“Awesome, you ass**le.”

Silence held for a few minutes. He could almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in her head. Without a doubt, she was the noisiest thinker he’d ever met. Or maybe it was the grinding of her teeth again.

“Let it go,” he advised.

“Inflicting yourself and some semblance of intimacy upon me will not engender any sort of bond between us, Nick.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Huh,” he said. “You ever noticed how your words get bigger when you’re feeling cornered?”

She apparently had nothing to say to that.

“Tell me about your father,” he said. “You mentioned he was army?”

More silence.

“Go on.”

She sighed. “He generally wasn’t around. When he was, he was an ass**le. A lot like you. So certain he was always right and everyone else could go to hell.” The fingernails digging into his arm eased a little, becoming more like a cat’s claws flexing. Testing, not teasing. “The only thing that mattered was what he wanted.”

“Harsh.”

“Truth.” She shifted, her feet twisting beneath his. Nick drew back a little, giving her more space. Earning himself a begrudging, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What about your family?” she asked. “I’ve told you my messy tale. Turnabout is fair play.”

He cleared his throat. If anything would get his c**k under control it was thinking about his family. “My father was a builder. My big brother became his apprentice. I had an uncle in the army. He was always travelling all over the place having adventures. He made it sound so great. So when I was old enough I enlisted.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah. Mostly. I didn’t see myself doing anything else.” He smiled in the darkness. He’d been counting on her curiosity. “But I wasn’t interested in settling down then. Priorities change.”

“Do you know what happened to your family?” she asked, ignoring the settling-down comment. “When this all went down?”

He nudged a strand of her short red hair with his nose. The scent of honey swept through his system. “They died. I went back a few months ago to check. To see if …”

Roslyn turned and looked over her shoulder, all the better to give him a pitying stare. “That was brave, going back.”

“Hmm.” His mother had been a good woman. Maybe even a great one. She didn’t deserve that sort of ending.

“My father got bitten,” she said. Her voice was cool, distant. The look in her eyes, not so much. “Mum called me on the mobile, managed to get through. Dad was locked in the bedroom. She’d taken a handful of sleeping pills, wanted to say goodbye. They had a place in the city. No chance of getting out. I can’t say I really blame her.”

“I’m sorry.” Inadequate, but true.

“There was another woman in the school,” she said. “After a couple of weeks, when it became clear help wasn’t coming, she killed herself. Drank a bottle of bleach. The others were furious, but I didn’t really blame her either.”

He stared back at her. “The early days were hard on everyone. What did you do to get through?”

“I had my library. I just kept reading, lost myself in my books. Mostly it worked.”

“I drank. Took pills.” His honesty caught her by surprise—he could tell by the way she looked at him. But he wasn’t going to lie. “I can barely remember January and Feb. Still can’t forget the shit that came before, when the plague first hit, but those months straight after, they’re pretty much gone.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I noticed you didn’t have a glass of wine with dinner. Figured you were staying on the ball in case I attempted another attack. Why did you stop?”

“I realized I wanted to live. Wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but just giving up … I couldn’t do it,” he said. “So I dried out. Haven’t touched anything in months. Even stopped smoking.”

She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak.

“What?” he asked.

“I can’t be your reason for living, Nick. That won’t work.”

He didn’t answer.

“Can you shift the cuff to the other hand?” Her face was calm, perfectly reasonable. “We’d both be able to sleep on our backs then, with a bit of room.”

“No.”

With lips slammed shut she turned away.

Behind him the camp light continued to glow. He’d have to sit up and drag her halfway across the bed to switch it off. Stuff it. It was a waste of resources, but he enjoyed watching her. The movement of her shoulder beneath the bulky-ass sweater as she breathed. The red of her hair, so dark in the low lighting. He tried to keep his arm light on her, perched on her hip, not pressing down all uncomfortable-like.

When was the last time he’d spooned with someone? Never. Spooning had never been a priority before.

“This isn’t going to work,” she whispered.

“We’ll see,” he whispered back to her. “Are you warm enough?”

She gave a little nod.

No point telling her to go to sleep. Expecting her to relax with him wrapped around her would be sheer stupidity. Her shoulders inched forward, or tried to. His arm didn’t let her get far. Outside the moaning went on and on. You could pretend it was the wind if you tried. It didn’t always work.

“So do you think,” she asked, “if we’d actually met somewhere back in normal times, you’d have been interested in me?”

Nick stopped and thought it over—or at least pretended to. “Yes.”

She muttered something along the lines of “fucking liar” beneath her breath. She was so cute sometimes.

“You’re a smart, good-looking woman,” he said. “I’d have been all over you.”

“Bollocks. I bet you went for the mouth shut, legs open, easygoing lay nine times out of ten.”

He tried not to laugh. “Of course I did. I’m male. But you grow up and your tastes mature.”

“Oh, please. Admit I’m here because I’m the only uninfected female under fifty in the vicinity.”

“You forget your friend Jeanie.”

Roslyn’s sock-covered foot kicked back, catching him in the shin. “Janie.”

“No kicking.” He threw a leg back over hers for good measure. “She’s your friend. What does it matter if I get her name wrong? Said she didn’t interest me.”

Tags: Kylie Scott Flesh Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net