by AJ Rose
But as was inevitable, reality came clattering back with the lack of sound anywhere in the house: no fans blowing, no tick of appliances or glow of a digital clock on the DVD player in the TV stand under the window. Ash felt naked in the cool air, and more than physically. Trying to recapture that comfort, that connection, he rose to his elbow and leaned down to kiss Elliot once more, this time sweetly, a way to say he’d also needed to feel good, to forget the fear, if only for a little while.
“I’m going to get something to clean us up,” he murmured, rising to walk into the kitchen. He tore a paper towel from the roll and discarded the condom inside it, balling it up tight to throw it away so his sister wouldn’t notice, then grabbed another few sheets and ran the faucet long enough to dampen them. Swiping at his stomach, he walked to the living room, wiped Elliot’s pleasure from his skin, and threw that towel away as well.
Lying on the sleeping bag after they’d both put their underwear back on, he considered whether or not to urge Elliot onto the couch, but a part of him was reluctant. It wouldn’t make sense to his family if they walked in on him cuddled up with his lab partner, but the thought of going to sleep with distance between them, even a couple feet, made him uneasy.
Fucking Elliot has never been about getting attached, he reminded himself but immediately shoved the thought away. He was unsettled, their lives had changed in ways they couldn’t yet comprehend, and if he couldn’t let himself need for a little while in this situation, then there was no situation on Earth where he could. With an internal growl of “fuck it,” he opened his arms to Elliot, who’d been watching him with increasingly droopy eyelids, and wiggled his fingers in a come here gesture. Elliot rolled instead of scooting, presenting his back to Ash to become the little spoon, which helped Ash keep the line between lover and fuck buddy from blurring any further.
Just as Ash was drifting to sleep, he heard another whisper. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
Nuzzling the back of Elliot’s sweat- and sex-scented neck, he fell asleep before he could think up a thank you that didn’t leave him any more raw than he already was.
* * *
* * *
“Uncle Ash, why’re you on the floor?”
Ash peeled one tired eye open to peer at Riley, who stood at the end of the hallway rubbing his eyes, his light brown hair tufted in all directions. He wore one of Ash’s old t-shirts for pajamas, the stretched fabric hanging to his knees, and below that, his bare legs looked so skinny. His shins were covered in the bruises of a rambunctious childhood.
Ash was alone on the floor, he realized, and darted a glance to the couch to find Elliot curled up as much as the furniture allowed, faced away from the room. He must have moved some time in the night.
“Didn’t want to take your bed if your mom decided to move you after you kicked her in the back enough times.” Ash sat up and looked at the lumps that made up Elliot under the blankets. There was nothing but the steady rise and fall of breath, so he held his finger to his lips to keep Riley quiet.
Riley noticed, and his eyes twinkled. “Did you bring home a boyfriend?”
With a rueful smile, Ash flipped aside his covering and sat up, cursing the twinge in his spine from sleeping on the hardwood. And not only sleeping.
“No, just a friend. He gave me a ride.”
“Nice friend,” Riley said. “That’s a long ride.”
Ash pulled on his jeans and folded up his bedding. He tossed his pillow into Riley’s yawning face, earning a startled squawk.
“C’mon, kid. Let’s see what kind of breakfast we can make without any power.” He hauled the boy into a sideways hug and shuffled into the kitchen, glad he’d never gotten himself hooked on coffee to wake up.
“Mom says we have to eat all the meat before it goes bad,” Riley said, pulling thawed but still cold bacon from the freezer. He hesitated, then dove in for a package of sausage patties, too. “We have a grill out back.”
Ash looked out the sliding glass door to the small square slab of concrete that served as the house’s little patio and eyed the decrepit barbecue grill Charlotte hadn’t had the money to replace.
“Yeah, we can use that. Propane is good?”
Riley nodded, holding up a stick lighter. “I’m not supposed to play with fire. You have to do it.”
Ash snorted. “Didn’t you promise not to burn down the house?”
