by Claire Kent
I stare blankly.
“So I don’t stink so much. Apparently you can smell me from miles away.”
“Oh!” I laugh softly. “Not miles. And I wasn’t talking about for you. I was talking about for me.”
His scowl turns into a confused frown. “You don’t need no deodorant.”
“Uh.”
“You smell just fine.” He turns around and searches through a pile on the floor.
I stare at his back and his butt for a minute with a weird mix of pleasure and disbelief.
I don’t smell fine. I smell like anyone would who’s been out in the heat for days without deodorant.
But maybe he thinks about my scent the way I think about his. Present but not really unpleasant. Familiar. Triggering some bone-deep instinct of possession.
No sense in worrying about deodorant anyway. Even if I found some, it wouldn’t last very long and then I’d end up stinking again.
I step over a pile of feminine-hygiene products and nearly kick a box of condoms.
I stare down at it.
I almost—almost—reach down and take it.
I’d like to have sex.
I’d like to have sex with Travis.
Our wrestling match earlier made that perfectly clear to me.
I would really enjoy it.
I’ve never had sex before.
I was only sixteen when the world went to shit, and I’ve only had one boyfriend since. Peter and I would have gotten there if we’d been given the chance, but he died before he got past third base.
And there hasn’t been anyone since. Not that I haven’t had offers. I’ve had plenty. And a lot of advances that went far beyond offers. But I never wanted to hook up with some guy just to hold on to him, just to stay safe, just to have a man.
Travis is different.
I want to have sex with him because I want sex. With him.
He’s made it clear he’s never going to make a move on me. But earlier today I discovered that he’s at least somewhat attracted to me.
So maybe sex is a possibility.
I almost take the condoms.
But I don’t.
Things are going well between Travis and me right now, and I don’t want to screw them up by misreading signals.
Maybe his erection was just an erection. It doesn’t mean he wants me for me.
And besides...
We have far more important things to think about right now than sex.
All the people we care about are in danger. Nothing matters except getting to Fort Knox soon enough to save them.
I leave the condoms on the floor as we get ready to go.
“You okay?” Travis shakes out a plastic bag he picked up from the floor and starts putting what we found in it.
“Yeah.” I smile at him. “I’m just fine.”
I am fine.
Sex simply isn’t a priority right now. And it doesn’t matter that the irony is bitterly amusing.
A virgin at the end of the world.
Four
IT’S RAINING WHEN WE come out of the drugstore.
In the year after the asteroid impact, half the world suffered from acid rain. We never had very much in the US, but rain doesn’t feel like it used to from my childhood. Clean. Refreshing. Natural.
Like the sky and the air, the rain now feels... dingy.
The drops that hit my skin aren’t as gross as they used to be, but I still run for the vehicle. The top protects us some, but the sides of the Jeep are open and the wind blows the rain right in.
“Damn it.” I wipe the moisture from my face, looking at my hands, relieved they’re not smeared with soot and dirt.
The rain’s definitely getting better. At least it doesn’t make you dirty anymore.
“It’s fixin’ to get dark anyway.” Travis wipes his face with his shirt. “Let’s find a house and call it a night.”
“Sounds good to me. We just need to find one that hasn’t been too damaged.”
We drive through the commercial part of town until we reach the residential areas. A lot of the houses are torn up from the earthquakes, but we finally come across a neighborhood in decent shape.
I’m soaked from the rain now and starting to shiver, and I frown at Travis as he passes by five or six houses that are damaged from the earthquakes but look like they’d be habitable.
“What’s wrong with all those?”
He’s got his head ducked, peering through the rain and fast-closing darkness. “Lookin’ for a more secure place if we can find one. That way you can sleep through the night.”
I feel the strangest tension in my chest. My eyes are wide as I stare at him.
He shoots me a couple of nervous looks. “What?” When I don’t answer, he asks more gruffly, “What?”
I clear my throat. “Nothing. Try up on that hill there. That location would have a great view, so there were probably bigger houses built there.”
Travis drives in the direction I indicated, and we find a two-story house surrounded by dying pine trees. It’s the least damaged house we’ve found so far. When he pulls up in front of the attached garage, he puts the Jeep into park, gets out, walks to the side of the garage, and peers through the window there.
“What’s wrong now?” I ask, my response to his thoughtfulness earlier transforming to annoyance because I’m soaking wet and exhausted.
“Nothin’. No car in that garage.”
“We don’t need gas right now.”
“I know that. Stay here. Slide over to the driver’s side.”
I don’t try to hide my groan. “Damn it, Travis. Can we just take this house?”
“Yeah. We’re gonna. Wait here. I’ll just be a minute.”
Before I can argue, he disappears around the back of the house.
I have just over a minute to sit and stew and mutter about Travis’s obnoxious habits.
Then the garage door in front of me is opening, his body slowly appearing as he lifts the door.
He waves me into the garage.
“Oh.” I drive the Jeep into the garage, park it, and turn it off.
“This way it’ll be out of the rain and out of sight.” Travis reaches over to help me out.
“Smart.” My compliment is rather begrudging but sincere.
He snorts softly.
