by Lake, D. K.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
"I love it." I said honestly, still not believing we could go from not talking for six days to this.
"And I love you." he said and I had to remember how to breathe because he really had a way of making me breathless when he told me he loved me.
He gently cupped my face in his hands and I pulled him closer and our lips met somewhere in the middle. The kiss was hungry and full of passion, and we couldn't get enough of each other. I loved him so much. We finally broke apart breathing hard.
"So what happens now?" I asked as he rubbed his nose against mine.
"I guess we'll figure it out as we go." he said.
"I love you so much. You make me crazy."
"I love you too, and I'm sorry if I'm a bit of a jerk sometimes."
"You said it, not me." I teased.
"Kiss me." Drew said, reeling me in again.
"Do I get a choice?" I smiled, our lips almost touching.
"I don't think either of us ever had a choice. It was always you." Drew breathed before pressing his lips to mine again.
Epilogue
It was a warm day in Dodge Lake, Louisiana. Drew had said it would be extra warm today and he was right. He was always right. Even predicting the thunderstorm that woke me up last night and frightened the life out of me. It was like having my very own weather man.
It was getting on to five in the evening and Ellie would be wondering where we were by now. We always lost track of time when we were on the bayou, and we had been out on the boat for three hours catching fish for the barbecue tonight, and I had spent most of the time under a sun umbrella while Drew and Lainey just soaked up the sun. I had coated Lainey in about three layers of sunblock but she always tanned, just like her dad. I'm the one that turned into a tomato after a day in the sun.
Drew steered the small boat toward the dock and Lainey and I stayed in the boat until Drew had secured it to the dock. I hadn't seen any alligators today, some days you saw loads, other days you saw none. I lifted Lainey up to Drew and he lifted her onto the dock and the daisy ankle bracelet she wore all the time jingled as she bounced away. She couldn't sit still for long, but what seven-year-old could? I was amazed she could sit still for hours on end when we were fishing.
I had named her Lainey in memory of Lane, of course. He was still a big part of my life even if he wasn't here he was always on my mind, and I often talked to Lainey about him.
Lainey was the spitting image of Drew. Beautiful big blues, light brown hair that was nearly blond but not quite, and it got lighter the more time she spent in the sun, and a freckled nose. She even had his lips. The only thing she got from me was my clumsiness. She was always falling over her own feet and grazing her knees.
"Slow down, you're gonna fall!" I called, reminding her not to run.
She skipped to the end of the dock, her favorite white dress with the pretty bird print blowing in the breeze. I was wearing my short shorts and a tank, and Drew was in a pair of ratty khaki cargo pants that needed to be thrown away and no shirt. I glanced at his tanned torso and he caught me checking him out. He had gotten a new tattoo last month as a thank you from our neighbor for Drew helping them to fix their roof. It was of a black snake that ran around the whole of his left arm. I didn't like it at first but it was slowly growing on me.
"Settle down." he smirked.
"What? I thought I saw a bee." I said with a smile.
"Yeah right. I know exactly what you're thinking, 'cause I'm thinking the same thing." Drew stepped up to me and pulled me to him, grabbing my ass in one hand and giving it a squeeze and placing his other hand on the back of my head and pulling me closer so I had no choice but to fall into his arms.
"Kiss me." he groaned after I playfully resisted the first two attempts and dodged his lips.
"I like to make you work for it." I teased before finally letting him put his lips on me.
We got lost in each other for a few minutes, it happened a lot. Some days we didn't get much done. I still couldn't get enough of him even after all these years. And I was nearer to thirty than I was twenty. And Drew was getting close to forty. But I wasn't allowed to talk about it, he got really tetchy when I mentioned how old he was getting. I still loved winding him up, though.
After Drew had finished his daily groping of my ass, we collected all our stuff, including a cooler full of fish. Today had been a good day. We left the fishing rods in the boat. No one stole from anyone in Dodge Lake, everyone knew everyone, and everyone was friendly and laid-back. Not much bothered the people in Dodge Lake.
We had nearly made it to the end of the dock when Drew suddenly put down the cooler and I looked to see what he was doing and saw him lifting his crossbow off his back. Yes, he still had his crossbow. I think he loved the thing as much as he loved Lainey and me.
I glanced back at Lainey and my heart jumped into my mouth. It always did when I saw one of them. A deadbie. A zombie. A walker. Whatever you wanted to call them. It was still a shock to the system. I sometimes forgot they even existed living in this quiet town. We rarely saw any and parts of the town had been secured so you could walk around without even worrying about them.
Drew stepped over the cooler and crept to the end of the dock. Lainey was crouched down in the dirt looking at something on the ground. The deadbie stumbled toward her and I left my bag to go over to her. The deadbie groaned and dragged its leg along the ground, getting closer to Lainey with every second. Drew was already in front of me aiming his crossbow at its head.
The thing shuffled straight past Lainey, heading straight for Drew. Drew aimed higher and shot the thing in the head and it collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap. Lainey stood up, unfazed, holding her finger out in front of her. She was so distracted she hadn't even seen the deadbie.
"Look, Momma, a ladybug." Lainey said with a big smile on her face.
