The Last War Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 5-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I wake to butterfly kisses on my neck, the soft sensations pulling me from a dream I’d rather not revisit. The agitation in my head won’t stop in my sleep, and it’s making it hard for me to recover. Now this. Someone’s lips on my neck.

  A smile creeps on my face. Opening my eyes, I roll over, see this incredibly beautiful woman lying in bed next to me.

  Bailey says, “Morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “I know you’re doing the whole single father thing, and I’m doing, you know…whatever, the whole damsel in distress thing—which has been real, by the way.”

  “I know,” I say, grinning.

  “But still, you saved me back there. A bunch of times.”

  “Are you trying to thank me?” I ask.

  “No, I’m just wanting you to know I liked you and thought you were hot before you went and got all heroic on me.”

  “And you’re telling me this, why?”

  “So that when I make some not-so-subtle advances on you, you’ll know it’s not because I feel like I owe you anything, but because I genuinely like you.”

  For a second there, I almost forget about our circumstances. But I don’t. Then I look at her: hair tussled, pillow imprint on her face—a face that’s cut and has some bruises, and no make-up, a face that’s naturally nearly as beautiful as it is made up—and I don’t care what’s going on outside this boat.

  “Basically Nick, I think you’re sexy as hell and with the world falling down all around us, it seems silly to pretend.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Then: “I think I’m sexy, too.”

  Now she starts laughing, and something tight in my chest loosens. A sort of unwinding of what I now realize is an incredible knot of tension.

  “That’s very modest of you,” she says.

  “Naturally.”

  “But I’m hot, too, and when I get a little something to eat and a little more meat back on these bones, I’m going to be myself again. You’ll see.”

  “I’m barely awake, but you don’t have to sell me on you. I’m already sold. I saw you at the conference, Bailey James, so I know you’re attractive.”

  “How come you didn’t act like it mattered to you then?” she asks in a moment of seriousness.

  “Because back then it didn’t.”

  “You weren’t there to hook up, or hang out, or whatever?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “I actually respect that. In my books, the woman is always there needing saving from her bad decisions, and the guy is always there not needing love, but having a billion dollars and a gigantic—”

  I hold up my hand to stop her. “It’s still too early in the morning to be talking about other dudes’ wieners, if that’s what you’re about to say.”

  “I was going to say egos, but now that you mention it,” she says with that melodious laugh of hers. “The point is, those men are fiction, fantasy, and I’ve been laying here thinking about you, seeing you as a man without a boisterous ego, a man not needing to punish or control a woman, and I realize the guys I’m usually drawn to are guys that aren’t real. Guys that end up being turds. You don’t seem like that.”

  She says this, grazing the back of her finger across my cheek, she takes a lock of my hair in her fingers, turns it over then lets it go.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I say.

  “I’m just surprised by you,” she admits, “and a bit smitten, truth be told.”

  “My take on love is very different than yours,” I admit. “I got my heart crushed, Bailey. I mean stomped on. Thoroughly. I’ve developed an aversion to vulnerability, I suppose.”

  “None of us want to get hurt,” she replies, her eyes pouring over me. “But if you’re keeping your emotions close to the vest, if what you’re doing is burying yourself so deep in your own past, then trust me when I say you’ll never again get a chance to feel the absolute highs of first love.”

  “My first love lives up the street with a douchebag and a Tesla.”

  Undeterred, her hand finds its way to my chest. I won’t lie, the warm flat of her hand on my belly, the sensation of it, is beyond enticing. Like she’s waking up something I put to sleep a long time ago. I ease her hand away, tell her there’s too much going on, that I’m not ready.

  “Ready for what, Nick? Marriage? More babies?”

  I can’t help laughing, but this is nervous laughter. It’s the kind of laughter that says, I’ve already got too much on my plate, and I can’t handle this.

  Or can I?

  “It looks like what you’re hiding from is intimacy, and after what you said about your ex-wife, I see how you wouldn’t want to jump right into anything.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “Sure it is, Nick,” she says, kissing my neck again. “Don’t be a liar to yourself.”

  “I just don’t want to...let myself feel again. I don’t want to have to come down from that high when you go home, or die or whatever else happens to come along in this severely screwed up world. And if it does work out between us, I can’t introduce you to Indigo, not until we’ve been dating a long time, a year maybe or two—”

  “Listening to you rationalize sex is seriously exhausting,” she says, rolling away from me.

  Damn. She’s right. What am I doing?

  “I’m sorry. Your points are valid.”

  She turns back over, meets my eye. “These aren’t points, this is a conversation.”

  “How are you so beautiful?” I hear myself ask.

  Smiling, she scoots toward me. Suddenly her hand is on me again, testing these waters, making that move. Gliding slowly up to my chest, her face nuzzling against mine, she nestles into me. I wrap an arm around her. Her lips touch my neck, soft, moist. Tilting my chin down, I’m thinking she’s right, that I’ve definitely been overthinking this.

  When our mouths meet, when I let myself fall into her, into the feelings and emotions of her—of this moment—I find these uncharted waters are all too familiar. In some ways, it’s me revisiting Margot, in other ways it’s me letting her go.