Since we’re out of the rain, we’re able to pick and choose the supplies we’ll need for the night.
The occupants obviously had some time to pack up before they left. There isn’t any food or personal items, but the furniture and a lot of the kitchen supplies are still there. We head up to the three bedrooms on the second floor.
“None with two beds,” I say, moisture dripping down my face from my wet hair. My shoes squish as I walk.
“Shit.”
“We can use two rooms, I guess. Maybe—”
“Nope. We gotta be in the same room so I can block the door. Just pick one. Don’t matter which.”
I walk into the master, which is a large room with a four-poster bed and a decorative chaise under the window. “This one has a really big bed, so we can both sleep in it.”
I glance over to discover Travis is frowning.
“Travis, it’s fine. Who the hell cares about sharing a bed anymore? We sleep closer than that when we’re camping outside. I’m not going to let you sleep on that uncomfortable chaise, so it’s either share the enormous bed or else we take turns sleeping again.”
He grumbles, but I understand it as acceptance, so I let my armful of supplies fall to the floor.
He’s walking the perimeter of the room and opening the door to the closet and the attached bathroom when I notice something.
“Travis, look.”
He comes over to where I’m staring at a pretty brick fireplace. And a small pile of firewood beside it, obviously left over from when the owners of this house still slept here.
“Do you think this wood is still good?”
He gives a half shrug. “Probably. As
long as it’s dry, it’ll burn.”
“Can we make a fire, do you think?” It’s not cold in the room, but I’m shivering from being so wet. “Not all night. Just enough to warm up our soup.”
Travis hesitates, his eyes moving from my face to the hearth. “Guess it’d be all right. No one’s likely to see the smoke in the dark and the rain. Let me check the fireplace first to make sure it’s clear. And it has to be a small one. And we let it die out as soon as the soup is warmed.”
I grin up at him. “Deal.”
Pleased with this development, I go over to my bag and pull out a long T-shirt and the leggings I took from the house earlier today. Without thinking, I shuck my wet jeans and pull the leggings on instead.
I glance over at Travis. He was watching me, but now he turns his back and grabs a fistful of his wet T-shirt and pulls it off over his head.
Beyond shame, I turn away from him and do the same to my own shirt and tank, replacing them with the dry shirt.
When we’ve changed, I hang up our wet clothes in the bathroom shower so they’ll dry overnight. I return to see that Travis has already inspected the chimney and made a small fire using only one log.
Earlier today, we found some good vegetable beef soup. Not the condensed stuff but the thicker soup with big pieces of meat and vegetables in it. I open two cans and pour them into our pot, and Travis holds it over the fire until it’s warmed up.
While he’s doing that, I run downstairs and grab two bowls and spoons from the kitchen so we don’t have to eat from the pot.
We have our meal on the floor in front of the dwindling fire. The soup is thick and warm and full of big chunks of meat.
It’s the best meal I’ve had in ages.
I’m warm and satisfied as we finish. The rain is tapping steadily on the roof. I’m wearing clean, comfortable clothes. I feel full.
I smile at Travis in the firelight, and he almost smiles back.
“Don’t barricade the door yet,” I say. “I’m going to need to go to the bathroom again before bed.”
“Yeah. Me too. Drinkin’ more water than usual.”
“I guess that’s a good thing.” I stand up, stretch, and suddenly feel self-conscious. Travis’s eyes are on me, and I can’t read the expression in them.
Having nothing else to do, I flop onto the bed and stare up the ceiling, enjoying the feel of a full stomach and trying not to wonder what Travis is thinking about.
When I hear crinkling, I sit up to look.
He’s got something in a plastic bag. “Found these at that drugstore. Thought we could give ’em a try.” He walks over to dump a few brightly colored packages onto the bed beside me.
I gasp and clasp my hands together.
Candy.
Candy!
He sits down on the bed and slants me a sheepish look. “The chocolate wouldn’t be any good after four years, so I stuck to the other stuff. Bet some of this lasts forever.”
I’m giggling as I rip open a pack of Skittles and let the little disks of color fall like pebbles into a pile on the comforter. We both pick one up and meet each other’s eyes before we put the candy into our mouths.
“Oh my God,” I moan, falling backward as I chew. “It’s so good.”
Travis grunts.
I grab a few more and chew them, the pleasure from the sweet taste washing over me.
I might have moaned again. But who could blame me?
It’s been ages since I’ve had any sweets.
Travis opens a bag of jelly beans and eats one but makes a face as he chews. “Tastes okay, but it’s really hard. They didn’t hold up so well.”
I tear open the bag of gummy bears and try one. “Mmm. These are good. Maybe a little chewier than they’re supposed to be, but still good. And I’m sure the lollipops are good since they’re supposed to be hard. We should save those—they’ll last forever. That way we can have a little treat every day.”
Travis nods, chewing on some more Skittles.
We eat in silence for a while, sprawled out on the bed together.
Eventually I say, “It feels like Halloween.”
I glance over at Travis and see his head is turned toward me, his eyes resting on my face.
