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I could hear Nick talking, here and there, around the room—doing his Nick thing, asking questions and harvesting information. He was quiet and calm, his voice down in a firm but gentle whisper as he went from group to group. Roving reporter.
I cracked my eyes to track him with idle curiosity.
But I must have dozed off and on, because he’d cleaned up since we arrived. I thought about taking a trip to the loo myself, but couldn’t muster the energy, so I didn’t bother. I watched him, instead.
He’d combed his hair down and it was drying into waves that sat against his head like they belonged that way. His clothes were drying out too, and lying funny on him, sticking to his chest and legs. Rationally I knew he was about ten years older than me, but it didn’t show.
“What are you grinning about, princess?” He caught me looking.
“Not a damn thing,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and he was smiling back. He dropped whatever mini-conversation he’d started, and came back to squat beside me, putting his hands on the arm of my chair. “Have a nice nap?”
“I don’t remember. If I did, it wasn’t long enough. What time is it?”
“Too late for lunch, too early for supper. How you feeling?”
“I’ve been better. But I could use another hot dog. ”
He shook his head and jerked a thumb at the table. “No more hot stuff. Got chips and the like, though. Popcorn. Beer. ”
“Ew. No beer. ”
“Fine. More for the rest of us. ”
“I’ll take a bag of chips, though. ” I began to unpeel myself from the chair and he objected, but I waved him down. “I’ve got to get up sometime. Now’s as good a time as any. ”
When I rose I had creases and crinkles in all sorts of strange places from the way the vinyl chair had worked itself into my exposed skin. Nick pointed and laughed, and I kicked at him with the toe of my boot, but I didn’t mean anything by it.
I squeezed a bag of Doritos and they opened with a poof of cheese. One at a time I snacked on them, both afraid to eat too quickly and afraid it’d be a while before I ate anything else. These days, I never knew when or what that next meal was going to be.
My bedroom up on Signal Mountain might as well have been a thousand miles away. In the back of my mind, though, I thought I’d walk it for a chance at Lu’s kitchen. But you can’t walk on water without a degree in theology, so I tried to rally my brain cells together in a different direction. Fireworks. That was the brilliant plan that had gotten me this far.
Leave the wading zombies to the men with guns. I’d take care of the tunneling ones.
I took my chips back to my chair, back to Nick. I leaned back in his direction, offering one. He pushed his fist into the aluminum bag and helped himself.
“This is what we need to do,” I began, as if beginning to say it would help me to construct it. “We need to find out where they keep the fireworks, but we need to do it without calling too much attention to it. I mean, we can’t just corner a cop and say, ‘Hey man, how about them fireworks?’ So instead—”
“Instead, we could just ask around about where they store the supplies, because one of the Red Cross people is asking if there are more napkins, towels, and the like. I mean, you could try that if you wanted to, but it might look weird because I’ve already been doing it. ”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Well, I am a genius you know. ”
“I did not know that. ”
“Well, now you do. But here’s what I’ve gathered, in case you’re interested: there’s a basement level or two beneath this place, which shouldn’t surprise you at all. That’s where they keep everything from jockstraps to ketchup packets. ”
“To fireworks? And if they’re in the basement, would they still be dry?”
“Hang on,” he said insistently. “The basement in this place is still well above the river; we’re on top of a hill, remember? And after asking about fifteen people, most of whom told me the same things all over again, I got one nice guy to warn me about the locked, sealed storage down beneath the food service areas. That’s where they keep the dangerous crap, like, I don’t know, fireworks and shit by the sounds of things. ”
I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say.
He was grinning ear to stubbly ear, and only when I saw him up close like that did I realize it must’ve been several days since he’d shaved last. And up close, and after a week like the one we’d had, I had to admit that up close—yes, I could see the extra ten years on him.
In that same split second, my logic centers deactivated due to fatigue, I grabbed him by his shirt collar and kissed him.
