Page 22 of Tower (Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tales #1)

He turns his head over one shoulder to show me. “I’m gonna be smilin’ the rest of my life. Never thought you could ever love me for real.”

I make a squeaking sound. “Hey! I never said I love you.”

“Didn’t you? I thought you did.”

“Asshole,” I mutter without any heat. I’m still grinning as much as he is.

He laughs uninhibitedly. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Good.” I sniff. “I love you too.”

We aren’t very far from base, so it doesn’t take us long to get back. As we pull into the driveway, Carlotta waves excitedly. Dep must have assigned her to take the guard post Sick deserted. I wave back and, at her concerned question, call out that I’m okay.

When Levi drives us into the courtyard, more folks are gathered there than I’ve ever seen. No one but the guards is evidently doing their tasks right now. Everyone is waiting to see what happened to me and to be ready if Levi returned needing help.

Excited chatter bursts out when they see us driving up, and we’re surrounded before Levi can get the motorcycle into park.

Becca pounces as soon as I get my feet on the ground, swallowing me in a big hug.

Then Jen hugs me too, and Dep bombards Levi with one question after another.

Hawk is grinning from the lawn chair he dragged over in sight of the driveway so he could keep watch for us, and everyone wants to know what the hell Sick was thinking since they discovered he was missing and had already pieced together that he was responsible for my disappearance.

Levi keeps his arm around me as we try to respond to all the questions and exclamations of relief. When Becca says how relieved she is Levi got there in time, I wouldn’t dream of contradicting her.

He did get there in time—in time for exactly what I needed. We both did.

But Levi says in his familiar gruff drawl, “I didn’t do any of the rescuin’. Got there and she’d already saved herself. She musta done a handstand or somethin’ to clobber Sick with her feet the way she did.”

The group’s excitement over this pronouncement is loud and amused. I flush and stare at the ground. “I didn’t do a handstand. Just kicked him as best I could.”

Levi squeezes me with his arm. “It was a goddamn work of art. Nobody else better get on the wrong side-a her, or they’ll find out the hard way.”

I join in with everyone else’s laughter, but I can tell Levi means it. And that the others believe it.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite so proud of myself.

The planned run for the day gets postponed so they can fix and retrieve my dad’s pickup.

By lunch, it’s back, parked in its normal spot with a mended tire and as many of the dents banged out as the guys could manage.

The windshield is hopelessly broken, and there’s nothing to be done about that.

So they just cleaned out the shattered glass.

It can be driven without a windshield until we find something to replace it.

I’m trying to keep up energy, but my body hurts like hell from so many pulled muscles, and I’ve got a headache from the bump on the skull that still hasn’t gone away. I’m relieved when Levi grabs both our lunches and tells everyone we’re going to eat in our room.

Levi collapses in his chair, and I collapse on the couch. We eat our sandwiches and drink our water and don’t move for a long time.

After a while, he hefts himself to his feet and stares down at me.

“What?” I ask, hoping he’s not going to want to have passionate sex at the moment because I’m definitely not up to it. “You’re not thinking about fucking right now, are you?”

He snorts. Then snorts again. Then laughs in choppy huffs as he lifts my head to make room for him to sit on the couch.

I’m about to rearrange, but he settles my head on his lap instead.

That’s just fine with me.

“It wasn’t that funny, was it?” I sigh as he starts stroking my pounding head.

“The idea of me havin’ the get-up-and-go for sex right now is abso-fuckin’-lutely funny.”

I giggle and close my eyes because his fingers on my scalp feel so good. He’s searching for the bruise, but he’s being gentle about it, caressing more than prodding. “You must still be kind of upset.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re still swearing every other word. You only do that when you’re upset.”

“I do?”

“Yes. But it’s okay. We’re okay. We’re okay now.”

He sighs thickly and moves one hand to cup my face. “Shit, sweetheart. I lost you and then lost you again.”

“I wasn’t really lost.”

“Sure felt like it. Talk about havin’ a heart attack. Came running back all determined to make it right, and you’d dropped off the face of the fuckin’ earth.”

“How did you even know how to look for me?”

“I saw the truck was gone and then followed the tracks in the direction it went. I didn’t know it was Sick, but I figured whoever was stupid enough to kidnap you couldn’t’ve been too smart, so I guessed they’d prob’ly stay on that road until they were out of the region.

