“The same could be true of Endstone,” she answers with a shrug.
“Except we have strength in numbers there that you don’t have here,” I respond.
Remi turns around and stares at me for a beat, her eyes calculating as she takes my measure. “Consider this, soldier—even if everything you say is actually true, things may not get that bad. They could find a vaccine that works and get control over thisHandshake Plague,” she puts air quotes around the name of the pandemic that’s shut down this country, obviously not taking it seriously.
I bite back a growl of frustration and take the sandwich-laden plate she hands me. I follow her to the table as she passes Brant and Theo their massive sandwiches next. I ignore the call of her nice ass when she bends over slightly to pass out the plates before grabbing her own and plopping down in a chair.
“What makes you so certain that the Handshake Plague won’t touch you here?” I challenge, placing the same insulting air quotes around the name that she just did.
“What makes you so certain that it will?” she fires back. “How do you know it’s not some hoaky bullshit thing that will blow over just like Y2K, the bird flu, and a dozen other things people were convinced would be the end of the world as we know it?”
“None of those things moved this fast, or shut down cell and radio towers practically overnight.”
“Well, that seems extreme,” she mumbles, before taking a huge bite of her food.
“Fucking hell, what is your deal? We heard the news and the warnings. This is not something you want to mess with or be unprepared for. I heard you say you come up here to live off the grid, so I know this seems far-fetched, but itishappening,” I say, my jaw ticking. It’s all I can do not to shout this at her, but her casual dismissal of reality is fucking annoying.
She bristles slightly at my tone. “There’s nothing that can be done right now. This area floods, and until it stops raining, you’re stuck here. Now, you three are welcome to stay, but don’t be trying to bully me into following wherever you want to lead me. It won’t work.”
“Remi,” Brant says gently, drawing her attention. “We don’t mean to be pushy, but what he’s saying is true, and this is urgent. Your father doesn’t want you out here alone. He’s worried about you, and he misses you. He wants you to come back.”
At that, Remi looks down at her lap, taking a big bite of sandwich so she won’t have to answer. The three of us watch her as she thinks and chews, waiting for what she’ll say. I really don’t want to leave her out here, but I meant what I said before. If she refuses to come, we should get the hell out of here and go back home, where we can settle in and ride the plague out for as long as possible.
Based on the town meeting we went to, Endstone seems to have their shit together. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time we get back, a good portion of the town is already barricaded and fortified. They seem to have a solid emergency disaster plan, plus a stock of supplies and doctors needed for other shit. It’s smarter to go there, and this chick needs to come to terms with that fact.
After a few long minutes, Remi finally swallows her bite and takes a long drink of water. She wipes the corners of her mouth and looks up at Brant with a sigh. “I’ll think about it, okay? That’s the best you’re going to get out of me at this point.”
I take an angry bite of my stacked sandwich, and ignore the burst of flavor that explodes in my mouth. But I don’t care if she can make a kickass grinder, this chick isn’t just fucking with her own safety. She’s putting us at risk too by not taking things seriously, and that doesn’t sit well with me.
The sky through the window lights up with purples and pinks as the sun starts to sink out of sight behind the storm clouds. Where some might find it beautiful, all I see is more evidence that we’ve spent way too much time here. My only comfort is that hopefully the same shitty weather that’s keeping us here will also keep anyone else from moving out this way, but we’ll still take shifts tonight to make sure.
We all lapse into contemplative silence as we eat, and I know that my presence has fucked with the friendly vibe that Theo and Brant seemed to have already built with this girl, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Maybe we’ve been out of the Army for too long, but there’s too much dick-thinking going on around here and not enough tactical planning. They obviously need me to rein them back in and remind them about what’s important.
“So, I asked these ones earlier, but they weren’t very forthcoming,” Remi says, surprising me when I find her attention fully on me. “Are you as thorough with a pussy as you were with cleaning my house? Because I have to say, I like your attention to detail.”
I choke on the bite of food in my mouth and cough as I hit my chest with a closed fist. I don’t miss the grin on Brant’s face or the way Theo starts laughing. I get my airway clear and chug my glass of water, trying to get the coughing fit under control.
“What?” I croak out.
She motions a hand around the impeccably clean kitchen. “This. You’re very good with your hands. You obviously pay attention to every nook and cranny. So, Mr. Ortega, are you that observant with a woman?”
For fuck’s sake. Is she for real?
The corner of her lips are tilted up just enough to hint at a smirk, and her blue eyes are sparkling enough that I know this is a challenge. This girl probably pulls this shit all the time on people, seeing whether or not they’ll back down. She seems like the type of person to thrive on saying and doing things that are completely off the wall and unexpected.
So instead of snapping at her or shutting the conversation down like a normal person would probably do, I lean back and look at her steadily. “I know how to take care of a woman, Remington April, and it’s not the same way I take care of cleaning a fucking sink,” I tell her evenly.
Her lip twitches up before she full on beams at me. “Hmm,” she purrs, letting her eyes trail down my body.
I’ve never been so overtly objectified before. Is this how chicks feel when guys do this to them? I try not to fidget under her uncomfortable perusal of my body, refusing to show that she’s getting to me. It’ll take more than that to crack this nut. The more I don’t react to what she’s doing, the more excited she seems to be that I’m just going along with this. There’s a glimmer in her eyes that makes me think maybe I didn’t have the upper hand in this round after all.
Her gaze moves to Brant and Theo, and she openly assesses them next, just like she assessed me. Brazenly, she leans forward on the table to give herself a better view of Theo’s lower half.
Puddles saunters into the kitchen, and I blanch when I see that the fucking opossum is riding on top of her. Brant does a double take, his mouth opening in surprise. “Umm…”
Remington sees our expression and turns around in her seat. “Oh!” she exclaims, hopping to her feet. “Isn’t that just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” she croons.
She dashes out of the room and comes back in eight seconds flat, carrying an old ass Polaroid camera. She snaps a photo and then goes through the motions of pulling the photo out and fanning it back and forth.
