Chapter 13
13
GAGE
The fact that I’d managed to go a week and a half without touching Tayler again felt like a monumental achievement. It felt like receiving the Victoria Cross but then storing it in the back of a junk drawer in favor of my ability to resist Tayler’s confusing allure.
For the moment, I was no longer starving.
Thandie was better, and Ari was recovering well.
At night, I slept beneath a ceiling and inside four walls, and I didn’t have to listen for the throaty gurgle of a once-human creature stalking the earth in search of the flesh of my loved ones. On my hierarchy of needs, I was satisfied in nearly every way a human in our situation could be.
Nearly.
Over the past several days, I did my best to avoid her, which was made easier because I’d started taking on jobs around the camp. With her on medical duty, I kept myself away from the infirmary, mainly caring for anything requiring physical labor inside the building and out in the yard. I wasn’t ready for the camp to know how good I was with a firearm, so I didn’t bother with weaponry. Also, I’d overheard Allen bragging about keeping me “in check,” and I figured letting him believe he possessed the ability was easier.
Still, Tayler regularly checked on Ari and Thandie, and all it took was a slip-up’s worth of eye contact to set me two paces behind. Things were getting so dire that I was heavily considering other women. However, when Tayler had mentioned that there would be others who were willing, I’d underestimated what willing meant. That I was “married” seemed to matter solely to her.
I approached the camp’s front gate with only a hunting knife strapped to my belt. My “job” for the day was a food run with Omar and the twins, but instead of foraging, we planned to hunt for live game. At best, we hoped to snag a deer or wild boar, but a rabbit or two squirrels would still be considered a success.
With cooler weather fast approaching, we were hoping to stockpile as much protein as possible. Overall, there were forty people at the camp: five children, twelve men, twenty-two women, and one adorable little, now-healthy baby. To get everyone through an unpredictable winter, we would need a decent amount of provisions.
The woman who’d been heaviest in her pursuit of my private parts stood waiting at the gate. Whenever she had the chance, Dana Novetti chatted Ari up like an old friend. Once Ari was out of sight, the woman offered me a “suck” of her nipples and to “choke” on my body parts.
Admittedly, Dana was a good-looking woman.
Yet, only one woman tempted me, and she did so with much less effort. God forbid Tayler ever came onto me this strong; she was the only person at the camp who could deliver a baby, and it was highly likely I would wind up giving her one.
“Where are you off to?” Dana asked, her arms folded underneath her breasts.
I pointed to the gate behind her. “I’m heading out with the twins and Omar.”
“Allen’s not going with you?”
“Don’t know.”
And I didn’t care.
“How much time do you have before you need to leave? Because…” She lowered the neck of her top, briefly baring the nipple on her left breast. The bud, encircled in a dark areola that matched the color of her hair, contrasted against her olive skin.
“I’m a married man, Dana,” I reminded her. At this point, it was like an echo. “Plus, there are plenty of other men here.”
“Yeah, but there’s something about you. Something that makes me want to drop to my knees,” she smirked, “and worship.”
“Don’t you mean ‘in’ worship?”
“No, I don’t.”
I took several steps back.
“Keep an eye on my ladies, will you?” I asked. “I won’t be long, but I’ll worry about them while I’m gone.”
Was it not necessary, I wouldn’t have left them behind. There was no guarantee that I would make it back, but whatever I could find on this supply run meant an easier time for my ladies going forward.
All three of them.
“Seriously, Gage?” She went to poke my stomach, but I moved further out of reach. “What if I promise not to say anything to your wife?”
“What if I offer to bring back a man for you?”
She chuckled.
I’d gotten to know a few people outside of Tayler, and what Tayler told me that first night proved true; virtually all of them were decent. Even Dana, despite her raging hormones, was still one of the “good” ones compared to the types Ari and I had encountered over time.
The most amusing part of the situation was that I could sleep with Dana if I wanted to. She was offering, and I was faking. But she wasn’t the one who stayed on my mind like a handprint stamped in concrete.
Fingertips tapped the back of my arm, and the main character of my dreams stepped into my line of vision like a flower in the morning sunlight.
“Omar wants to take the truck,” Tayler said.
I forced myself to look up from where I’d gotten hypnotized by the movement of her mouth. “Truck? It’s still good? Hasn’t it been sitting in the lot for a while now?”
“He said that diesel lasts longer than gas, and there’s still a good bit in the tank. He’s also pissed nobody told him it was diesel, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“Should I be prepared to hear about this on the ride?”
She smiled.
Good lord, woman.
Ari had given me the green light. She didn’t need to, but it made things strangely more acceptable that she did. There was virtually nothing stopping me from pursuing Tayler, considering I gave zero fucks about Allen. Tayler deserved someone in her life who wanted her for more than to nurture an underdeveloped ego. A sexual relationship didn’t have to be complicated, but my gut told me that having sex with Tayler would return me to lethal when I’d managed to be companionable all this time.
Friendly, even.
“You’ll probably hear about it for weeks, to be honest,” she said, the smile growing. “But, just so you know, we’ve been scouring this area for a while and haven’t found much. Know that you don’t have to bring back a steer or something for us to be proud of you.”
“We’re proud of you for existing,” Dana chimed in.
Dana, who I’d forgotten existed.
I reached for Tayler’s hand. I wanted to slide her fingers between mine and pull her toward the building, specifically the supply closet, but I squeezed instead. In more than one dream, I’d done things with and to her in that supply closet that would probably taint all the meds inside. Our bodies had produced enough energy to power the mini-fridge where the vials were stored.