At least I was right about that. You coulda got real hurt tryin’ to make your way back on your own. ”

“I know. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard your voice. I thought you’d still be at the river.”

“I’m sorry I left you this mornin’. I’m sorry for everything. I’m never gonna do that to you again.”

“Good.” I smile up at him groggily. “That’s done then.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

I feel his body relax. “And you’re sure you’re happy with me here? I could always take you to that farm in Kentucky. You’d be safe there. You wouldn’t even need a man with their setup. If you’d be happier, I’d get you there. I’d hate it like nothin’ else, but I’d do it. For you.”

“Thank you for the offer. I actually thought about that.”

“Did you? You think… you think you’d be happier there than with me?”

“If I’d known that was a choice after my dad died, I might have chosen it.

But it wasn’t on my radar then, and with what I know now, I wouldn’t change anything anyway.

I love you, Levi. I want a life with you more than I want any other life I could have had, even in the old world.

As long…” My voice breaks at a tiny sliver of fear.

“Unless you’re rethinking things yourself for some reason. ”

He does that huffy laughing again. Strokes my cheek with his knuckles.

“Never gonna happen. I never been in love before. Not even once. Spent most of my life convinced I didn’t even have it in me.

But I do. Knew I was a goner pretty soon after you got here, and every day since I been gone on you even more.

So for the rest of my life—in any time, in any world, in any goddamn universe—I’m always gonna choose you too. ”

A couple of tears slip out of my eyes and stream down the sides of my face into my hair. I sit up enough to kiss him, clumsy and emotional, until he settles my head in his lap again.

“Now you close your eyes. Looks like you still got that headache. I’ll still be here when you open ’em again.”

I sniff. He swipes away a couple more tears.

Then he adds, “To tell the truth, I’m so beat I might be asleep too, but I’ll still be here. I promise.”

And that’s all I need to hear.

It’s autumn now, and the morning air is a lot cooler than it was three months ago.

Everything has been pushed later in the day because the sun rises later and sets earlier.

I’ve started doing my communal yoga session after dinner instead of in the morning because I didn’t want to give up my trip to the river with Levi, and there isn’t time for both anymore before breakfast.

This morning is the coolest one yet. The water in the river is tolerable after the first minute, but the air on my wet skin when I get out makes me shiver. I wrap myself up in a towel as Levi finishes scrubbing his beard and hair and then rinsing out the suds.

I’m not about to wash my hair this morning. I only do it twice a week, and I can easily move that task to the afternoons.

I smile when he shakes himself off like a dog before stepping back out onto the bank.

“You laughin’ at me?” he asks with narrowed eyes.

“Definitely not. I just like to look at you. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothin’ in the world wrong with that.” He’s grinning too as he dries off and pulls on his underwear.

Since he’s putting his clothes on, I decide I should too. I brought with me a soft tunic sweater, stretchy jeans, and cozy boots. I braid my hair to get it out of the way.

By the time I’m dressed, Levi is already sitting on the rock, his shotgun at the ready.

I go to sit beside him, and he puts an arm around me.

I lean against him, waiting. When he doesn’t do anything, I reach into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and pull out an apple.

We’ve been visiting the orchard fairly often for the past few months, doing some work on the trees that have potential. Most of them didn’t bear any fruit worth eating this season, but yesterday we found a couple of good apples on one of the trees.

We ate one yesterday, and he’s been saving the other for this morning.

I rub the apple with my sweater and then present it to Levi.

“You can take the first bite,” he tells me.

“No. They’re your family’s trees.”

He presses a soft kiss against the side of my head. “You’re my family now, sweetheart.”

“I know that. But this is your apple. I’m happy you’re sharing it with me, but I want you to take the first bite.”

His dark eyes are soft and fond as they hold mine. “Feelin’ kinda sentimental, are you?”

“Yes, I am. I know this world is a shitty place, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better anytime soon.

But we haven’t lost everything. And we have so much more than we had six months ago.

I really think we’re going to have even more next year and then the year after and then the year after that.

One day those trees are all going to be blooming again.

The whole world will be blooming. So this apple is hope. ”

His mouth twists. He swallows hard.

Then he lifts the apple to his mouth and takes a bite.