Riley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but that didn’t convince her. I’m ten, not two.” To prove he was a proficient Boy Scout and not a pyromaniac, he depressed the child safety button and the trigger, and let a small tongue of flame jut into the air for a few seconds. “See?”
“I do. You can help me, then.” Ash rummaged in the cabinet beneath the one small bit of counter space and brought out a square aluminum cake pan. “This should work for the meat.”
They trooped outside and Ash had Riley light the lighter and stick the flame in the grill before opening the propane tank valve. When the gas caught, he gave Riley a fist bump. Once they had the bacon and sausages spread in the pan, they left it to cook and returned to the kitchen, pawing through the darkened fridge for anything else still safe to eat. Milk went down the drain, and anything else dairy was carefully scrutinized. He thought about the eggs, but there were only a few, meaning Charlotte hadn’t just bought them, and he had no real way to cook them on the grill. He pitched them, along with all the diet food Charlotte had on hand. That shit’s not worth saving.
“Damn, that’s a lot of wasted yogurt,” Charlotte grumbled from the doorway. She tied her long blonde hair into a knot on top of her head and secured it with a clip, the hem of her t-shirt riding up. She was too skinny to need rabbit food, Ash observed. She did, however, look tired, even though she smiled and walked over to hug Ash hard, pecking a kiss on his cheek. “I told you not to come, baby brother.”
“Yeah, well, I had to see for myself you’re okay.” No sense in starting the argument about leaving yet.
She gave him a droll look. “I’m staying here, Ash.” Apparently he was too easy to read, and she had no qualms starting it.
He grunted noncommittally and returned to her fridge, tossing cream cheese and holding up a sleeve of bagels with interest. Those, he set on the counter, beside the individually wrapped slices of cheese he figured weren’t real food anyway, so would be good enough for breakfast sandwiches.
“I think there’s some orange juice concentrate in the freezer. Probably thawed but still good. I’ll get some bottled water.” She disappeared into the basement and returned, heaving a shrink-wrapped bulk bundle of bottles.
“How many of those do you have?” he asked hopefully.
“Four.”
“Good. Conserve it. Tap water is fine to rinse dishes if you use anti-bacterial soap, but we’re not drinking it.”
Leaning on the counter in front of the cold stove, she crossed her arms over her small breasts. “Ash, it isn’t going to happen. I’m not going with you to Uncle Marvin’s. I have a job, and Riley has another two months of school. We’re fine here. They’ll get the power back on like normal, and I’ll hit my savings to replace the food. I’m out a few hundred bucks, but that’s the worst of it.”
He looked at Riley and smiled. “Hey, buddy. Can you go get Elliot up and show him where the bathroom is? Show him your room while you’re giving him the grand tour.”
Waiting until the boy was out of earshot, he returned to mixing the orange juice in a glass pitcher with more water than he wanted to use, but a big breakfast before they hit the road was a good idea.
“What if that’s not the worst of it?”
She threw up her hands. “What-ifs never help, Asher, and you know it. What if Dad had never gone to war? What if Mom hadn’t gotten cancer? Does it change anything, thinking about what could have been? No.”
He set his jaw, stubbornness shuttering his face. “I know, but those what-ifs are about the past. This is something we can prep for.”
“Oh, like crazy Uncle
Marvin?” She nearly sneered. “You ever stop to think that maybe being in Afghanistan fucked him up a little bit?” She pointed her finger at the side of her head and twirled it.
He bristled. “No, he’s just seen shit normal people don’t have to in the name of protecting our country. He’s been on the front lines so you can sleep peacefully at night.”
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit.” This time she did snarl. “Don’t get me wrong, I respect them for their service, but they left a hell of a mess in their wake. I’m proud of Dad, but it took me a long time to forgive him. Both of us grew up before we had to.”
Ash snorted, moving beside her to throw the empty juice can in the trash. “That’s because you went and got yourself knocked up by Evan Christianson at sweet sixteen. Not because Dad died the year before.”
The resounding crack of her palm on his cheek was more in his head than in the room, but it was still loud.
