Page 29

“There was a family hold up one of the high rises downtown. All the rich people have supplies, Silas said. I didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late.

They blew through that building like locusts.

Killed everyone alive and I couldn’t do a thing about it, and then I saw this mother and her kid just huddled in the corner of their fancy kitchen, begging for their lives.

He didn’t kill them, and that was worse.

I could tell what he wanted them for just from the way he was smiling.

It was so, so clear to me then. The two of them would wish they were dead by the time he was finished.

So I took one of the small marble vases on a shelf and slammed it against his head.

They ran. I hope they got out, I dunno. I took off two of Silas’s fingers with a butcher knife and left him with a crooked nose while we fought.

I intended to kill him, but it was over when the others showed up after hearing all the noise. ”

“He held a grudge all this time?”

“Oh hell yeah, he did. It was a betrayal, even though we barely knew each other. They found plenty of use for me after that. I was the first prisoner they kept. Showed them how practical it could be, I guess. You know what the worst part is?”

“What?”

In the years after, there were times when I regretted saving those people. How awful is that?”

“You can’t blame yourself for your thoughts, Wade. You did save them. That’s what matters.”

What she doesn’t tell him is that for a brief moment, she wishes he never saved that mother and her kid, either.

Wishes he had never gotten on the wrong side of a monster and lost six years of his life over a brawl at the start of the apocalypse.

Wishes it didn’t feel like he traded his freedom for strangers.

It had such a ripple effect that tore both of them apart in the days since.

None of that matters anymore. Of course, he saved them.

That’s who he is, and part of why she’s loved him since they met.

“Do you ever have good dreams?”

“Sometimes,” she admits.

“Tell me one?”

It’s easy to land on one of her favorites.

“I’ve dreamed of us. I wake up and find you making me coffee.

We drink it together while watching the sunrise.

Somewhere pretty, like a beach or in the mountains.

It’s a little slice of life if none of this, the whole turn, had ever happened.

” She let more spill out than intended. Now it feels like she confessed to wanting a domestic life with her best friend.

“I mean, I’m not saying that things would have been like that. It’s weird. Dreams are weird.”

“I think about that sometimes, too. If things could have been different if none of this happened. Different for us.”

Just like that, the weight against her is gone, and he moves to leave, surprising her with the sudden shift.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Gonna let you get some sleep. I’m good now. I’ll be alright,” he grunts.

“Stay here.”

“You know it ain’t safe. Can’t get used to it.”

“I think it will be this time. You already had the dream. You told me about it. It might leave you alone the rest of the night.”

He watches her cautiously. “Just…sleep like this all night?”

They’ve done it before in the blue house, but he was distraught, and it wasn’t a conscious choice.

“Mhmm. All night. However you want,” she agrees.

“Is that what you want?”

She nods.

“How?”

He likes knowing the specifics before agreeing to things, but she’s not prepared for her shy reaction. “Like we were a moment ago? That was good.”

It’s awkward when it shouldn’t be, but she did just ask him to sleep with her, after all. It’s more than worth it for the rush of endorphins when he presses himself to her again.

“If I’m too heavy, you gotta tell me.”

“You’re not. I like it.”

He’s her own personal weighted blanket, and that feels better than it has a right to. She may be caught in unwanted fantasies at first, but it doesn’t take long to drift off once they’re tangled together.

* * *

When Kara wakes, she is alone. The spot beside her is cold and the closet is empty.

She yells his name at the top of her lungs, irrationally about to fly out the front door in her search, before hearing his voice from the kitchen.

“In here,” he calls back, with the dog barking in confirmation.

Sure enough, she finds him by the stove, looking like the embodiment of her best dream. The dog sits at his feet, watching hopefully for any breakfast tidbits, tilting his head with each turn of the spatula.

“Hey. You alright?” he asks.

“Yeah. I just got scared. I thought…”

He frowns. “Thought I left?”

“I overreacted.”

“You didn’t. It’s not like I didn’t do it once already. Sorry. I didn’t wanna wake you. You were sleeping so good.”

She moves closer while adrenaline mingles with relief at finding him again. It has her riding the strangest high while at the same time wanting to claw at her own skin.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” she says once she’s beside him on the other side of the island, where two plates of food wait.

“I know. Wanted to.”

She lifts herself up onto the countertop as he stares at her in confusion.

“You don’t wanna eat at the table?”

“Nope. Sit up here with me?”

He shakes his head but follows suit, sitting beside her with food in their laps. He drops a piece of bacon for the dog, who wiggles like it’s his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one.

“You’re good at this,” she hums in approval around her first bite.

“It was easy.”

“Thank you.”