I let out the breath I had been holding in. So far Lainey had been blessed with the same immunity as me. None of the deadbies wanted her, and we were still the only two that had such immunity, but it still scared the shit out of me if I saw one anywhere near her just in case it was one of the deranged ones and it went after her. Sometimes we let our guard down, like today, but in general, the deadbies were dying out and people were getting on with their lives without worrying so much.
"She's ok." Drew reached over and squeezed my shoulder before walking over to the deadbie and pulling the arrow out of its head. He wiped the blood off on the deadbie's clothing and fitted it back onto his bow before hopping over the deadbie to pick Lainey up, hoisting her onto his shoulders.
I followed them back to the banger of a car we used to get back and forth to the bayou. It worked and hadn't let us down so I wasn't complaining.
Drew lifted Lainey off his shoulders and I helped to strap her into the car while Drew went back for the cooler.
Drew had been a great father to Lainey. We had stayed at the White House and I decided to go ahead and have the baby. She was a healthy baby born at 2.15 am weighing 6Ib and 8oz. And there wasn't one complication and it all went smoothly. She had the brightest eyes and a cute little tuft of hair on top of her head. All tests came back clear and it wasn't until we were on the road that we discovered Lainey was immune like me. It made traveling with her easier, knowing she wasn't a target. When we left Washington we left Nick in the process of developing thousands and thousands of vaccines that they named Alexia221 because I was number #221 that Nick administered the cure to. Now if you had been bitten and survived then you could get the vaccine shot and it would reverse the effects of the virus, but it didn't make you immune so you still had to be careful and not get bitten again. Things had changed a lot over the past years with more government facilities being set up where everyone could get access to the cure, and army groups were sent out to the towns and villages to deliver the cure and food supplies to the survivors. Up until the cure was produced a lot of people had given up hope, including a lot of the high-ranki
ng government personnel which is why they gave up in a lot of places and stopped helping people, but when the word spread that a cure had been created people started heading to Washington in the hundreds, and it's now the most populated city in all of USA. Unbelievable right? Oh, and now there was even a mail delivery service, it would take weeks or even months to receive a letter but you'd eventually get it. I would write to Sophie and Hutch all the time and she would do the same and all her letters would usually arrive in one big stack of envelopes and I'd get to read through a whole bunch of them in one sitting. I was still in touch with Nick, and the last I heard he was dating the female scientist that works in his lab. I'm really pleased for him, and I miss him.
Drew dropped the cooler into the trunk and slid into the driver's seat. He never let me drive. Never. We drove back along the bayou, taking in the beautiful scenery, miles and miles of fields. The closer you got to the town is where you'd find the ridiculously large homes but most of them were abandoned now and the wilderness had consumed them. We drove through the town where there were lots of people today all milling around, some just sitting in deck chairs or sun-loungers soaking up the sun, and there was a little craft fair set up today, but not for profit. Money didn't exist in our world anymore. Everything was free, you just had to learn to share. Some people still traded but it was all very friendly. Most people were pushing shopping carts along the sidewalks because they couldn't be bothered to search for fuel to run a vehicle. Drew and I had got lucky when we went scavenging last month so we didn't have to walk anywhere this month, but who knows about next month. Drew kept saying we should get some horses. Everyone knew about me in Dodge, and I had become somewhat of a celebrity in the town. Everyone knew it was my blood that was used to create the cure, so I no longer had to hide my eyes from anyone and was accepted just the way I was.
We lived on a quiet little street on the edge of town. Both ends had been gated for security reasons and it was like our own personal gated community with twenty-seven other people living on the street. A lot of the community had moved into the town to be closer to the other survivors and it's where the food banks were set up.
Drew pulled into the drive of the little three bedroom house we had taken over as the previous residents had left when the virus hit and just disappeared. I loved living here. We could live in any of the fancy houses in Dodge but I would still choose to live here because we had the best neighbors on either side, including Drew's sister, Ellie who also happened to be my sister-in-law. When we finally made it to Louisiana, we got married in front of Drew's sister and all his friends. It was one of the best days of my life, aside from giving birth to Lainey, of course.
Ellie lived next door with her boyfriend Desmond and their two-year-old daughter, Neve. She was the kinda neighbor that would pop over unannounced...and she may have caught Drew and me in the middle of something on the kitchen floor the other night. She should really learn to knock.
We all got out of the car and Drew lugged the cooler around the back of the house and through the side gate. I opened the front door and Lainey zipped past me beelining for the TV. Since we'd had the electricity switched back on she had become obsessed with the Disney movies, and every time I left the house she requested I find her another. At the minute she was really into Frozen and I had managed to find her an Elsa and Anna doll which she was in love with, and I was still looking for Olaf.
I smiled as the opening song to Frozen came on. Was it sad that I knew all the songs off by heart?
I closed the door, already enjoying the cool air that the air con was kicking out. We'd just had our electricity switched on three months ago, and now I didn't know how we had survived without it for so long. Air con was the best thing ever, and water. The water supply was up and running, that had happened last year.
