“What is it?”
“It’s a portable DVD player!” he says. “Runs on batteries, and there are a bunch of movies with it, too. We got a Star Trek movie, Tron, Aliens, and even the Charlie Brown Christmas Special!”
“Looks like a waste of batteries,” I respond.
“You are no fun.” Marco holds the DVD boxes to his chest as if I’m going to try to steal them from him.
“I am practical.”
“Morale is important.” He grins up at me, and I roll my eyes.
“You seem to be getting plenty of ‘morale.’” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he actually has the decency to blush.
I had initially been concerned there would be a fight over Katrina—both Marco and Sam were obviously interested. Katrina could have gone either way, or she could have been disinterested in both. What I didn’t expect was for the three of them to all be…well...together—or sharing, at least.
“It works for us,” he says with a shrug. “Beats fighting over her, and I’m not sure she would have liked having to choose.”
“She seems pretty happy with the whole arrangement.”
“She is.” Marco wiggles his eyebrows at me. “In fact, yesterday morning—”
“No details, please!” I cut him off, shake my head, and go back to the other side of the unit as Marco chuckles to himself.
Finding a nearby storage facility with most of the units undamaged has been a godsend. A lot of what we find I would have considered crap before all this happened, but now I see uses for almost everything we come across.
We gather up our haul for the day and head home. I push the shopping cart with my left hand and rest my splinted-up right arm on the handle while Marco carries the backpack. As soon as we get back, Marco heads into the living room to show everyone the DVD player, and I head into the first-story master bedroom where Hannah and I have been sleeping.
Christine insisted on it. She said she didn’t want Hannah climbing the stairs.
“Any luck?” Hannah asks as I walk in.
“Not really.” I drop the pack on the table. “I found some of the things on the list but none of the medical supplies. I did get you some more clothes.”
“That’s a bonus.”
“Hope they fit.”
“Nothing fits!”
Ah shit—here we go again.
Hannah is due any day now and absolutely miserable. I’ve done everything I can think of to help her be more comfortable, but all the things that used to work on her just don’t anymore. She can barely sleep at night, so she’s exhausted all the time, and she’s driving me crazy.
I don’t mention the latter.
“I have to pee!” Hannah suddenly cries out as she runs for the bathroom.
Hannah has to pee every fifteen minutes. Thank God the toilets in the house continue to flush. I can only hope they’ll last a while longer.
Grabbing my backpack, I pull out the box of shotgun shells I found in one of the storage units. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to stockpile some ammo. I don’t have anywhere near enough, but at least I’m making progress. I wish I had found the actual shotgun, but there was no sign of it. Marco was too excited about the DVD player to convince him to go through one more storage unit, so I’ll probably head back there tomorrow. Maybe Katrina would like to get a look inside one of them.
Hannah comes back into the room, her face pale.
“What is it?” I ask as I go to her. “More of those Braxton-Hicks?”
Katrina has looted every book on pregnancy and childbirth she could find and has been educating all of us on the topics. She even found a book on home birth, and we’ve found all the supplies listed. The whole thing scares the shit out of me, but it’s not like there’s a choice.
“I don’t think so.” Hannah grips her stomach and scrunches her face for a moment. “I think the baby’s really coming this time.”