Page 21 of Bunker Down, Baby

Dean

You ever try playing poker when the woman you’re all wildly in love with just got dragged off by your grumpiest bunker mate?

Yeah. Kills the vibe a little. None of us were feeling particularly like betting on clothes anymore.

We switched to pool instead.

Turns out Evan is a fucking shark. Cold, calculating, deadly as hell with a cue. And Wade? Cowboy shoots like the table owes him money. Trick shots. Bounce shots. I swear at one point he made the cue ball hop over mine just to prove he could.

Me? I’m more of a vibes player. My strategy is mostly pelvic-based and relies heavily on Maple being nearby and bendy.

And just when I’m lining up what I think might be a totally legal shot, Brock strolls back in.

Slow. Loose. Looking like a man who just tasted victory and is trying not to brag about it.

Except that man doesn’t just look like he got laid. He looks like he broke something doing it.

Maple trails in after him like a woman who has no regrets, no shame, and maybe no bones left in her legs. She drapes herself against Wade like she needs a cowboy crutch and he just smiles down at her like she’s the sweetest damn thing to ever kidnap a man and steal his livestock.

I salute. “Welcome to the harem, brother,” I say, cue in one hand, beer in the other. “She break you in good?”

Brock doesn’t answer. Not with words. Just gives me a look that could sand the paint off a truck and makes a beeline for the far wall, arms crossed, like he hasn’t just been baptized in our queen’s divine syrup.

Maple just beams at me, all smug and sparkly-eyed, then turns her face into Wade’s chest and sighs like a woman who got rearranged properly and is still floating.

Wade kisses the top of her head like the goddamn cinnamon roll he is.

“Kind of rude you didn’t invite any of us,” Evan mutters, sinking another shot like he’s not picturing what we could’ve done in that armory.

I laugh, full-body and shameless. “Goddamn, Doc, give the grumpy bastard his solo moment. Let the man feel special.”

Maple peeks up at Wade, all mock-innocent and wrecked.

Wade raises an eyebrow. “Wait, hold on. Group time was an option?”

“You just got here,” I point out, cueing up my next shot. “Put in your damn time and Evan and I might let you tag in on a playdate.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Evan says, deadpan.

I lean over the table, hips swaying on purpose. “Brock’s got your feral energy, Doc. It’s a little hot.”

I sink the ball. Clean. Totally on purpose. Probably. Then I grin at Maple. “What do you say, sweetheart? Me and Wade heat up your syrup while Evan whispers snark into your ear?”

She snorts, biting her lip like she’s trying not to look too into it. Fails miserably. Girl’s glowing like a full moon.

Brock, still posted up near the wall, finally speaks. Voice low. Steady. “Don’t stay up too late.”

And that’s it. That’s the whole sentence. But he says it like he owns the air in the room now.

“We need to talk security plans tomorrow,” he goes on. “I want to see how you four handle a gun. And we need to bring Holden into this fold. Shit outside’s bad enough. We don’t need problems on the inside too.”

I whistle. “See? Told you. Brock or Holden had the Daddy Vibes.”

Evan doesn’t even look up. “Pretty sure Brock could kill a man with a spoon.”

Wade shrugs. “Guess we better not let him near the cereal.”

Maple giggles, actual, full-on giggles, and it punches me in the heart.

She looks at all of us like we’re her prize collection.

And I know I should be worried. I mean, sure. I got drugged and dragged into an underground bunker by a woman who bought my favorite cologne and installed a generator just so I’d fix it shirtless. But looking around at these half-wild, lunatics, it kind of feels like home.

The moment Maple settles herself onto the pool table, one sock on, Evan’s shirt half-buttoned, hair like she’s been worshipped by a bear and a lumberjack at the same time, I know this night’s about to go completely off the rails.

And I am so here for it.

Wade’s lining up a shot, twirling the cue between those big farm-boy hands like it’s foreplay. “If I can sink the three with two banks,” he says, casual as hell, “I’m in the next group that gets her naked.”

Maple grins from the table like a queen with no intention of stopping her knights from jousting over who gets to go down on her first.

I raise a hand. “Before we let the cowboy into our sin circle, full disclosure, him and Evan are sharks.”

“Fact,” Evan says, not even glancing up as he chalks his cue. “This table belongs to us.”

“Aw, come on,” Wade says, smiling like he’s about to rob us all blind. “I’ll be gentle.”

Then he makes the shot. Two banks. Corner pocket. Cue ball spins like a devil’s yo-yo and stops dead center like it knows it just helped its master unlock a threesome.

“Holy shit,” I mutter. “Okay. He’s in.”

Maple slow claps, still draped across the felt like a pin-up ad for bunker-funded porn. “I love team spirit.”