I could see Drew in the garden already setting up the barbecue. Ours and Ellie's backyard had been merged into one and there was a large patio set up for us adults and a little table with a parasol for the kids. We thought it was better to turn the space into one large backyard as we could fit more in for the children, including the trampoline and sandpit. But we also spent a lot of time at the neighbor's house lounging in their pool on inflatable doughnuts.
I opened the fridge and grabbed the jug of ice cold water and poured Lainey and myself a glass each, and set one on the coffee table for her. I carried mine outside where Drew already had the barbecue warming up. Ellie's back door slammed shut and she appeared with her arms full of cutlery and plates.
"You're late." Ellie said, bumping into her brother and Drew just chuckled.
"Sorry, El, we lost track of the time." I said.
"Our guests will be here in one hour!" Ellie reminded me.
By guests, she meant a few of the neighbors. We did this quite a lot, Ellie loved hosting dinner parties for us adults and the children got to meet up and play together.
Ellie was a lot like Drew. They shared the same blue eyes, the same hair color but Ellie had recently bleached hers and now it was pink and she'd had it cut to her shoulders. Drew had gone back to his natural color over the years and it made him look much more grown up and sexier. They were the same height and Ellie was as slim as Drew. I was told she used to weigh more but she'd had her stomach stapled or something like that and she lost a ton of weight. The pair of them were always teasing each other and playfully bickering.
Ellie's back door swung open again and Neve waddled out with a bottle in her mouth. Desmond walked out behind her and followed her over to the sandpit. Desmond was a little older than Drew and he used to be a police officer. He met Ellie when he was assigned to come out to our area to drop off the vaccine and medical supplies. Ellie had volunteered to hand out sandwiches that day to the delivery drivers and the rest is history.
We had a lot to thank him for as he had set up an allotment to grow fruit and vegetables that we would regularly harvest.
"Alex, help me lay the table?" Ellie asked nicely.
I helped lay the table, but Ellie kept pointing at the table and reminding me where to place everything and she kept going behind me and moving everything, it really annoyed me but she did this every time, I didn't know why she even asked for my help.
The food was almost ready and I was just putting out the drinks when I heard voices around the side of the house and a second later the gate opened and Lena walked through carrying a tray that was covered in tin foil.
"Hey!" she said, coming over to me. "I made cakes." She smiled and Ellie was quick to whip the tray away from her before the kids caught wind of the cakes.
"For dessert only." Ellie said and carried the tray inside.
"Hi, Drew. Smells good." Lena said, looking at the grilled fish.
He didn't turn around and just held up the spatula in the air to acknowledge her. I heard laughing and Evan and Dan tumbled through the side gate chasing each other. Dan smiled at me and helped himself to a drink. We had come a long way, and it had taken us this long for him to warm up to me. Evan went over to the barbecue and stood next to Drew. Ellie came back out and picked up Neve and put her in the highchair at the end of the table.
"Where are the others?" Ellie asked.
"They're coming. She's not as quick on her feet at the moment." Lena replied.
"Any day now." Ellie said excitedly. Everyone got settled around the table and Lainey sat at the kids table pouting, waiting for her friends.
I heard squealing and not long after the triplet terrors burst through the gate and ran around the grass. Lilly walked through next with a pair of earbuds in her ears. She was fourteen and was going through that stage where us adults weren't cool enough to be seen with or whatever so she hardly talked to any of us at the moment. She was too busy with her friends that lived down the street. She was wearing tiny little shorts and a crop top, and her beautiful blond hair was in a messy bun on top of her head. She smiled at us and took a seat at the end of our table.
"You three, calm down!" Josh boomed, walking t
hrough the gate carrying a large cushion. "Sorry." he apologized for his energetic terrors that were already in the sandpit chucking sand everywhere.
"It's fine, just sit down." Ellie told him.
The gate swung open again and Ozma strolled through with a Kindle in her hand, she loved reading and spending hours in the sun with her nose stuck in a good book. She was almost ten and had grown up so much, turning into a right little madame and taking after Lilly. Today she was wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt with a 'whatever' slogan across the front, and she had straightened her hair because she hated having curly hair. She had glitter on her eyelids and her nails were painted bright pink to match her sandals. She casually waved at us and sat down next to Lainey.
The gate opened one final time and Tammy walked through, her swollen belly seemed to have grown from the last time I saw her only a few days ago. She made it to the table and fell into the seat that Josh had set up with a large cushion for her back.
"You ok?" I asked.
"I just want it out of me now." she said and I laughed.
She was due to have the baby any day now and they were hoping for a girl. The had been blessed with three crazy-I mean, lovely boys. Noah, Zachary, and Thomas named after Josh's brother.
When we made it back to Eden I finally confessed and told Josh everything about meeting Thom and shooting him, and that Ozma was his niece. Josh was upset, of course, but he understood why I had done what I had. We traveled back to Utah together and Ozma had grown up a lot and she was already calling Tammy 'mommy' and it didn't feel right for me to take her away so we decided to let Tammy raise her. We planned to leave and travel to Louisiana and at the last minute, Tammy and Josh decided they wanted to come with us, bringing Lilly and Ozma along with them to try and make a new life here and somewhere along the way the pair of them fell in love. Now they had three children and another one due any day, and they cared for Lilly and Ozma as their own.