Chapter Twelve
I sleep for almost four whole hours. When I wake up, it’s getting dark out, and I feel a little better about what happened earlier. I was stupid enough to make a mistake that almost cost me my life, and Tobe’s, and I won’t let it happen again. I can’t afford to if I want to survive in this new world.
When I wake up, I stretch until my back cracks, and then head out into the living room. Reese, Ryder, and Tobe are all sitting at the dining room table with a deck of cards. They’re playing poker and are using stale pretzels as money. Tobe smiles when she sees me. “Should we deal you in?”
I smile. “Sure, I haven’t played poker in ages.”
I take a seat across from Reese, and Tobe slides some cards towards me along with a pile of pretzels. I do a quick count. Twenty of them won’t last me very long, so I play it as safe as possible. It takes me almost forty minutes to even out my pretzels with the others, and then I slowly pull ahead.
After almost an hour of poker, Tobe is out of pretzels, Reese is down to eight, and Ryder and I are battling it out for first place. He glances up at me over his cards, smirks, and pushes all of his pretzels into the center of the table. “I’m all in.”
I shove mine into the center. “Me, too.”
Reese sighs. “What the hell,” he says, pushing all eight of his in. “Everyone show ‘em.”
We all lay our cards down, and Ryder cheers. “Woo!” he snatches all of the pretzels, and pops one in his mouth. “Sorry guys, it looks like I’m just better than you at everything.”
Reese rolls his eyes, and I laugh. “Don’t get too cocky, Ryder. I’ll win next time.”
He snorts. “I doubt it,” he says, popping another into his mouth. “Wow, even though they’re the stalest things that I’ve ever eaten, they taste so amazing since I won them because I’m better than all of you.”
We all laugh. “Right, whatever you say, Ryder,” Reese says, getting up from the table. “I’m gonna go wash up at the lake. It’s been two days since I’ve shaved, and I’m tired of being so scratchy and dirty feeling.”
Ryder chuckles. “There’s nothing wrong with a little stubble.” I glance at Ryder out the corner of my eyes. His stubble has grown out since I first met him, and it’s transforming into a full beard, which isn’t nearly as attractive as the stubble was. He rubs his hand absently over his chin. “Hmm, maybe I could do with a quick shave, too.”
He’s not the only one in need of a shave. I think about the razor in our supplies, and about my legs. It’s terrible to be worrying about something like this at the end of the world, but I don’t feel comfortable without doing it anymore. I can’t help my growing attraction to both Reese and Ryder, but I can at least feel good about my body and the way it looks and feels.
Ryder gathers a bucket of water from the lake, strains it, and dumps it into a pot, and then sets it over an open fire in the backyard. He brings it to a boil and, when it’s done, we all fill a small metal cooking pot with water. Ryder and Reese wash up in their bedroom, Tobe uses ours, and I sit in the bathtub while I wash and shave. I take my time, trying to be as careful as possible so I don’t nick myself.
It takes a while, but when I’m done I feel much better about myself.
After shaving, I lean over the bathtub, and scrub my head and hair with the still warm water. I try not to look at the dirt that comes out, and instead focus on how nice it feels to be seriously clean and smelling of soap. I dress in my still clean clothes, and head back into the living room.
Judging by how dark it is outside, I guess that it’s a little after six o’clock. Reese is in the kitchen with freshly boiled water, and is making more of the prepared meals. I peek over his shoulder, and he smiles. “Beef stew,” he says. “Smells great doesn’t it? It’ll be a few minutes. Wanna grab me some clean bowls and spoons?”
I dig around in the cupboards, and find the bowls in one of the top ones. I have to stand on my toes to reach them, and Reese chuckles. “Do you need me to get that? Or would you like me to find you a box to stand on?” I smack his shoulder, and he laughs. “I’m just playing.”
“What if I’m incredibly sensitive about my height?”
“How tall are you?”
“Five foot two, and proud of it, I guess.”
He laughs. “Wow, do you ever get mistaken for a kid?”
“I got handed the kid’s menu at restaurants until I was sixteen,” I admit with a smile. “To save money, my mom and dad used to tell people at buffets that I was only thirteen, and I’d get charged less. I felt terrible about doing it, but hey, why not, right? Have you ever been mistaken as younger than you are?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and opens the bags. “No, I can honestly say I haven’t. I guess the five o’clock shadow makes me appear my own age, or even older. Most fourteen year olds can’t grow a beard.”