“It’s that same feeling,” I explain. “That sweet taste in your mouth and a little too much of it in your stomach. And that excitement at getting a big pile of treats all at once. You know?”
“Yeah. Feels just like that.”
“Did you go trick-or-treating as a kid?”
“Oh yeah. Made a real big deal of it in Meadows. Everyone would dress up, and our parents would drive us over to those long, straight streets near the duck pond, where we could hit dozens of houses all at once without walkin’ for miles up and down hills.” The corners of his mouth are turned up in the expression that passes as a smile for him. “There’d be hundreds of us kids, all goin’ to the same houses. Those poor folks in that neighborhood must have spent a fortune on candy.”
I giggle and grab a few more gummy bears. It takes a while to chew them. “I think they were still kind of doing that. My grandparents’ street got a lot, but they never got the full force of the trick-or-treaters. But a few streets down... Wow. It was impossible to drive on those roads on Halloween with all the kids out.”
“Did you ever go trick-or-treating in Meadows?”
“No. I was twelve when I moved there, and the first year I didn’t know anyone. After that I was too old.”
Travis rolls over onto his side so he’s facing me. He looks relaxed, warm, very sexy in the dim light. “Seem to recall teenagers coming to my house for candy sometimes. Way too old to be trick-or-treating.”
“I know.” I laugh. “Some of them were shameless. But I never did it. Although they had Halloween parties at the church I went to for a couple of years. Called them Hallelujah parties so they could be properly Christian and still get all the candy.”
Travis snorts, and this time I recognize it as a laugh. “I know those parties. I went to that same church growing up, and they had ’em then.”
“You said my grandma taught you at Sunday school?”
“She did. She was the best teacher.”
“Yeah.” My smile is poignant as affection and grief tighten my chest. “She really was.”
We chew in silence for a minute until Travis says, staring up at the ceiling, “Woulda took Grace to that church so your grandma could teach her too. She might’ve gone to those Hallelujah parties.”
The clench in my heart gets even tighter, harder. I look over and see the brief twisting of Travis’s features.
He loved his daughter as much as I loved my grandma.
He lost her too.
Not very long ago.
I’ve been numbed by loss, but not as much as Travis has. I wonder if he’s even been able to grieve for the death of his daughter.
Maybe he did his grieving in the weeks before she died.
Maybe he doesn’t know how to grieve anymore.
It’s one of the things that was lost when the world fell apart.
I don’t know what to say. And I’m afraid that if I say anything, Travis will pull back. He’ll lock up tight again, and I don’t want that to happen.
So I reach over to where his hand is resting on the comforter. I twine my fingers with his and squeeze.
He doesn’t squeeze back, but he doesn’t pull away.
I hold his hand for less than a minute. Then I let him go and reach for more candy.
I don’t want him to withdraw, so I search for something light to say to break the tension. “Did they make the kids dress up like Bible characters for the Hallelujah parties when you were a kid?”
“Oh yeah.” Travis sounds relaxed again. “I went as a shepherd every year so I could just wear a bathrobe.”
I giggle helplessly at the image and his dry tone.
“What ’bout you? What did you dress up as?”
I smile up at the ceiling and swallow my Skittles before
I answer. “The last year I went, I dressed up as Esther. My grandma had this old... I don’t know what it was, a robe or nightgown or something. It was really fancy—green velvet with gold trim and this gorgeous beading. She got it on a trip somewhere, and I never saw her wear it. But it basically fit me, so I wore that with this shiny gold fabric over my head as a veil. I curled my hair around my face and wore dark eyeliner and lipstick.”
“I bet you looked real pretty.”
“I sure thought so. I was so proud of my gorgeousness.” I laugh softly, my eyes never leaving Travis’s relaxed face. “I don’t know what my grandparents were thinking. Letting me dress up as Esther. Fourteen years old and going to church dressed as a woman in a harem. But she was from the Bible, so it must be all right.”
Travis laughs too. A real laugh. And he’s smiling like I’ve never seen him before.
We still have more candy to eat.
And I’m happy.
For that moment, I’m happy.
I WAKE UP IN THE MIDDLE of the night, warm and cozy and surrounded by the smell of Travis.
I know immediately what happened, even before I open my eyes. When we went to bed, we were both under the covers but on opposite sides of the bed. But now I’m snuggled up against him.
I have a vague hope that he was the one who rolled over toward me, but I can see when I open my eyes that’s not what happened. We’re on his side of the bed. Which means I’m the one who scooted over to cuddle.
He’s sound asleep, breathing slow and loud. His armpit hair tickles my forehead.
If he wakes up to discover we’re tangled together like this, he’s not going to like it. As carefully as I can, I pull away.
His arm tightens around me, and he mumbles in his sleep.
I lie still until he relaxes, and then I try pulling away again. This time I succeed. I roll over to my half of the bed and curl up on my side, facing away from him.
It’s not as warm and cozy over here, but this is where I need to stay.
IT’S ALMOST MORNING when I wake up next, and we’re snuggling again.
Travis is spooning me, the hard, hot lines of his body pressed against my back.
I open my eyes and realize we’re on my side of the bed this time, which means he’s the one who rolled.