He nods, then shoves another forkful of potatoes into his mouth. “Let me know when you want to talk.”
He doesn’t push.
After dinner, I clean up, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher, making sure the knives are all in their place. Landon disappears upstairs.
I finish up, then walk to the window. The storm has started, thick flakes coming down in a slow-motion avalanche. The world is turning white again, erasing every scar and mark and footprint.
I look at my reflection in the glass. I see the man I used to be—the enforcer, the weapon, the cold, hard thing that survived when everyone else died. But there’s something else there now. A shadow of softness, maybe. A possibility.
Six months. Six months to figure out a plan to keep us safe.
I close my eyes, breathe in the cold that seeps through the window.
Upstairs, the steam is a humid wall that hits me halfway down the corridor. The bathroom is slick with condensation, and the shower runs full blast, fogging the mirrors and glass. I hesitate in the doorway, watching Landon through the clouded pane. His silhouette is blurred—a smudge of lines, hair hanging wet across his forehead, arms braced against the tile while water hammers his back. For a moment, he looks fragile, as though the heat could melt him into the drain.
I step out of my sweats, leave them in a pile by the door, and pull the glass open. The tiles are cold under my feet, but the water is volcanic, instantly numbing the skin to everything except the contrast. Landon doesn’t turn or flinch when I step inside. He just shifts to give me space, head bowed, breath fogging in the thick air.
I reach around him and grab the soap, lathering it between my hands. He’s covered in goosebumps, the backs of his arms mapped with a constellation of freckles. I work the soap over his shoulders, his neck, then down his back. The muscles are corded, tight. I use my thumbs to knead out the knots, tracing the line of his spine with the flat of my hands.
He lets out a sound, almost a sigh.
“You ready to talk about it?” he says, voice muffled by the roar of the water.
“No,” I say, but then I do. I start with the call. I tell him about Eve, about the six months, about the Eastern breach. I don’t tell him about how my hands shook after, or the way relief and dread twisted together in my gut, but I suspect he knowsanyway. He always knows the things I’m not brave enough to say.
He turns, slides his back down the wall until he’s crouched at my feet. He rests his forehead against my leg, arms wrapping around my calves. I brush the wet hair off his neck. The water sluices down his spine, hot enough to make my own skin sting.
“It’s a lot,” he says, like he’s tasting the shape of the words. “What will you do with it?”
“Burn it for time,” I say. “Stack every day like a brick and build a wall between us and the world. I’ll make us hard to find.”
He listens to every word, then tilts his head so his cheek presses into my thigh. The smile he gives me is small, wry—a private joke with himself. It irritates me, how serene he looks after learning the world is still on fire.
I crouch, force him to meet my eyes. “What?”
His hand finds my wrist, thumb drawing a lazy circle over the bone. “It’s just… six months is a lot longer than I thought we’d get.”
I bark a laugh, sharp with disbelief. “Landon. Six months is a death sentence.”
He shrugs. “Not to me.” The smile widens. “It’s a whole lifetime.”
He’s a fool, but for a second I let myself believe it. In the steam, he looks alive, beautiful in a way that’s almost perverse with hope.
Pulling him up, I kiss him, hard. The taste is salt and wet and something sweet. He yields under my hands, then bites my lip,just enough to remind me who I am. I press him to the wall, hips pinning his. He wraps his arms around my neck, clinging like he can keep me anchored to this reality.
I rub my nose along his jaw and whisper, “You’re a light in the dark, you know that?”
He laughs into my mouth, the sound shaking us both. “You make it sound like I’m a fucking flashlight.”
“You are,” I say, “and I never learned what to do with one as bright as you.”
He pulls me closer, hands slipping down my back down my ribs, fingers digging in like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me. The water steams off our skin, fogging up the glass and making the world outside the shower a muted blur.
We stand like that until the hot water runs thin and the pipes start to groan. He’s the first one to move, swatting my ass as he sidesteps out of the stall, grabbing a towel on the way. He towels off his hair, then wraps the bulk of it around his waist, not bothering to hide the way he watches me as I step out behind him.
He looks at me like I’m the only man alive. I can’t hold the gaze for long.
We move to the bedroom, dripping wet and dampening the hardwood floor with every step. I toss him a sweatshirt from the top drawer—Brooks’s, too big even for me—and he pulls it on, the hem hitting him mid-thigh. He walks over to the little bar in the corner and pours us each a glass of wine, red for him, some ridiculous single malt for me.
