Nothing happened other than a few muffled noises she couldn’t identify over the thuds and howls and grunts of Max’s battle against his own zombie. Fuck. Had she broken her phone?
He was right, damn it all. They never should have left his fancy-ass cave.
Scrambling to her feet and whipping into her best defensive stance, she brandished her knife and prepared to make her finalstand. The zombie in front of her crouched, its rear legs bending for another powerful leap, and—
Cardi B called everyone alittle bitchat top volume from that tiny snowdrift, and the creature spun around in confusion at the earsplitting noise. Which was when Max, with a flash of sunlit silver and another grunt of effort, lopped off her zombie’s head. Its body crumpled to the porch floor as its sickly yellow blood splattered everywhere. The head itself rolled a bit until it butted against a matching chopped-off head and rocked to a halt.
Forcing her eyes from the gruesome sight, she scanned Max for injuries as he crouched to wipe his sword on his faded welcome mat. None, as far as she could tell. Good.
“Excellent timing.” She was panting, adrenaline causing her hands to shake and leaving her lightheaded. “Thank you.”
“Excellent distraction,” he countered. “Thankyou.”
“Cardi B bought us just enough time.” She gave a half-hysterical giggle, pointing at his boots and her sneakers. “Look. Bloody shoes.”
He actually grinned at her. “She’s a prophet.”
The way that expression transformed and warmed his face only weakened her knees further. Holding on tightly to the rail, she carefully descended his porch steps and scanned the yard again. “We’d better get moving. There could be others nearby.”
His forehead creased. “Did you tweak your ankle injury when you fell?”
“Nope.” With an effort, she steadied herself and crossed the lawn swiftly to reclaim her phone. “Let’s go.”
Together, they hustled toward her home next door, and she unlocked the front door, closed it behind them, and threw the deadbolt as quickly as she could.
“Feel free to…” She kicked off her shoes and glanced around, searching for something he could do to occupy himself while she got everything she needed. “Uh, whatever. I’ll be as fast as I can.”
As she jogged up the stairs, she tried her best not to picture him grimacing at the detritus of her life, most of which lay scattered across various dusty surfaces. She wasn’t a domestic goddess and never had been. Her mom used to call her room a pigpen and bemoan Edie’s habit of leaving mostly empty bottles of pomegranate juice everywhere she went, like a sticky trail of breadcrumbs.
Mom wouldn’t be thrilled about the current state of their family’s home. Edie wasn’t thrilled either, to be fair. Under normal circumstances, she’d be living in a smaller, more manageable apartment or condo instead of a detached split-level house, but…circumstances hadn’t been normal since she’d been eighteen. This was where her family had once lived and where her memories of themstilllived. This was where she’d remain.
After a quick stop in the bathroom for basic toiletries, she dug through a pile of clean laundry she hadn’t bothered putting away and shoved a couple more pairs of thick coveralls, some socks, and some undies into a duffel. Up in the tiny attic, she gathered her emergency collection of nonperishables, a set of plastic utensils, and her can opener and dumped it all into the increasingly heavy bag too.
A few other odds and ends later, she headed back downstairs for her knives. One of them she found in the kitchen, where she’d forgotten it on top of the small café table. The cleaver should still be in its assigned spot in her garage. Which was also her workspace and where Max had apparently gone while she was upstairs, because the door leading there was open and she couldn’t see him anywhere else.
She put her shoes back on, cracked the door wider, descended the two steps to the concrete slab floor, and joined him inside. He stood in the middle of the space, turning slowly in place as he studied her setup.
Unlike the rest of her home, she kept the area strictly clean and organized. That should please him, right?
“What do you think?” They didn’t have time for this, but she had to know. Stupidly, his first impression—his opinion—mattered to her. If he dismissed her work as trivial or a hobby—
“Science,” he said, and nodded to the wall on her right.
Coated metal racks there contained her soapmaking supplies: safety equipment; various oils and butters; her trusty immersion blender; heat-safe bowls and measuring cups; soap cutters; silicone and birchwood molds; colorants; glitters and micas; fragrances and essential oils; fresh and dried botanicals; decorating bags and stainless-steel tips; isopropyl alcohol; and some of the many liquids she could use to dissolve her lye. Next to her supplies, she’d positioned two long, sturdy stainless-steel tables as her main work surfaces.
A quarter turn, and he tipped his head toward the wall on her left. “Art.”
There, more coated metal racks contained her current inventory, including all her soaps that were in the process of curing and those still waiting to be unmolded, with a dehumidifier waiting nearby for the muggy summer months. In neat rows, she’d arranged her bar soaps alongside those shaped like cupcakes, cherry blossoms, oranges, succulents, gems, and even boba drinks. The soaps were tinted in a rainbow of colors, their combined scents heady.
Another quarter turn, and he gestured to the remaining sides of the room. “Commerce.”
Against the garage door and the final wall, she’d arranged everything she required for testing, packaging, and shipping her soaps. In the corner, her desktop computer waited, with tabs open to various spreadsheets, her website—which needed some updating—and various photos to be edited. Her DSLR camera lay on a table beneath the garage’s lone window—because natural daylight resulted in the best photos of her soaps—along with a few simple background papers.
She didn’t have a softbox or ring light, despite sporadic guest appearances on her friends’ video channels, but she was considering the purchase of both. Which was why, when she’d seen them in Max’s home, she’d recognized them and wondered what exactly he did online.
Science. Art. Commerce.
In three words, he’d captured the essence of what she did and what she loved about her work. The way it combined precision, creativity, and practicality. How it allowed her to stretch herself, test her abilities, create beauty, and learn more every day.