“Take care of my girls, okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I promise.”
“Is Ari still moping?”
“Yes, but I get it. She wants to feel useful, and in a few days, I think she’ll be strong enough to help out somewhere. Light duty only, though. Right now, she’s doing plenty by taking care of Thandie.”
Were we alone, I would have kissed her. This time around, I would hold on a little longer, grow more familiar with the feel of our mouths touching. The line between a friendly kiss and a kiss that told her exactly what I wanted to do to her wasn’t thin, and I suspected she would figure it out the moment I slipped my tongue into her mouth.
“‘Here’s Johnny,’” Dana announced in her best Jack Nicholson voice.
Dallas approached, and in the middle of his approach, he spun out two cartwheels and a backhandspring.
Yet, he was the milder of the two.
Considering I’d grown up with twin brothers, I could already tell the twins apart. The brothers insisted they were descendants of the gods Horus and Set from Ancient Egypt, but they spoke with Southern accents and had names like Memphis and Dallas. Occasionally, their accents slipped or came out comically strong, but I couldn’t figure out the true story those fake accents hid.
“Gates!” Dallas yelled, his arms open wide. “Listen to your god. Open up, and let us go forth.”
The guard, a twenty-year-old kid named Cory, rolled his eyes as he turned the crank to open the gates.
Omar stood on the other side in front of a white pickup truck that had seen better days, and the deep rumble of the engine behind him made me uneasy.
I slid my thumb down Tayler’s palm and then released her hand, heading for the truck. “We need bikes,” I said. “This thing sounds like it’s making morning rounds to collect garbage cans. The noises we make are enough to draw the Infected.”
Omar scratched his chin. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but it’s what we have to work with right now.”
Memphis appeared from only God-knew-where and vaulted over the tailgate into the truck bed. “How about, on the ride, we look for some bah-sickles?” he suggested.
Omar faced him. “Some…what?”
Dallas joined him in the back. “You heard my brother. Bah-sickles. You ain’t never had a bah-sickle?”
I reached for the passenger door handle. “That sounds more like how I used to say it back in my prime Aussie days.”
“Southerners is just Australians with a different twang,” Dallas argued.
“And what part of the south are y’all from again?” I asked.
The brothers laughed.
“New guy, I ride up front with Omar,” Allen called from the entrance. “You get in the back with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”
I didn’t argue.
One of the quickest ways to assume power over someone else was to give them the illusion that they were the one in charge. Weak men, so captivated by the allegiance of their flock, often failed to realize just how little power there was in the ignorance of sheep.
“I’d say it’s more like Tweedle-Death and Tweedle-Danger,” I said, hoisting myself over the side panel into the truck bed.
Memphis whistled.
Dallas stabbed the air in my direction. “See, I knew I liked you for a reason. We was just talking about that, right, Memphis?”
“Just talking about it,” Memphis echoed. “Move over, Allen. There’s a real sheriff in town.”
They laughed again, Memphis falling to his back.
Allen waved them off and leaned close to Tayler. The entire time his gums flapped, she kept her eyes on me. Our extended eye contact grew so obvious that Dana noticed, and I read a whole paragraph’s worth of speculation on her face. But, until she caught me with Tayler’s leg wrapped around my waist where I had her propped against the wall of the supply room, it would remain speculation.
Allen went to kiss her cheek, but she leaned away and punched him in the chest.
“Allen, stop,” Omar ordered. “Won’t tell you twice.”
Omar was one of the few men in the camp who matched me in size, so I more than appreciated that he didn’t fuck around when it came to Tayler. If it came down to it, he would be the first person I asked to help me bury Allen’s body. Something told me the little guy wouldn’t take it well when he learned that he’d lost Tayler to a man who thought she was the furthest thing from a “failed doctor.” Within minutes of meeting her, I could tell that a level of intellect I would never match hid behind those enchanting eyes.
Omar and Allen entered the truck.
Tayler’s eyes met mine, and she raised a hand to her mouth. I held my breath, waiting to see whether she touched her lips, which I would take as evidence that she thought about our kiss as much as I did. But then she chewed on her thumbnail, which made me want to kiss her all over again.
“I’ll bring you your steer, love,” I teased.
She grinned. “You better.”
“Don’t cry too hard while I’m gone.”
“I’ll only cry if you don’t come back.”
I almost leaped from the truck.
The pickup started down the road, and something slammed in my chest as I watched the gates close. The very real possibility of never seeing the people I cared most about in the world was there. And, while I knew I had an obligation to pull my weight, the thought of being away from them made me borderline nauseous. They made me want to keep going, keep trying. That had been the case since the beginning, but Tayler added a new, refreshing layer.
I was keeping my distance out of respect for my fake marriage. Yet, what if I was bitten?
Shot?
What if I died?
As the first safe harbor I’d known in months dissolved into the landscape, it seemed ridiculous now to restrain myself. It felt foolish to hold myself back from something that, though wonderful, I might conceivably have for only a short while. I could already see how it would play out: me lying on my back in the dirt and looking up at the sky as death clawed its way through my system.
There would be regrets.
There would be a deep, resonating sadness.
As much as I wanted to see what the world could become for Ari and Thandie, I was beginning to realize that meeting Tayler made me curious about what it would look like for me.
Under these circumstances, not taking the chance to kiss a beautiful woman was short-sighted. If I didn’t, how would I ever know the joy of how it felt when that beautiful woman decided to kiss me back?