“Died fighting someone else’s fight,” she said fiercely.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing his anger and contrition for having said something so hurtful as to earn a slap. “They brought the fight to us. They used our planes as missiles, brought down our buildings. How many times do we have to go over this? What Dad did, putting off his retirement after 9/11, was the bravest, most selfless thing he could have done. It was how he looked after us and more.”
“Look, you can hero-worship Dad all you want, but do not leave me the way he did, by getting caught up in all these crazy end-of-the-world scenarios Uncle Marvin cooks up. That little boy may have been an accident,” she hissed, pointing defiantly at the back of the house where Ash hoped like hell Riley was busy trying to wow Elliot with his Lego collection, “but he’s one of the best things to happen to me. He’s my reason to keep going and try to do Mom and Dad proud, even if they’re not here to see it. I can’t afford to screw up now, and that includes not going on half-cocked adventures across the country. His future depends on it.”
Ash spread his hands, hating the pleading note in his voice. “Don’t you get it? The future we planned for is very possibly over. My degrees won’t mean shit because there will be no jobs, there will be no companies left to work for after society falls to pieces. We have to get to Uncle Marvin so we can ride out the shitstorm and maybe have any kind of future at all.”
“Will you listen to yourself?” The more upset she got, the more shrill she became. “I swear, Ash, I appreciate you looking out for us, and we’re in this together, same as we’ve always been, but if you’re going off the deep end, I need to help you, not the other way around.”
He was getting nowhere, and the needle on his temper rapidly approached the red zone. Gusting out a frustrated breath, he glared at her. “I’m not leaving you to deal with this.”
“What about your classes?”
“I don’t think they’ll be having them. City was dark, too. It’s not just Auburn that went out, Char.”
“Oh,” she said, as though the information surprised her.
“Yeah. The whole state is out. The drive up here was black as ink. Jersey and Pennsylvania, too, at least what we saw of them. Twenty million people, Charlotte. It took a month to restore power to eight million after Hurricane Sandy. Now do you get it?”
She chewed on her lower lip and moved to the back door, which reminded him to check their breakfast. He stepped around her. Flipping meat with tongs, he hoped it was finally getting through her thick skull the danger they faced.
“About five more minutes,” he said, coming back inside. She stared blankly across the tiny backyard with its neatly trimmed grass and freshly stained fence. He had to hand it to her—she didn’t have much, but she took good care of what she did have.
“I want to see what happens, Ash,” she finally said, looking at him as he pulled the trash liner from the can and tied the handles in a knot. “I’m not saying you’re right, but I’m open to the possibility you are. Can you give me time to be more sure before I drag my son away from everything he’s ever known?”
Keeping the cringe off his face was difficult, but he nodded. “The sooner we go, the safer the trip will be, but we can wait a couple days. Elliot’s anxious to call his parents, so I’m going to scope out payphones in town and hope one is working. While I’m there, I’ll get groceries.”
“I have plenty of canned food,” she said absently.
“No harm in getting more before it’s all gone,” he said, trying to stay light.
“Who’s Elliot?”
“A, uh, friend of mine.” It felt strange calling Elliot a friend, but given the circumstances, and since Elliot seemed to want the job, he supposed there wasn’t any point in denying it. Especially after last night. “He’s the one who let me use his car to get up here so fast.”
Charlotte arched an interested brow. “A friend. You haven’t had friends for years.”
Ash threw his hands up and grabbed the trash bag, stomping through the door leading to the carport.
“I’m not some socially stunted moron, you know,” he hollered through the screen. “I am capable of real friendships.” He scowled at her upon returning to the kitchen, going to check the grill again, taking an oven mitt with him.
Charlotte gave a contrite laugh and followed him. “Baby brother, you’re one of a kind and worth your weight in gold.” She hugged him hard from behind, and he let her, hoping his loyalty would be noted, which he tried to convey with a pat on her arms. This was their way, fighting like feral cats, then forgetting it in minutes, knowing no matter what, they had each other.
