8. An Uneasy Peace #2
For a while, neither of them said anything.
The fire crackled softly, and Addy found herself fiddling with the frayed edge of the blanket.
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable; it was almost intimate.
She realized she was seeing pieces of him that no one else probably had.
The cracks beneath the armor. Humanity under discipline.
She smiled faintly. “You know, I thought you were some quiet guy who lived down the hall and didn’t know how to smile.”
He smirked. “And now?”
“Now I think you might be part ninja.”
He chuckled again, shaking his head. “You’re something else, Addy.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, hiding a grin as she pulled the blanket closer.
The fire died down, its glow fading to soft embers. Outside, the wind moved through the trees, whispering against the cabin walls. For a long while, neither of them spoke again.
* * *
She was moving, floating. Addy stirred, the soft sway of motion cradling her before she even opened her eyes. Warmth pressed against her side, strong and steady, and the faint scent of smoke and pine filled her nose.
When she blinked awake, she realized she was in Sawyer’s arms.
He was carrying her, his steps slow and sure, careful not to jar her. His breath was steady against her temple, his body radiating heat through her thin shirt. For a moment, she let herself drift, weightless in his hold. But instinct kicked in, and she shifted slightly.
“Shh,” he murmured. “You fell asleep. I was putting you to bed. Didn’t want to wake you.”
His voice was low, rough at the edges, but soft in tone. Addy tilted her head to look up at him, and her cheek brushed the coarse line of his beard. The dark stubble tickled her skin, and the unexpected intimacy of it sent a tiny spark through her chest.
She could lean in, she realized. A breath closer, and their mouths would meet. The thought came uninvited and startled her with its strength. It had been a long time since she’d even wanted that, longer still since the idea had made her heart stumble the way it just did.
She’d gotten used to solitude, to being self-sufficient, to not needing anyone for comfort. Life had taught her to keep things simple, mechanical even, easier to control that way. But Sawyer was anything but simple.
He set her down gently on the bed, tugging the blanket over her shoulders before stepping back. His hand brushed her arm as he did, rough calluses grazing her skin for the briefest moment, and it made her catch her breath.
“There,” he said quietly. “Get some rest.”
She swallowed, her voice barely a whisper. “Thank you.”
He nodded, eyes unreadable in the dim light. “You’re welcome.”
He hesitated for a heartbeat, long enough for her to wonder if he sensed the same strange pull humming between them, before returning to the couch.
“Goodnight, Addy.”
“Goodnight, Sawyer,” she murmured.
The cabin seemed to exhale around her, settling into quiet.
She lay staring at the firelight as it danced across the ceiling, her pulse still a little too fast, her thoughts tangled between exhaustion and something dangerously close to want.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to fall asleep or stay awake just to feel that spark a little longer.
* * *
Sunlight filtered weakly through the shutters, painting faint gold stripes across the table. The air still held a hint of wood smoke and something warm: oatmeal and coffee.
Addy blinked awake beneath the blanket. For a moment she stayed still, listening to the soft clatter of metal against the stove. Sawyer stood at the counter, stirring something in a dented pot, his broad frame outlined by the morning light.
“Morning,” he said without looking up, his voice rough from sleep.
“Morning,” she murmured, sitting up and pushing a stray lock of hair from her face. The memory of the night before flickered back: his arms around her, the quiet steadiness of his breath. She tried not to think too hard about it.
He handed her a bowl of oatmeal and a tin cup of coffee. “Eat. We’ve got plenty of work today.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, the quiet easy in a way that surprised her. The world outside was still, cold, and uncertain, but here, for a moment, it was almost like normal life.
“Do you ever think about… before?” Addy asked, glancing at him across the table.
He looked up, one eyebrow raised. “Before what?”
She gave him a small smile. “Before all this. When the world still made sense.”
Sawyer leaned back, thinking. “Sometimes. Mostly when I’m trying to remember what I used to complain about.”
She smirked. “Traffic?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah. That, and small talk. I used to hate hearing people argue about nothing. Now I’d give anything to listen to someone complain about their job again.”
