Page 61 of My Undead Love Life

The Oasis could truly become home for us, too.

12

SPENCER

My mind had fractured, and it had to be a consequence of my broken heart.

It was the only explanation I could think of that made any damn sense.

I had almost kissed Mad.

It kept circling in my head. I almost kissed Maddox in the middle of a ruined mall while the world froze around us and the undead filled the city.

And worse than that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his golden eyes had dropped to my mouth. The way his breath had caught when I stepped closer.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Luck either.

And Oxi…

No wonder it had been so easy for Tori to fall for her men when they were stuck up in that treehouse right after they met. I used to think maybe the apocalypse had made people desperate or that danger shoved emotions forward before anyone could be reasonable about them. But maybe surviving with someone stripped too much away too quickly. Maybe when people kept you alive, fed you warm soup from dented cans, checked your skin for bites, slept pressed around you so you didn’t freeze to death, and looked at you like you mattered, your heart started reaching for them before your mind could stop it.

The difference was, I had Keith. I was still grieving him. I couldn’t fall for someone else so soon. He had been gone for one month and two weeks. That was it. Forty-two days since he’d pushed me toward survival and stayed behind. Forty-two days since I’d last seen his face. Forty-two days since the world had stolen the person I had built my future around.

My love for Keith was bigger than forty-two days. I knew it was. But…my feelings for the others sat in my chest like three splinters, small and sharp and impossible to ignore.

I was cold and scared and lonely, but my feelings didn’t develop for them just because of that. Mad’s arms felt safe. Luck’s voice made me breathe easier. Oxi’s quiet attention made me feel seen.

I hated myself for it. I hated that wanting them felt like betrayal to Keith.

I pushed the heavy door to the roof open with a loud creak. The metal stuck for a second, before finally giving way. The door swung outward slowly, shoving a ridge of thick snow aside so I could squeeze through.

The cold washed over me immediately. It stole my breath before I could take a full one, slicing through my scarf and under the collar of my coat. My eyes prickled from the icy air, and the exposed skin of my face burned. Even with gloves on, my fingers ached around the door handle.

Oxi had been plowing a walkway up here to make it easier to walk on the roof for fresh air. Well, as fresh as air could get with a horde around. The cold somehow muted the worst of it, though. He’d made a little narrow path through the snow that had collected across the rooftop. The edges of it were piled up to my shins. His footprints marked the path ahead of me, already fading beneath a fresh dusting of snow.

The night was gray instead of black. The clouds hung low and thick over the city, swallowing pretty much everything. What little moonlight made it through was weak and colorless, turning the rooftop into a dull, frozen blur. Snowflakes drifted sideways in the wind, and they were tiny and sharp against my cheeks.

A tangled mess of black hair was all I could see of Oxi at first. He stood near the edge of the cleared walkway with his back to me, his shoulders hunched against the cold. His cane sword was planted beside him, the dark line of it cutting through the snow. His head was tilted toward the sky.

Luck and Mad had been fast asleep when I snuck away, but Oxi was missing. I already knew I’d find him up here.

The snow crunched under my boots as I moved toward him.

Oxi flinched hard. He spun with terrifying speed, bending down and grabbing the cane sword from the snow before unsheathing it and pointing the blade at me before I could even say his name.

Moonlight slid across the steel, cold and thin.

I stopped short and lifted both hands. “It’s just me, Oxi.”

His green eyes widened, and then he exhaled sharply. “Shit.” He lowered the sword and slid it back into the sheath with a controlled movement that didn’t quite hide the tremor in his hand. Then, he set the tip against the roof and leaned on it like an actual cane. “You scared me.”

“Not the best place to get lost in thought,” I teased, stepping closer.

“I don’t know.” His mouth curved faintly, but his posture remained tense. “The roof is kind of hard to get attacked on.”

“Famous last words.”