Chapter Twenty-One
Everett
After the surprise birthday party in Maisie’s honor, we sit and drink wine and talk with the other survivors late into the night.
I’ve never seen Maisie so animated. Laughing, crying, even telling stories of her own, regaling the group with descriptions of Zombie Ranger Phil and how our cat (our cat, she said, our cat) woke her up to warn that zombies were near.
Thankfully, she left out the part about my never-ending battle erection, but the sly, shy smile she directs my way tells me she hasn’t forgotten and will privately tease me about it for the rest of my life.
And god, I hope she will.
Back in our hotel room, Chicken curls up in the armchair and promptly begins to purr. Maisie sways silently on her feet, her arms draped loosely around my neck.
“Happy birthday, sweet Maisie.”
“It’s been the best birthday of my life,” she says, then laughs soft and wistful. “Zombie pigeons and all.”
“What did you wish for?” I lean down and press my forehead against hers. “Maybe I can make it come true.”
“But if I tell you, it won’t,” she says, in little more than a whisper. I feel the uncertainty in her words against my lips. “Right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“Hmm. I’ll just have to guess, then.” I back away enough to lift the tattered I NY shirt over her head and throw it to the side.
Next, I work the heavy zipper of her space suit down.
She watches me as I slip it off her shoulders and down her hips until she’s standing in her underwear, all silver skin and shadows and big, piercing eyes. The most beautiful thing in my world.
“Is it…this?” I step forward and wrap my arms around her, then place a soft kiss against her neck.
“Mm. Part of it,” she murmurs into my shoulder as I brush my lips against her jaw.
“What about this?” I lift her into my arms like a princess and carry her to the big, king-size bed, lowering her gently until she’s lying there in a sliver of moonlight. “Is this what you wished for?”
“You beside me? Yes.” Her voice comes out breathy as my hand trails up her side. “Not in a space suit, though.”
I quickly leap off the bed and all but tear the sky-blue piece of history off my body to her laughter. I crawl back onto the bed, one knee at a time, hovering over her. My Maisie. A beam of pure light. “Is that better?”
“Much.” She nods, her small smile lighting up the darkest parts of my heart. “But you still haven’t guessed it. Not all the way.”
Slowly, I lower myself until I’m lying over her, my forearms resting on either side of her pillow.
She is all I can see, and I know that if I lived the rest of my life this way, narrowing my vision to just her in my arms, I could be happy no matter what the other circumstances are. “I think I know what it is, Maisie.”
“You do?”
“Mm. Because it’s the same thing I’ve wished for, one way or the other, since I met you.” I brush a lock of hair from the apple of her cheek, my hands cradling her face. “To be yours. And for you to be mine.”
Maisie sucks in a ragged breath, her chest trembling beneath me.
“Did I guess right, my Maisie?” I lean down and brush my lips against the corner of her mouth, capturing the little sigh she makes with my own. I kiss each word into her. “Please. Tell me that I did.”
“I’ve been yours since you lifted a butterfly from my hair and told me I was beautiful,” she whispers against me, her smile growing beneath my kisses.
“Well, that’s not fair. I’ve been yours since you rescued me from that tree.”
She laughs. “Right. My responsibility and all.”
“No,” I amend. “I’ve been yours since you asked whether five condoms was a reasonable amount for our first time together, and when I said not really, you went and got more.” I kiss her nose. “I love an optimist.”
“That’s when you fell for me?” She’s grinning up at me. “That first night, before I understood the limitations of your kind?”
“My kind?” I growl playfully, rolling onto my back and bringing her with me.
Her chest shakes with soft laughter as she lies against mine, fully atop me.
“But yes, Maisie, I fell for you that night.” I rub a lock of her hair between my fingers, like starlight in my hand.
“I just didn’t believe I deserved to, or should.
You woke me up, and that scared me more than your armory.
I still don’t think I deserve you, but I’d like to try, especially since you seem to like this useless nerdy film professor anyway. ”
“How can you possibly still think you’re useless?” Maisie whispers as her hands find my face, too. “I may be teaching you how to survive, Everett. But you’re teaching me how to live.”
And when she dives down to meet my lips, this time, we don’t part again.
Everett
All night long, I hold Maisie tightly to my chest, as if the beat of my heart could tap out a secret message between her smooth, strong shoulder blades: Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. And all night long, her body answers mine: Forever.
