Love and other Nightmares

Nope.

No.

Absolutely-freaking-not.

I could not be having sexy memories about the guy who'd stomped on my heart.

Not even if we were the last two people on Earth.

Not even if we were going to spend the rest of our lives working together to create something sustainable and maybe even enjoyable out of this whole messy world-ending situation.

It was just that look.

Because it was familiar.

Because it was attached to fond memories once upon a time.

You know, before the entire world collapsed as we knew it.

There was no room for sexual attraction in the apocalypse.

And certainly not for the man who you loved more than you loved yourself at times, who had taken all that love, and thrown it in your face.

No.

Not gonna happen.

"All yours, Junie," Watts said, making my jolt, turning to find him standing in the doorway to the bathroom, wearing the pair of men's gray and black plaid PJ pants I liked to wear that I had put out for him earlier. And nothing else.

He'd always claimed he got too hot to sleep in a shirt. Back when he was mine, that was certainly nothing to complain about. Who would balk at getting a view of his strong chest, his chiseled abs, that delicious V that lead to somewhere even more intriguing?

Focus.

I needed to focus.

I shook my head, my gaze rising, hoping I hadn't been ogling him for too long.

"Right. Thanks," I said, pushing past him, making sure our bodies didn't brush, not when mine felt like a live wire, and his seemed like something that could make me catch fire.

I took a long time to clean off and change for bed, having an internal discussion with myself about how I was going to get onto that mattress, roll onto my side with my back facing him, and go to sleep.

That was it.

That was all it would ever be."Okay. Let's do this," I said to my reflection, taking in my brown waves that had gotten much longer since I stopped caring about things like haircuts, my skin that was tanner than it used to be, my blue eyes that looked more confused than they should have since I'd just pep-talked myself the plan for twenty minutes.

In the end, I sighed and made my way out of the bathroom, finding Watts waiting for me beside the walk-in door.

"You have a bedroom with no windows for air, in a hot climate area, and you have three blankets on that bed," he said, smirking at me.

"The blankets? I thought your first snide remark would be on the amount of pillows."

He'd always made fun of me for that in the past. And, to be fair, I had taken the pillow collecting to an extreme now. Probably mostly because I no longer had to pay for all the fancy oversize throw pillows that I had always been a fan of. I had them lining the sides of the mattress on the floor like buffers. It made the bedroom a good reading spot if I remembered to charge my solar reading light that day. Plus, it made the otherwise sterile and hideous area look more cozy.

"I thought the pillow comment went without saying," he said, giving me a smile as he moved inside, getting on what was my side of the bed. After the breakup, I started sleeping on the left side just because it had once been his side. I'd kept up the habit since. Until now, it seemed.

I followed behind, pulling the door closed, locking us in complete darkness without the moonlight from the window-filled common area.

I went through the motions of putting the intricate locking system into place before finally moving to the far end of the bed, shuffling the pillows, grabbing a blanket.

He was right, the bedroom always ran warm. And it was warmer still with the furnace he called a body in it now too. But I wrapped the blanket around myself regardless, not wanting any part of me to accidentally brush him, silently chastising myself for not putting a pillow wall down the center before getting in.

It was too late now.

We stayed just like that for what felt like ages, me listening to the sound of his breathing, him likely doing the same.

I didn't plan on breaking the silence.

I certainly never planned on letting my thoughts spill out of my mouth.

But my lips were opening anyway.

"Hey, Watts?"

"Yeah?" he asked, voice sliding over my skin, making a shiver move through me at the sound. I was thankful for the darkness, so he couldn't see.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you do it?" I asked, squeezing my eyes shut to try to block out some of the humiliation I felt in asking that question, no matter how long it had been on my mind.

"Junie..."

"We can't do this," I told him. "Live together day in and day out, relying on each other for survival. Not with this question between us. I mean, how can I trust you in the way I will need to trust you to get through this if you don't explain it to me?"