PODs (17 page)

“Where’d you hear about the villages, Tiffany?” I asked.

“Oh, people online are talking about it.”

“Well, there are about seventy thousand survivors in the POD system. If they made one village in every state, that would only be villages of roughly… um,” I tried to figure out the math.

“Fourteen hundred people, give or take a few,” David said, working through the problem in his head. He bumped up the speed on his treadmill to a jog.

“Show-off,” I said, smiling.

He shrugged and grinned at me.

“Ick,” Josh scowled as he stomped to the bedroom.

“Great. Now we’ll have crumbs all over our carpeting,” George muttered.

David laughed. “Small communities,” he said.

“Yeah, I doubt they’ll spread us out at all, but if they do they’ll keep the communities large enough to sustain themselves.” I switched off my treadmill and stepped down.

“I guess we’ll find out in a few months,” Tiffany said, patting Faith’s back and going back into the bedroom.

Month Eight

I was folding laundry in the bedroom when I heard someone behind me. I turned and groaned.

“What do you want, Josh?”

He didn’t answer as he came toward me, his face hard. I took a step back, bumping into the wall behind me.

Grabbing me by the wrist, he leaned his face so close to me I could smell his ever-present body odor and see the flecks of dandruff in his hair. I wrinkled my nose, trying to block out the offending stench.

“What are you doing?” I shook his hand off my wrist. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of my face.

“I didn’t think you wanted a POD romance, Eva.”

“I didn’t.”

“And David?”

“Is none of your business.” I tried to push past him. He leaned in closer.

“Does David share?” he whispered.

“What?”

He leaned his head forward, tilting it, lowering his lips toward mine. I clamped my lips together and put my hand over my mouth, as I pushed off the wall and tried to duck under his arm. He grabbed me around the waist.
Not even if Josh were the last guy on Earth
…

“What’s going on?” David’s voice came from behind Josh.

Josh flinched. “A misunderstanding,” he said with a shrug. “Isn’t that right, Eva?”

I looked into Josh’s pale blue eyes and wanted nothing more than to give David permission to hit Josh—I knew that’s what he was waiting for. But I didn’t.

“Yeah. A big misunderstanding.”

“You’re sure?” David looked at me, his brows raised in question. I nodded. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again, or the outcome may be different.” David slapped Josh on the back and smiled.

“Most definitely.” Josh left the room.

“Why’d you lie for him, Eva?” David asked, turning toward me and looking annoyed.

“Fighting won’t do any good with him, David. Besides, nothing happened. He’s all talk. I’m going to take a quick shower. Don’t do anything—I’m fine. I don’t want you going out there and starting anything while I’m in the shower. Promise me.”

He nodded.

I only used my allotted four minutes of showering water, but it never got more than lukewarm. I dried off and slipped into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. David was leaning against the wall across from the bathroom when I opened the door.

“Have you been standing there the entire time?”

“Mm-hmm. You told me not to go out there.”

I laughed. “That isn’t exactly what I said, David.” He pushed off the wall and guided me backward until we were both standing in the bathroom. Reaching behind him, he closed and locked the door. He never took his eyes off my face.

He dipped his head and kissed me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “You’re freezing. You need to warm up. Sit down.”

I sat at the little counter wedged between the linen closet and the bathtub. It looked like it had been put there as an afterthought. David plugged the hair dryer into the socket. He made a face, turning the dryer around, looking for the power switch.

“It’s on the bottom of the handle.”

He smiled. “I knew that. I was just making sure you were paying attention. How do you do this? Do you brush and dry, or just blow it around?”

I laughed. “Give it here, I’ll do it.” I reached for the hair dryer, and he lifted it over his head.

“No.”

I stared at him before shrugging. “Okay…just brush it straight and dry it.”

He flipped the power on and ran the brush through my hair, blowing the warm air across it. I watched him in the mirror. His brow was furrowed, the same look he made when he was really concentrating on his coursework or on his art. He worked slowly, brushing my hair with gentle strokes. I closed my eyes and let the feeling relax me. I was disappointed when I realized I needed him to stop.

Standing up, I pulled the plug out of the wall. Looking at him in the mirror, I shook my head, trying to find the words to express the feelings, physical and emotional, I had. I wasn’t sure what they meant, so how was I supposed to communicate them to him?

“David, I…”

He took me by the shoulders and turned me around to face him. He lowered his lips, moving them over mine. Dropping the hair dryer on the floor, he reached around my waist and lifted me on top of the vanity, our lips never leaving one another’s.

Our breathing increased. I could feel his heart hammering against his chest, and a small portion of my brain gloated that his physical response to me was as great as mine to him. I pushed my hands under his shirt, running my fingernails across his skin. He grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and pulled it up—and I pushed it down, jerking away.