  I pull back, look at her. She’s not Margot, I tell myself. God, I’m so screwed up.

  “What?” she says.

  “It’s me,” I say. “Not you.”

  “Of course it’s you, dummy,” she says.

  She starts kissing me again and I tell myself she’s Bailey James, not the former Margot Platt. Not a woman armed to the teeth with her resentment and her broken dreams. Even though she could be. She leans back, pulls her shirt off and she’s not wearing anything underneath. I see her body again, but this time it’s not the same as pulling her out of a box.

  This time, it’s something more.

  In the dim light of the cabin, she’s just about as gorgeous as I’ve ever seen. It’s actually painful looking at her, she’s that hot.

  “Wow.”

  “Your turn,” she says, her voice low and silky, bristling with need.

  From there, I have to say, she finds a way for me to let go of the past, if only long enough to chase away some of the hesitation I’ve been carrying around like a security blanket these last couple of years. And for that, maybe I felt something I haven’t felt in years. Perhaps a sense of self-worth. The idea that maybe I can let go. Find love again.

  I know it’s cliché to say I found God in the flesh of a woman, but isn’t that what this kind of thing is about? Aren’t we meant to feel the euphoria of what could very well be first love? If we are all made in God’s image, then I would imagine Him wanting more for me than a life of self-deprecation and anxiety. Maybe I need something more than this depression, or isolation, or fear of affection.

  Maybe I deserve…this.

  When we’re done, we lay there spent, breathing heavy, our eyes on each other. I start to smile, then laugh and she’s like, “You needed that.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  We lay in bed for the next hour, undressed, unshowered, halfway una
ware of the insanity brewing outside. That’s when she gets really serious and says, “I’m afraid, Nick.”

  “I am, too,” I say.

  “Do you think Marcus is alive?”

  “I don’t know. That guy’s a block of steel though, and just pissy enough to either bulldoze an entire city barehanded or get himself killed.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “You think he’s all there?” she asks. Tapping her temple, she says, “Upstairs, I mean.”

  “Are any of us at this point?”

  A sad smile creeps on her face and it reminds me of Margot, how when she knew something was really bad, or out of our control, this same forlorn look would escape her. It is this look that somehow reaches the deeper parts of me.

  I shelve my thoughts of Margot.

  Instead, I study the landscape of Bailey’s face. Her skin is so young looking and unblemished (except for a smattering of superficial wounds), her eyes so full of life in spite of our dire circumstances. My gaze slips down her face, to her neck where there are faint horizontal lines. Soft lines that make me want to kiss her again.

  Looking at her neck makes me think about my own. Darkness shrouds me and I’m haunted by memories of Clinton’s belt wrapping around my neck, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.

  I touch the skin where The Warden’s belt got me. He’d drowned me in a sea of darkness and then he threw me in a cage with those animals. The memory of it weakens me.

  Immobilizes me.

  I turn away from Bailey, force myself to relax. The Warden is dead. He’s dead. When I turn back around, Bailey is sitting up, hair draped over her shoulders, eyes in that state. She’s looking at me like she’s going to have me one way or the other.

  “Who’s waiting for you in Sacramento, Bailey?” I ask.

  I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days now, but I’ve been too afraid to ask, especially now that we’re somewhat together and I’m letting my guard down with her.

  “I’ll tell you after you make love to me again,” she says, hand under my chin, caressing me, beckoning me toward her.

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “This time, yes.”

  And her body comes to mine, slower this time. Where before we were rushed, needy, so consumed by passion and an undeniable attraction to each other, now we savor everything about the other. The kisses are slow, the rhythm tender, teasing almost, the feel of something more than sex permeating.

  Maybe I can see her in my life. But maybe she’s got her own family at home. A mother and father, a younger brother. Maybe she can bring them along to San Francisco, or I can get Indigo and join them there.

  It’s a silly thought, but still…

  When we’re done, we lay here, absolutely drunk on the sensations of each other. I look at her and see a look I haven’t seen in years, a look I used to know so well. She’s every bit as enamored with me as I am with her. I slide my hand into hers, bring it to my mouth and kiss it. I don’t want this euphoria to fade.

  I want to feel this forever, but forever might not be so far away.

  Then again, anything is possible. Maybe we live a little longer, or maybe we even live a long time. But then there’s that part of me who keeps telling me death is an inevitability. That I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

  Whatever the case, I feel my old self emerging. Like I’m finally waking up out of a long, restless slumber only to find a world full of flowers and bombs, and one beautiful woman who likes me enough to save me.

  “I don’t know if I should say this or not,” I admit, not sure how to phrase this, “but I haven’t been with a woman in a couple of years, and I don’t do things like this.”

  “I could tell. Not just by how you were with me, but by what you said about your ex-wife, and your commitment to your daughter. I think that’s what makes you so special. You’re selfless, Nick.”

  “I hope it was okay, me telling you that.”

  “You can tell me anything,” she says. “But right now I think I need to wash up.”

  I settle back on the bed, the sheets barely pulled over me. Bailey crawls out of bed, naked, and she walks to the shower where she quickly rinses off. When she shuts the water off only a moment later, I put on a pair of shorts and a shirt, then pop my head into the shower and say, “You can take a better shower than that.”