“C’mon. I’ll introduce you to Elliot and make sure your son hasn’t roped him into building a Lego empire on the floor of his bedroom.” Ash pulled the hot pan from the grill and shut off the propane. “I still remember the curse words you invented last time you walked barefoot into his room with laundry.”
She snickered and allowed him to lead her down the hall after they’d set everything on the kitchen table. He stamped down his unease at being stuck doing nothing for the foreseeable future and, for the first time in years, introduced someone to his family.
Breakfast was a quick affair, thrown-together bagel sandwiches on paper plates to avoid unnecessary cleanup. Charlotte asked about Elliot’s classes, his parents, and his world travels when she found out he’d been out of the country several times. He was polite and told her tales of tropical islands, a multi-country European trip the previous summer, and taking a shark cruise in the Cape of Good Hope off the coast of South Africa when he was in high school.
Riley was fascinated. “Did you see a great white?”
“Yeah, several of them.”
“Did you swim with them?” The light in Riley’s eyes was unmistakable, and Ash couldn’t help marvel at the easy way Elliot had taken to the boy.
“Well, no. That dive certification is more intense than we had time for on that trip, and it’s dangerous to snorkel above them. But we were able to watch them swim pretty close to the surface, and the water there is amazingly clear.”
“I want to swim with sharks some day,” Riley announced, shoving his last bite of bagel in his mouth, making his cheeks bulge like a hamster storing nuts.
“God, you’re going to make me gray before I’m thirty.” Charlotte wrapped both hands around her glass of orange juice, knees drawn to her chest with her heels on the edge of her chair, tucked into herself.
She’s too thin again, Ash thought. Remembering the diet food in her fridge, he narrowed his eyes.
“How’s the job going?”
“Same as always. Getting my butt pinched by the guards who think it’s okay because they leave me a tip.”
Ash nearly growled until he saw Elliot’s eyes practically bug out of his head, his face turning the deep crimson of embarrassment.
“Why don’t you start breaking fingers? I know you can.” Ash hated that she had sacrificed a chance to take nursing classes when he’d gotten his scholarships. Now she was stuck as a waitress in
a shitty diner, working paycheck to paycheck and at the mercy of the assholes who dined there.
“Because I can’t afford to lose my job, Ash.” So simple, really. And infuriating.
“Well, when I graduate, I’m getting you out of here.” He stopped short. He’d always planned to help her go back to school once he was through, but now, he had no idea if plans he’d had for years, so ingrained into his psyche, would come to fruition. She grabbed his hand across the table when he went quiet.
“We take care of each other,” she said confidently. “No matter what happens.”
“That include me?” a new voice chimed in. Charlotte’s boyfriend Russ wandered in, plopping down in the remaining seat at the table, eyeing the pan of food. “How did you make breakfast sandwiches?” He grinned at her, his too-short, brown hair showing more scalp than Ash figured Russ realized. His smile was genuine, even if it didn’t conceal his disappointment at the meager food.
Ash stiffened. “Barbecue grill and a cake pan.”
Russ made himself a sandwich while Charlotte pried a new paper plate off the stack. “Here, hon.” She passed it across to him as he dove in like a starving man.
“Bacon’s too crispy,” he said through a mouthful. “And weren’t there eggs?”
Ash scraped his chair back and stood. “I didn’t trust the eggs to still be good.” Unable to put his finger on why, Ash had never liked Russ. He was a nice guy, pleasant enough to Charlotte, but there was always a barb to his comments, as though the things people did around him never quite lived up to his expectations. And Russ judged them for it.
Charlotte turned her attention to her boy. “Riley, why don’t you get dressed? We can go to the park today since there’s no TV to watch.” Obediently, Riley scurried from the table.
“I can take him with me to the store if you want,” Ash offered. “I need to find Elliot a working payphone so he can get back to the city in daylight.” He’d prefer to go to the store immediately, but given he’d agreed to give Charlotte time to think about leaving, and that he didn’t want to worry his nephew needlessly, a couple hours of normality wasn’t out of the question.