I just wish I knew what forever means.
As I lie in the dark, the question beats at my brain.
A dozen different scenarios of what staying together might look like play out, each one more impossible than the last. Maisie staying with me at West Point and forsaking Gramps.
Taking me to the bunker against his will.
The two of us forsaking everyone and going somewhere different altogether.
A long-distance relationship in postapocalyptic America.
But the fact is, there is no perfect solution to the problem of our future.
All I know is that I can’t stop living now that she’s brought me back to life.
We’ll just have to decide on our own imperfect solution together.
First thing tomorrow, before we get to West Point and all the pressure my parents will undoubtedly put on me, we’ll figure it out.
Make a plan, so we can hold the line. Maisie and I versus the Colonels Greer.
I’d be more nervous about that matchup, but with Maisie on my side, I’m pretty sure I can do anything, even stand up to my parents.
With the decision made, I finally collapse into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, however, all my plans go to hell.
I pause with my overloaded plate of breakfast balanced precariously in my hands. “We’re giving Ellie a ride?” My eyes flit over to the podcaster where she waves enthusiastically by the doorway, her bags already packed by her feet. “Really?”
Maisie shrugs as she sits down with a big bowl of congee topped with scallions, ginger, and, surprisingly, fried egg. When she sees me eyeing it, she says, “The Vietnamese family in suite 209 raises their own chickens, and the feed is clean.”
Dammit. Now I wish I’d gotten eggs.
She tucks in happily and then answers the question I actually asked. “Corinne was struggling to find space for Ellie in the caravan they’re taking to West Point tomorrow. I can make room for her in the back. Why not?”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is this because they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to you?”
Maisie’s own brows rise innocently. “What are you talking about?”
I sit down next to her, still eyeing her suspiciously. “We don’t even know this woman, and you’re letting her into your rig?”
“Corinne trusts her, and I trust Corinne’s judgment.”
“That’s—” I stumble for the right thing to say.
Incredibly inconvenient, now that I’ve decided to have the big heart-to-heart with Maisie about our future. Completely unexpected.
“Amazing,” I settle on, because it is. Watching Maisie open up to others is like seeing a rose unfurl in real time.
Maisie’s lips flutter into a small smile.
The goodbyes are easier knowing our new friends will join us in West Point tomorrow, but the tone is bittersweet. The disclaimer if all goes well, still present if unspoken.
With Julio’s help, getting back to New Jersey is easy enough, even with Ellie in tow.
She’s scrappy and capable, and rows far better than I do.
We’re on the road by eleven. A mere fifty miles stretch between us and my parents, and the highways are distressingly clear.
Not a roadblock or upturned vehicle in sight.
Even the zombie herds stay mostly to the medians, their eyes dull and disinterested in our presence.
Like it or not, fate is conspiring to deliver me swiftly and decisively into the hands of my controlling parents, and despite the chilly interior of Maisie’s car, hot beads of nervous sweat trickle down my back the closer we get.
And I don’t have anything figured out yet.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to Maisie all morning, and the last thing I want is to show up to West Point and immediately get commandeered by my parents into whatever world-domination bullshit they’re up to now without knowing what she wants.
If I had my way, we’d drop off Ellie and the Oval Office patents, snatch my sister, and hit the road again before nightfall.
But the closer we get, the stronger my parents’ magnetic pull seems to become.
What if they take us prisoner like Connor, too?
I wouldn’t put it past them, though cults-with-benefits isn’t their style.
“So,” Ellie begins, suddenly appearing in the space between our seats. Chicken purrs contentedly from her arms. “How’d you two lovebirds meet, anyway?”
“Er, what?” I cough out the water I was attempting to drink, and a fine spray of it speckles the windshield.
Ellie grins. “I’m a romance podcaster, which means I’m addicted to love stories, and I’m professionally nosy. Even though you’re married, you’re clearly still obsessed with each other. We have some time to kill. Tell me everything.”
Maisie snorts. “We’re not obsessed with each other,” she says quickly, looking at me as though to rally support for her point. “Right? Honey?”
“Right.” I shrug.
Bullshit, my heart roars.
Ellie glances between us, smiling under her furrowed brow. “Okay. There’s definitely a story here.”
“No, there’s not,” we say in unison.