  “What about the fresh water supply?” she asks, the towel in front of her.

  “We’ll make up for it with extra stores. Looks like Marcus got a lot done anyway. Did you see the fridge?”

  “No.”

  “It’s stocked full of food and water, so take your time. I won’t tell anyone.”

  She kisses me on the mouth, hands me the towel, then turns the water back on and laughs when I don’t immediately shut the door.

  Up top, I pull up a chaise lounge, recline with the sun on my skin and my head tilted to the sky. For a second I don’t realize I’ve dozed off, but when the feel of cold metal presses up against my head, I open my eyes thinking Marcus finally developed a sense of humor.

  What I see, however, is a man on the other side of the gun who is not Marcus. This is an older guy with bad skin, a thick head of white hair and clothes that look stolen and ill fitting. Two more guys breeze past us, both normal looking men, both standing just out of sight.

  “More misfits,” I say. He clonks me on the head with the gun, but I don’t say ow! because I’m not going to give these scrubs the satisfaction.

  “How many on board?” he asks me.

  His blue eyes, bushy eyebrows and seriously pocked skin sicken me. I feel only revulsion. What’s worse is that Bailey is in the shower and these three idiots are now on board. The word rape comes to mind. I force it from my head.

  “It’s just me,” I say casually. “My partner is out foraging for food and supplies. Which is what you should be doing if you don’t want to put your life at risk.”

  “My life isn’t at risk, pal,” he says. Looking up, he tells the two guys he’s with to check out the boat.

  “Make yourself at home, buttholes!” I yell at them, hoping Bailey will hear me and hide.

  And with that, this old guy—this Burt Reynolds relic—he decides it’s time to soften me up with a punch to the jaw.

  I think I might actually feel my brainpan rattle.

  “What the hell?” I ask, holding my mouth where he hit me. Running my tongue over the inside of my cheek, I taste blood.

  “You’ve got a smart mouth,” he says, thunking me on the head again with the muzzle of his gun, repeatedly this time, “and you’re gay.”

  “I’m not gay, you moron,” I say, swatting the gun away and absolutely eviscerating him with hateful eyes. “And of course I have a smart mouth. But I’m also a little pissed off considering what I had to go through to get this boat you’re now ransacking like a bunch of freaking land pirates.”

  He hits me again, but this time it really, really hurts.

  “I like that,” he says, shaking a bolt of pain out of his hand. “Land pirates.”

  The anger I tapped into when I learned Tyler had been killed is the same anger I feel now. But I can’t do anything because he has me dead to rights and we both know it.

  A few minutes later, the two other men come up and say, “We found plenty. Food, water, weapons. But no one else. He’s right, the boat is clear.”

  “Good,” the bad Burt Reynolds double replies. Back to me, he says, “Now get to shore good looking and you’ll have your life. Or stay and I shoot you. It’s your call.”

  Looking down at my feet, I have no shoes. I also have no socks or underwear, nothing warm to wear, and most importantly, no Bailey.

  “Why don’t you get another boat, leave us peace-loving folk to ourselves,” I say, chewing on my temper.

  He tries to punch me again, but I step aside and he swings wide, losing his balance. Two more guns come on me.

  “He’s a bit slow these days, but we aren’t,” one of the
two younger guys says.

  “I’m not that slow,” my would-be captor argues, to which all three of us say, “Yes, you are.”

  “I like this guy,” one of them says.

  On closer inspection, it’s clear that both these guys have to be pushing fifty. They also resemble the old man. Same gene pool?

  “Yeah, well I don’t like him at all,” his partner, or brother, replies.

  “Yeah, me either,” the older guy behind me says, straightening his white hair and fixing the oversized Tommy Bahama shirt he’s wearing.

  “I really don’t care what you clowns think of me.” Turning around, I say, “Hit me again twinkle toes, see what happens.”

  “I’ll tell you what happens,” the younger guy who doesn’t like me says. “First we shoot you, then we leave you on the docks to get picked at by gulls. And you don’t get to hit him. Or push him. Or so much as eyeball him funny.”

  “He’s your dad?” I finally ask.

  “As a matter of fact, he is,” the younger one who likes me replies.

  “I get that. A man’s loyalty to his father and all.”

  “I’m glad you do,” the one who doesn’t like me says while his brother heads up to the fly bridge. “Now get off the boat or I’ll shoot you for the sport of it. Even though just shooting you in the back of the head isn’t really sport as much as it’s an execution.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Can I at least get some shoes?”

  The figurative Burt Reynolds smacks me in the back of the head so hard I nearly see stars. Upstairs, the one who doesn’t like me calls down to his father and says, “Keys are up here, hidden rather poorly.”

  Looking at me, Burt says, “Your shoes or your life?”

  “My life, you sack of—”

  “Like I said,” he interrupts me, giving me a shove, “you have a smart mouth.”

  I step off the boat and wait. As they untether the dock lines, my brain is scrambling for a solution, something to say when the engine turns over and the last of the lines are clear. The boat backs up, turns around expertly, then begins to take off.