“I get that,” she said softly. “I used to teach third grade. The biggest drama in my life was who ate someone else’s lunch or which kid got gum stuck in their hair.”
He smiled faintly. “You miss it?”
“I do,” she admitted, tracing her spoon along the rim of the bowl. “I miss the noise. The chaos. The sense that things mattered, even when they didn’t.”
He nodded, eyes thoughtful. “I used to love work. We did what we were told, made sure no one ever knew we were there, and pretended it was for the greater good. It seemed like purpose back then.”
Addy studied him quietly. “And now?”
He met her eyes, his expression unreadable. “Now it just seems like survival.”
They both fell silent, the fire popping softly beside them. The warmth of the coffee seeped through her hands as she tried to imagine the world he was describing, a world of secrecy, rules, and orders that used to make sense.
“I miss my kids,” she said finally. “My students, my life, I mean. My friends. My routines. Even the boring parts.”
Sawyer gave a small, knowing smile. “I think that’s what I miss most. The boring parts.”
She smiled faintly. “Guess we’re both still figuring out what comes next.”
He held her gaze for a moment and nodded. “Yeah. But for now, we eat. Then we work. One day at a time.”
She looked at him across the small table, sunlight catching the faint scar near his temple, and for the first time in a long while, it didn’t seem like the world outside was winning.
Sawyer was watching her, really watching her. When Addy finally glanced up from her bowl, his eyes were already on her, steady, thoughtful, as if he were trying to read something in her face that she didn’t quite understand herself.
It made her pulse falter.
She looked away, pretending to busy herself with her spoon, but she could sense the weight of his gaze like warmth on her skin. Something flickered between them, a current that hadn’t been there before, or it had been quietly building since the moment they met.
She hated how aware she was of it. The way her heart picked up when he moved near her.
The way she kept wondering what it would be like if he wasn’t always holding himself at arm’s length.
The electricity that felt like it was pouring through her veins, she hated the sexual tension that seemed to be building between them.
And then came the thought, sharp and unwelcome, of what it would be like to close the distance. What he might smell like that close, taste like if she let herself forget herself for just one second.
The realization made her catch her breath.
God, what was wrong with her? The world was crumbling outside, and here she was thinking about a man.
But perhaps that was the point. Maybe when death pressed that close, when every sunrise was borrowed, the body remembered it was still alive, still hungry for touch, warmth, something human.
She set her spoon down, trying to shake the feeling, forcing herself to meet his gaze. Sawyer’s expression softened when he saw the storm in her eyes, and for a long moment neither of them said a word.
It was quiet, not empty, but full of something fragile and dangerous. The kind that was like standing too close to a fire.
* * *
Addy needed to get a grip, or she was going to do something monumentally stupid, like lean across the battered kitchen table and kiss Sawyer right on his unsmiling, aggravating mouth.
A month ago, two months ago, the idea would have struck her as so absurd it circled right back to plausible, a desperate animal’s gamble.
Now it was all she could think about, this irrational gravity drawing her inexorably toward him, even as the rest of her brain screamed caution, not now, not here, not in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse.
The last thing she needed was to complicate things, and yet every glance, every accidental brush of his hand sent a pulse through her that had nothing to do with adrenaline and everything to do with need.
It didn’t help that Sawyer made zero moves to break whatever was barreling toward them.
If anything, he was complicit in it: the way he sometimes held her gaze a second too long, the way he always stepped between her and any hint of danger, even when she was perfectly capable of handling herself.
He wasn’t giving her a single out, and that unsettled her in ways she wasn’t equipped to handle, not while the world was busy burning down outside their door.
She tried to focus on the immediate, on what had to be done to keep them alive for another day.
There were supplies to inventory, fuel rations to stretch, perimeter checks to run.
She should be thinking about firewood or the next scavenging run, not the line of his shoulder in the morning light or the way he said her name.
But the more she tried to shove the thoughts down, the more they fought their way to the surface—raw, insistent, undeniable.