Wade walks past me and slaps my ass.

I yelp, just a little, and then grin. “You gotta buy me dinner first, cowboy.”

“I’ll bring the bacon in the morning,” he shoots back, and Maple laughs so hard she almost rolls off the table.

Evan lines up his next shot. “You’re all idiots.”

Maple hums. “Hot idiots.”

Pool’s devolved into chaos, which is pretty on-brand for us at this point. Wade’s lining up shots like he’s hustling the table for beers we don’t have, Evan’s chalking his cue with the kind of precision you usually only see in snipers, and Maple’s parked herself back on the edge of the table like a human reward system we all want to win.

Brock’s hovering nearby, still new, still watching, but he’s not scowling anymore. I mean, he’s not smiling, but I caught him checking out Maple’s legs and not threatening to shoot anyone about it, so I’m calling that a win.

And just when I’m about to offer a new bet, first one to land a shot gets a kiss and a personal apocalypse chore exemption for a week, the radio crackles.

It’s been droning in the background all night, mostly static and reruns of emergency warnings and failed press conferences. We’ve all kind of tuned it out, like noise in a dream.

But this one cuts different.

“…martial law has now been declared in all major metro areas… rioting reported outside Phoenix… emergency responders unable to reach multiple hospitals…”

The room goes still.

Even Maple stops twirling her hair.

“…cases of violent psychosis linked to failed vaccine trials now confirmed in six states…”

I feel it first in my gut.

Like cold fingers around the edge of my ribs.

I glance at Evan. His jaw tightens. Wade’s cue lowers. Brock shifts his stance like he’s waiting for a door to get kicked in.

We don’t say anything for a second.

We don’t have to.

The silence that follows is heavier than any joke I could make.

And that’s when it hits me, really hits me.

She’s right.

All of it. Every insane thing she’s done. Every plan she made. Every list, every lock, every can of soup and stockpile of condoms and goddamn handpicked man she dragged down here like some unhinged doomsday cupid.

She was right. And she didn’t just save herself. She saved us.

“Shit,” Wade mutters, voice low. “It’s actually happening.”

Evan exhales through his nose. “Guess we’re not going back to work next week.”

Maple doesn’t say anything. She’s just watching us. Like she’s waiting to see what we’ll do now that the fantasy’s dead and the bunker is the only reality left.

And I know what I’m gonna do.

I set my cue down, cross the room, and press a kiss to her temple, same spot Wade kissed earlier. “You’ve got us,” I say quietly. “All of us.”

She blinks up at me. And for once, Maple Monroe, Queen of Crazytown, Duchess of Prepping, Empress of the Apocalypse, looks surprised. “You mean that?” she whispers.

“Baby,” Wade says, stepping up beside me, voice soft but steady, “You got my damn tractor and livestock here in one trip. You think I’m not all in?”

“I was all in the second I realized you already knew my toothpaste brand,” Evan mutters. Then adds, deadpan, “And I’m not sharing it with any of these bastards.”

Brock is the last one to move. He steps forward. Slow. Heavy boots on concrete. Then he nods once. “If anyone tries to take this from us,” he says, voice low and calm, “I’ll bury them.”

It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.

Maple makes this tiny sound, half laugh, half breathless moan, and I know she’s probably thinking about blowing us all in a line like it’s a team-building exercise.

I reach out, take her hand, and squeeze it.

“I’m gonna build you the best fucking panic room in this place,” I say. “Steel, reinforced. Custom bed. Soundproof walls. The works.”

“Why soundproof?” she asks, lips twitching.

I grin. “So no one hears you when you scream my name and gets jealous.”

She grins back, and just like that, just like that, the moment softens.

But underneath it? We’re not just five lunatics in a bunker anymore. We’re a family.

And the world outside? It can fucking burn.

Just when I think the evening’s finally settled into its natural rhythm of horny nonsense and pool-based foreplay Holden’s voice booms down the hallway. “You’re all fucking feral!”

Everyone freezes.

Then Holden speaks again, growling like a man who’s been listening to five idiots flirt through a concrete wall for too long. “You think any of you actually know what to do with a woman like her? Or a bunker like this? You’re all just playing house in a powder keg.”

Maple lifts her head, eyes wide, lips parting like oh my God. “Is that…” she breathes.

Wade smirks. “Sounds like someone’s jealous.”

Evan doesn’t even look up. “He’s not invited to group play until he’s housebroken and declawed.”

Maple hops down from the table, giggling. “I’m gonna go see if Daddy Holden wants to join game night.”

I call after her, “Tell him there’s room on the table if he wants to stop growling and start grinding!”

Wade laughs. Evan sighs.

I watch her hips sway down the hallway like trouble incarnate and think this is the best ‘end of the world’ kidnapping ever.