“David, I can’t.”

He didn’t answer. His hands gripped the counter on either side of me. His head bowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t say that.” Tears pressed the back of my eyes, pushing their way out. One ran down my cheek. I swiped it away angrily. I didn’t want to cry.

“What?”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. Think it, but please don’t say it. I’m not.”

“Geez, Eva. Can’t you see? I’m not sorry about that. I’m sorry our living arrangement isn’t different. That I can’t take you out on a real date. Instead, I maul you in the bathroom.” He ran his hand down his face in frustration. “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

“Are you guys coming out or what? It’s the only bathroom in this thing, you know,” Aidan yelled outside the door.

I smiled. David groaned.

David opened the door and elbowed Aidan in the ribs. “You’re a moron.”

“What? I have to go.” Aidan smirked as he closed the door behind him.

David sat on my bed, his back against the headboard, his legs stretched out in front of him. I was lying sideways, curled up with my head in his lap as he twirled a lock of my hair around one of his fingers. The feeling sent jolts of electricity through my body.

“So where’d you learn how to blow-dry a girl’s hair? Oh, wait. If this is an ex-girlfriend story, I don’t want to know,” I teased.

“No, I’ve never dried a girlfriend’s hair until tonight.”

Girlfriend? I guess I am. I’m David’s girlfriend. He’s my boyfriend. Yeah, I like the sound of that
.

The thought made me extraordinarily happy, and I had to push down the giggle I felt bubbling up. “So? Where’d you learn it?”

“I have two younger sisters. Eight and six. I dried their hair sometimes to help my mom out.”

“I’m sorry, David. I shouldn’t have pried.”

What’s it like to have a sister? Six years old—she’s just a baby! It must have been hell for him to leave them
.

“It’s okay. We’ve all lost people we love. It’s better to talk about it than bottle it up, don’t you think? I mean, mourning can only go on so long before it eats you up. We all need to focus on the happy times. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.”

“Yeah, that’s what I tell myself, too. What—”

“Emily and Hannah.”

“Pretty names.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters. It was just me and my parents.”

I always wanted a brother or sister. I’m glad now I don’t have one—it’s one less person to leave behind
.

“And does thinking about the good memories help?”

“Not yet,” I admitted.

I wish it did
.

“Me, neither.”

M
onth Nine

“You want to go on a picnic?” David asked me.

“Yes. Can you break us out of here?”

“No, but I can manage a picnic, and maybe even some alone time.” He grabbed the quilt off his bed.

Threading his fingers through mine, he pulled me behind him to the storage room, where he pulled his wet clothes out of the washer and stuffed them into the dryer before turning it on.

“I didn’t know we were doing laundry,” I teased.

He gave me a smile. “Hush.”

David turned on the washer, stuffed it full of clothes, and dumped detergent in the tub.

What the heck is he doing?

Then he spread his quilt on the floor, grabbed our MREs off the shelf and laid them on the blanket with two bottles of water. After shoving the rubber doorstop under the door—making it next to impossible for anyone to push it open from the other side—he plopped down on the quilt and looked at me expectantly.

“Sit down, Eva.” He patted a spot next to him.

“Okay.” I lowered myself down next to him and watched him open our MREs, laying them out in front of us on the quilt like a gourmet feast.

“There. How’s this?”

“As far as picnics go? It’s definitely a first for me.”

“Yeah, the laundry area probably isn’t the most romantic place to have a picnic, but it has three things that make it the best room in the house…or POD, whatever.”

“And what are they?”

“First, it’s my laundry day, so no one will be in here. Second, the washer and dryer drown out the noise of the others, so we can talk without them interrupting or hearing everything we say.”

“And the third?” I asked.

“You’re here.”

Heat crept across my face. It felt like I had a thousand butterflies flying in my stomach.

“You’re blushing.” David turned toward me, putting one leg over mine until he was on all fours above my legs. Looking in my eyes, he tilted his head and kissed me slowly. I closed my eyes and let myself get lost in his kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck. Leaning back, I pulled him down with me.

Pulling his shirt over his head, I whispered, “Shouldn’t you wash this?” Then, I flicked open the button on his jeans, slipping my fingers just inside the waistband. “And these?” I sucked in a sharp breath when he kissed behind my ear, sending shockwaves of pleasure through my body.

“Eva,” he murmured in my ear, his breath making my hair flutter against my skin. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I think you’re the one tempting me. You brought me in here, blocked the door, turned on the white-noise machinery. Why was that? Just to eat?” I teased him with a grin.

He rolled off me and threw his arm over his eyes. I scooted down and moved his arm around me. We lay on our backs on the floor, looking at the ceiling.