He only ducks his head with a nod. She knows how difficult this must be for him.

Not long ago, he could barely leave a room without her.

Now, he’s managed to make breakfast alone clear across the house in a brand new place.

He cooked for her before, but this was a deliberate effort to make one of her good dreams come to life.

She wonders if he might have tried if she never confessed that to him, and decides the answer is yes. It’s not hard to notice that he thinks of himself as a burden, pushing beyond his limits, trying to prove he isn’t.

“What do you want to do today?” White teeth snag on her lower lip to suppress a smile when his socked foot brushes hers.

He shrugs. “Nothing. Can we just stay in? Eat. Lay around.”

She nods. “That sounds good to me.”

The slight touch of their ankles turns to a gentle game of footsie until she laughs around the last bite of eggs.

“Don’t want this to stop.” He taps her foot with his own for emphasis. “It’s gotten easier, but I still want to…”

“It doesn’t have to stop.”

He still wants to touch her, even if he’s gotten better at it. They’ve taken a break from the plan of a touch or two every day and begun to wing it, but she’s more than willing to resume that focus.

She twists to drop her plate in the sink and rolls her shoulders to relieve an ache brought on overnight.

“Lemme take care of that.” He pats his thigh, voice light.

“Sit in your lap?” she teases.

“No. Get down and stand in front of me. I’ll get the knot outta your shoulder.”

She swallows hard, unwilling to leave him hanging or to pass up this chance.

Her body is a lit flame of anticipation as she moves in front of him to offer her back. A shiver runs down her spine when he gathers her hair to move aside.

“Strained it sleeping funny?” His hands splay over her shoulders in a fluttering, careful touch.

He’s either afraid she’ll break or that he will.

She can’t say a word, can only bow her head and let out a pleased sound when that feathered attention turns firm.

“Harder,” she whispers, surprising herself with her request.

“You sure?”

“Very sure.”

When he presses his thumbs into the muscle, she gasps, rolling her head in an effort to soak up the feeling. Almost rubs her thighs together to relieve the throb between her legs before thinking better of it.

It’s easier for him to touch her when she’s facing away and she briefly wonders if that’s how they’d be together for the first time.

If he would need to take her from behind to be comfortable.

The moment that thought enters her brain, she scolds herself.

It’s not fair to think of him like this, and she’s only giving herself something to lose when it never happens.

There is a reason they never slept together in all the years they’ve been friends.

He isn’t interested. Never has been. She would know if he was.

“Had enough?”

He noticed her pause, but the last thing she wants is to stop. “Keep going?”

His hands run down to her elbows and she catches them, knowing she shouldn’t. Isn’t sure if she pulls his arms around her or if he does it on his own, but one moment he’s working the kinks from her back, and the next she’s enveloped in his embrace.

She drags his hand down and under her shirt to rest against the scar she earned during an ill-fated attempt.

“I got this about a year after I lost you. Random encounter. Unrelated. Someone from Paradise Falls found me bleeding. I went back with them, begging for shelter and supplies. It’s how I met Luke…

I almost stayed there. I had no leads to find you.

I was so tired. So fucking tired, and he was kind to me.

So I almost gave up and just stayed. How could I have done that? I’m so sorry.”

“You couldn’t have done anything for me then.”

He’s warm at her back, strong and solid. She’s been the one holding him up since his return. Now the tables are turned, and she didn’t realize how badly she needed the support.

“Can you forgive me?” she begs, on a hitching breath.

“Nothing to forgive.”

“But there is. I almost abandoned you for a chance at a comfortable life with a man I didn’t love, and all because I felt lost. Hopeless.”

He presses a kiss to her temple in the most unexpected gesture.

For the first time, she has no idea what they are anymore.

For as long as she’s known him, they have only ever been friends.

She’s come to terms with it, but friends don’t wrap up together so intimately.

They absolutely don’t drop peppered kisses to hairlines.

“I’d still be in that cell right now if you didn’t one woman army your way through half the group to find me. You saved my life, Kara. I owe you everything.”

His arms are warm and strong around her and his scruff rests against her temple.

Nothing about what they’ve done lately fits with everything she knows to be true.

It’s enough to have her second-guessing herself.

She moves away quickly, afraid of what she might start to assume or even what she might do if she lingers here.

It’s too intimate. Too close. Too much of what she so desperately wants.

There’s an apology on his lips for crowding her and a vaguely heartbroken crease to all the worry lines on his face that she can’t bear to see.

“It’s okay. It’s not you. I just need a minute.” She flees the kitchen, running up the steps to leave him alone.

She may not be running from the house, but she’s running from herself and a possibility more terrifying than anything she’s faced yet.