Page 17 of One Adult, Please

"We figure it out. We close gates. We lock doors. We clear the wrong people. We inventory snacks. We keep what's left." I look at him. "We keep it, Joel."

He sets the wrench down on the bench. "You want to fortify a theme park."

"I want to make a home out of the place I chose. I saw the logo on the highway sign and I put on my blinker and I came here and I'm not leaving. We're not leaving. We're keeping this place."

"With what resources?"

"With the ones that are already here. With the ones we find. With whatever we have to work with, which right now is a crescent wrench and a stabby fork and a man who knows every pipe in this building and a woman who falls down a lot but always gets back up. That's the team. That's what we've got."

"Mythic Frontier first," he says.

I stop. "What?"

"If we're doing this. If." He holds up a finger, like he's heading off the celebration he can see building in my face. "Mythic Frontier has the most enclosed structures. A warehouse for ride maintenance. Backstage storage. If there are supplies worth consolidating, that's where they'll be."

"So we're doing this."

"I said if."

"Your mouth said if. Your face said yes."

"My face doesn't say things."

"Your face says so many things. Your face is a whole novel. It's just written in very small font."

He stands up. "We need supplies before we go anywhere. More water. Bags. Something better than a foam trident."

"Don't disrespect the stabby fork."

"Grace, you nearly called every infected person in the wing with it."

"That was a one-time noise incident and I've grown as a person since then."

He doesn't argue. He just turns toward the tunnel entrance and starts walking and I grab my tote bag, my strawberry purse, and the stabby fork and I follow him.

The tunnel entrance is ahead. The locked door. The boundary between the safest room in the building and everything else.

"Wait," I say. "What if there are wrong people in the corridor? Between here and the supply bedroom?"

"The gift shop."

"That's what I said."

"I did a sweep at six. Corridor was clear. But they move. We'll need to be quiet."

"I can be quiet."

He looks at the tote bag slung over my shoulder and my shoes, which are the wrong shoes and make a squeaking sound on the rubber floor that's roughly equivalent to a small animal being stepped on.

"What?" I say.

"Nothing." He unlocks the door. "Stay close."

The corridor is clear. It's dim, emergency lighting only. A jellyfish display pulses its slow purple rhythm. A seahorse hangs in its tank like a little comma with a face, completely unbothered.

I want the seahorse's peace. But the seahorse doesn't have a theme park to secure and a crescent wrench boyfriend to keep up with.

Not boyfriend. Wrench companion. Wrench-adjacent person. Man I've known for twelve hours who happens to be very competent and have cheekbones and translates everything I say without pause.