
“To see you guys playing house.”
“We live in the same house. What are we supposed to do—ignore each other?” I stand and stack dishes next to the dry sink so I don’t have to look at him. I know Nelly can read me like a book, but I wonder how obvious it is to the rest of the world.
“The lady doth protest too much,” he says.
“Whatever, Shakespeare. Where are we going?”
“Let’s stay here and chat.” His boots hit the table and he leans back with his hands behind his head. “Sit down, darlin’.”
“You’re supposed to take your shoes off when you come in,” I say, dodging his request. “I’m tired of washing the floor.”
“You’ve never washed a floor in your life.”
I ignore him and step into my boots. Nelly’s like a bloodhound on a scent, but he bides his time and attacks when you least expect it. I’m going to have to be on my guard. He looks at me for a long moment before he strolls to the door. “Let’s see who’s at the clubhouse.”
The clubhouse was once a restaurant and now where they feed the overflow of people at meals. At other times of the day, people hang out at the tables and couches. It’s the social hub of Talkeetna, and while I like to visit, I’d rather spend my free time at home or with small groups of people. Sometimes I worry that I won’t be able to hear something coming. It may not be a concern in the winter, but old habits die hard.
When we enter, we’re deluged with offers to get in on a card or board game. Nelly leads me to a couch where I lose at poker with Tara and Philip before they leave for their street shoveling shift.
Patricia strides our way, turns a chair backward and pushes her hair off her face. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Patty,” Nelly says.
“Stop with the Patty already,” she says.
“Terry calls you Patty,” Nelly says. “You don’t seem to mind.”
She flashes a look that says to tread no further, which goes completely over his head.
“You know, maybe you two gals should think about dating,” Nelly says to us. “You could have your pick of the litter. Like, for instance, Patty and Peter would look good together.”
Here it is—the attack. I shrug and find it easy to be dismissive since I know she has no interest, but it still makes my stomach roil.
“No thanks,” Patricia says.
“Or you and Terry,” Nelly says to me. “You seem like his type. Should I see if he’s interested?”
I elbow his side when Patricia looks like a kid whose birthday was canceled. “I have no interest in Terry. He has no interest in me. You know that.”
Patricia bolts from her chair, mumbling something about guns, and I sincerely hope it wasn’t something about coming after me with one later. I pull him up by his sleeve and push him into the snow-covered street. “You’re an ass! She’s so in love with Terry she can’t see straight.”
“Shit. I had no idea.”
“You know, for someone so observant you can be completely clueless when you want to get your way.” I sink against the side of the building, heart drumming and mouth dry. I don’t want to say it aloud and make it real, but Nelly will never stop pestering me until I do. “So just do it. Say what you want to say. Ask whatever you want to ask.”
Nelly rubs his cheeks and deliberates before his sky blue eyes meet mine. “No.”
“No?”
He puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “You’ll tell me when you want to.”
I’d like to walk because I’m freezing, but I’m frozen in shock. He must have something up his sleeve. “Seriously?”
He takes my arm and wanders back toward the cabins. “Yup. So what shall we do next? The world, or a small fenced-off part of it, is our oyster. We have three hours until sundown at the ridiculously early time of 3:30.”
“Let’s go to the big cabin and see who’s there.”
“Your wish is my command.” After a block, Nelly clears his throat. “So, anything you want to tell me?”
“Can’t think of anything,” I say.
He throws me into a snowdrift and laughs while I splutter obscenities. But, to his credit, he doesn’t ask again.
CHAPTER 64
We have a Christmas tree. Really, it’s the top of a fir tree that’ll be kindling next year, but it’s pretty with the decorations we made during art class at the school.
“Did we get Barn a present?” Bits asks. She lies on the floor next to the dog, fiddling with the earrings Penny and I put in on her birthday, and Peter followed with a French fry and vanilla milkshake party. Making ice cream is easy when your entire world is snow and ice.
“We’ll give him a bone.”
“How about Sparky?”
“Also a bone,” I say.
“Did you get something for Peter?”
“A bone. Everyone gets bones this year.”
She giggles. “He’ll make soup with it. And then he can give us soup for Christmas.”
“Perfect,” I say.
Hank pokes his head out from the loft. “But did you get him something for real?”
“I have something from you guys. It’s a pot. He really can make us soup.”
Bits rolls on her back and looks at me upside down. “A pot? Why on Earth would you get him a pot?” I’d like to ask her where she got t
hat tone, but it’s like listening to a recording of me.
“It’s a fancy pot, like hundreds of dollars fancy. It’s turquoise.”
She stands. “Can I see? Hank, come and look.”
I take them into the bedroom and pull it out of the closet. They like it but look unimpressed. “You know how I love art supplies? Well, cooking’s an art, too. The most famous chefs in the world used pots like these. People would travel all over just to try their food.”
“Really?” Bits asks. “Maybe they’ll come here one day just to try Peter’s food. It’s good enough to fight zombies for.”
I kiss her cheek. “Tell him that, he’ll love it.”
It’s true. The food here was decent but boring, especially made in large quantities, but now the restaurant is always full when people know he’s on.
“So he’ll really like this,” Hank says.
“Thanks for getting it.” Bits grins, eyes the same color as the Dutch oven. “Can we wrap it?”
The cabin door opens in the outer room. Bits places the pot on the closet floor and then yanks most of my clothes off the hangers to throw on top. Like I need any help being a slob.
“Hello?” Penny calls.
I follow Bits to the living room. She shows no interest in cleaning up the clothes even though it’s not Peter. Another wonderful habit inspired by me.
“Hey, Mama,” I say. “Anything?”
She sinks to the couch. It was her due date almost a week ago. “Nothing. Nada.”
“It can only be a couple weeks at the most. Glory’s never seen anyone go more than three weeks past.”
Bits wanders back into my bedroom when Hank calls. “Hey, pick up those clothes,” I yell after her. I’m met with a non-committal reply.
“Glory says to try sex,” Penny says. “This is easier said than done, but I’ve told James he’s on tonight. He looked a little frightened.”
I snort and throw a log into the woodstove just as Nelly enters in his usual sweep of wind and snow. “Shoes!” I yell, and he stops to remove them before he launches himself onto the couch next to Penny.
Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky Page 34