“True,” I admit, taking one of the bags of beef stew. I pour equal shares into two of the bowls and, even though it’s not much, it smells delicious. I slide a bowl into each hand, and head out to the dining room, where Tobe and Ryder are sitting with the pretzels from our earlier poker game.
We divide everything up evenly, and feast on some of the best food we’ve had in ages. I know that the bags of MRE’s are going to run out eventually, but for right now we can fill our stomachs and regain some of our strength and hopefully weight.
“What’s so funny?” Reese asks me.
I’m smiling and I didn’t even realize it. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that it’s weird to want to gain weight. Normally I worry about keeping it off, not my ability to gain it.”
Tobe giggles. “Yeah, it’s nice to not have to worry about swimsuit season, or about having the perfect hair and makeup. I don’t have anyone to impress anymore. I can just be myself, without worrying about being judged.”
“I know. That’s definitely something I don’t miss. Having to constantly worry about what others think of me.”
“Why do girls worry about that so much?” Ryder asks. “Guys never worry about something as stupid as whether or not other people like them. Is it strictly a chick thing?”
I want to reach over and smack him. “It is not a chick thing. Everyone worries that they’re not liked, even if they won’t admit it, and they pretend to be tough, heartless men,” I say with a pointed look at him.
He chuckles. “I’m not heartless; I’m practical. There’s a difference.”
I pop my last pretzel in my mouth. Everyone finishes eating in silence, and Tobe offers to clear away the dishes. She comes back with a lighter and proceeds to light eight candles in the living room. It’s nearly dark out, and the candles give off a warm, comforting glow that’s just bright enough to read by.
“I’m gonna find a book. There’s a bookcase in the family room, right?”
Reese nods. “Yeah, along with a pool table,” he says, looking at Ryder. “You wanna see how well we can do in the dark? I bet I can still whoop your ass.”
Ryder grins. “I don’t think so, kiddo. You’re way out of your league.”
They get up and practically run down the hall to the family room, shoving and trying to trip one another. They’re laughing, and after a few minutes I hear the sound of a pool cue hitting a ball. Someone curses, and I shake my head. “Weren’t you gonna look for a book?” Tobe asks with a smile.
I get up off the couch, head down the hall, and see the two brothers bent over the pool table. They’re studying the layout of the remaining colored balls, and I just shake my head and slide past them, focused more on the bookshelf than the table. As I go through the small selection of books, I notice that most of them are similar: paranormal romance.
I never understood why people enjoyed reading those types of books so much. They’re always the same. An ordinary girl meets two sexy, paranormal boys that both fight over her, and there’s always some lame conflict that pushes her closer together with both of them, and then she makes the obvious choice. The choice everyone knew
she’d make since the first chapter.
And they’re always trilogies, I think to myself. Why can’t they just have one or two really good books, instead of three or four adequate ones?
I pick up one of them, see that it’s about good and evil fairies that are at war, and quickly put it back. I am not reading four hundred pages of fake conflict and two fairy hunks fighting over a fairy princess. Give me a cliché werewolf or vampire story any day.
Finally, I select one that’s not super long and boring, and head back out into the living room. Tobe is sitting cross-legged on the couch, and she has a glass of what looks like wine in her hands. She sees me looking at it and shrugs. “I figured one glass wouldn’t hurt.”
“Probably not,” I say, sitting beside her. I crack open my book and start reading. The candlelight isn’t very bright, and I have to focus hard on the lines of the pages, but I haven’t read a book in months, and I’ve really missed it. I read until about nine thirty, when Ryder comes back out into the living room.
He stops at the end of the couch. “Tomorrow I’m going to hide our boat in a little alcove about half a mile up the way, and then I’m gonna hike back. Which one of you wants to come with me? Reese and I decided that from now on, one of us is always going to try and be here, and one of you will be out. Who’s coming with me?”
“Not me,” Tobe says, sipping at her third glass of wine. She yawns, sets the glass on the table, and gets up. “I’m going to bed, and then tomorrow I’m doing the dishes, I’m bathing, and then I’m going to take a nap and relax. Take Sam.”
She winks at me as she walks by, and I resist the urge to trip her.
Ryder nods once. “Alright. I’m leaving right after breakfast, so be ready.”
“I don’t get a say in this?”
“No,” he says, heading to the bedroom that he and Reese are sharing. I stare after him, unsure of whether to be angry that I don’t have a say, or excited that I might get to finally prove my worth to someone. I can show him that I’m not some damsel in distress that always needs saving.
I’ll be the one doing the saving or a change…