Page 69 of My Undead Love Life

“Do you want to go outside and see the stars?” Oxi asked gently. “We’ll stay close to the door. The snow stopped this morning. Might be clear enough now.”

Her gaze drifted toward the ceiling, and then, she nodded. “Yeah. That would be nice.”

Mad pulled away. “Be careful. After you told us about that snow leopard…”

“We will,” Oxi promised, climbing off the mattress.

The cold rushed in under the blankets the second he moved, and I hissed under my breath. My body had gotten used to our shared warmth, which was both practical and absolute torture.

Oxi reached for his clothes. “Besides, I don’t think it can get on the roof. It’d have to be some kind of supernatural beast to jump that far.”

“I mean,” I said dryly, rubbing both hands over my face, “it’s literally undead.”

“Undead doesn’t equal supernatural,” Oxi argued.

“Pretty sure dead animals walking around with half their faces missing counts.”

“Scientifically, no.”

I stared at him. “Oh, good. I feel much better now that the dead but prowling murder leopard is scientifically improbable instead of supernatural.”

Spencer let out a tiny laugh as she climbed out of bed behind him. “Actually,” she muttered, “I think those things might be supernatural.”

She started pulling on her clothes, layering them with sleepy movements. Thermal shirt first, then a sweater, a jacket, and the thick coat we’d found in one of the department stores. She tugged on her thermal pants, socks, jeans, boots, gloves, and a hat.

Oxi dressed, too, in just as many layers, before he stepped close to her and wrapped a thick scarf around her neck. His hands moved slowly, gently tucking the fabric in so no cold air could slip through.

Spencer stood still for him, watching his face while he worked.

I blinked at the interaction with surprise. I had never seen that man look so calm and soft around someone before.

It was weird. Not like a bad weird. A good but noticeable weird.

Oxi adjusted the last fold of the scarf and murmured something too low for me to hear. Spencer’s mouth curved slightly, and she nodded.

When they started walking toward the back of the store where the maintenance ladder led to the roof access, Mad and I stayed behind. We listened to their footsteps fade, then the soft metallic sound of the hatch shifting above them.

The moment they were out of earshot, we both blurted, “I like her.”

Then, we both froze.

Slowly, I turned my head toward Mad, and he turned his toward me.

“Oxi, too,” I muttered.

“Clearly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the corner where Spencer and Oxi had disappeared. “But she’s too vulnerable right now to jump into anything.”

“I know.” I hated that the right thing was so obvious and so hard to do at the same time. “Doesn’t stop me from wanting her.”

Mad’s eyes flicked to mine. “Yeah. I get it.” He turned his gaze to the spot on the mattress where she’d been lying moments ago. The blankets were still shaped around the absence of her body and still warm where she’d been pressed between us. “But she needs time.”

I nodded. He was right. She did need time. And not the kind of time where we hovered around waiting for her to be ready. We were not a bunch of assholes expecting a reward for decent behavior. We would give her real time and space to grieve Keith. She needed to decide what she wanted without three touch-starved men accidentally turning our moments with her into pressure.

“Nobody makes a move on her until she’s ready,” Mad stated. “And honestly…we don’t even know if she likes us like that.”

“That’s true.”

I really hoped she did.