by Reese Rivers
Dying to Love
Reese Rivers
Copyright © 2021 Reese Rivers
Dying to Love
Ebook Edition
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover Art by Crimson Phoenix Creations
Fair Warning Dear Readers
Suicidal thoughts are referenced.
Detailed sex scenes and copious amounts of swearing, like, A LOT of both are in this book. The main female character does not have to choose between four men. She chooses them all.
If this is a family member, thank you for supporting me, now step away from the book. Seriously...Thanksgiving will be hella weird if you don't!
Author’s Note
My biggest thanks to Ginna Moran for tempting me into the amazing world of Reverse Harem!
Thank you to my ride or die bestie, Rachelle. Your encouragement is everything to me.
My husband who makes all my dreams come true. Thank you for all the work you put in on my books. Love you babe.
To the red shirt guy - sorry, your fate was written in the stars.
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Timeline
662 – Days since the dead rose up
413 – Days since I’ve spoken to another living human
4 – Men who have climbed my fence looking for safety
1 – Last chance for Love
Kelsey
Isnuggle deeper under the comforter, trying to find the will to get up and face another day but sometimes the emptiness of my existence makes me want to just not bother. Waking up to this emptiness, this desire to just quit, is becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. As I stare up at the ceiling, I wonder if today is the day that I'll finally find the courage to end it all. Even though I’ve just woken up I’m exhausted and it takes everything I have to throw back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed to the floor. There’s a wall of mirrors that hides the closet that I’m facing and I take stock of my ragged appearance. Limp, greasy hair the color of mahogany falls tangled and dull just below my breasts in length. Dark purple smudges look like shadows below my lifeless gray eyes. Eyes that are practically hidden under brows that haven’t seen a tweezer in months. My skin is dull, even with the light tan I’ve gotten from all the work I put in on the crops. I make a face as my gaze goes lower and shift slightly to the side so that I can see the outline of my ribs through the tight tank I wore to bed. I’m at least twenty pounds under a healthy weight and it's not even because of a lack of food.
Cooking and sitting down to a meal for one just emphasizes how alone I am and has stolen most of my appetite so now I just nibble quick bites here and there throughout the day, never sitting down to a full meal. My lips tug up in a smirk as I look at the forest of hair that's grown out on my pale legs and I wonder briefly if I could braid that shit. I could start a new style if there was anyone left alive to follow it. Apocalypse body braids, yeah, it could totally be a trend.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I've been here before. This state of mind. This is the start of a steep slide that ends with a gun barrel pressed against my forehead and my finger hovering over the trigger.
Tara settles onto the bed beside me and looks at my reflection in the mirror with an amused smirk.
“Damn, girl! When you let yourself go, you fully commit and go all the way. Look at that leg hair. You bringing bush back in style too?”
Her laughter rings out as I glare at her in the mirror and spit out, “I didn’t let go all the way or I’d be with you instead of stuck here alone!” Turning away from her I mutter under my breath, “bitch.”
She rolls her eyes and bumps me with her shoulder. “Whatevs, we’ve already covered that. You know I wanted to be with Ryan. Besties trump a lot of things, but not true love. Sorry.” She pins me with her signature “You’re an idiot” look and shakes her head.
“Come on, you got to move past that. You’re the last one standing so make it fucking count.” She wrinkles her nose and waves a finger back and forth and up and down my body. “Fix this shit cause that’s just sad and an affront to all women. You know what you need to do. Round up the girls and make a plan to kick-start your vibe again.”
I close my eyes and breathe out so I don’t blast her with all the angry words that I have bottled up inside, but when I open them again, she’s gone. The ache in my chest flares to life, making me want to join her so badly but her pep talk and the small stubborn spark that still exists in my heart forces me to my feet in defiance. Time to pack that shit away and change the channel. Tara’s right. I need a jump start.
It's time for a hen party. As Taylor used to sing, I need to shake it off - and the best way to do that is to dance. First thing’s first, if I'm going to go and have a girls' night, I need to clean up the hot mess my appearance has become and that means it’s going to be a high-maintenance, full works, spa day.
I lean over and sort through the pile of dirty laundry on the floor and my nose wrinkles at the rancid smell that wafts up. Oh-kay. So laundry and a full camper cleanup will have to go on today's list too. I finally locate a semi-clean hoodie with only a few questionable stains and throw it over my sleep tank top, not bothering with pants to go over the booty shorts I am wearing. It's not like there's anyone around to see anyway. Three carpeted steps take me down out of the bedroom to the main level of the 5th wheel trailer I call home.
The clean slate state of mind I’m trying to overwrite my depression with has me looking critically at the mess that I've let my small kitchen become. Dirty plates, glasses, and cups litter the counters and fill the sink. I shake my head at how lost I have been for the past few weeks to let it get so bad. So, a full day of physical and mental maintenance it is, body and living space - before I end the night with a few cocktails and some dancing with my girls. It won't magically fix everything that's wrong with me but it's a good first step.
My gaze lands on the hand-drawn calendar I’ve tacked to the wall and I mentally add another day to my tally. It’s been 662 days since the dead rose up to destroy the world as I knew it and 413 days since I last spoke to another living person. If I want to quit my slow descent into darkness, I have to believe there are others out there and one day I won’t be alone anymore. I find a travel mug to pour coffee into before jamming my feet into a pair of rubber boots and open the camper door to a beautifully sunny, late June day. I stand stock-still for a few moments, listening closely. I can hear leaves rustling in the light breeze but no sounds of the moaning dead. Maybe it will be a good day.
My eyes scan the small apocalypse empire I am the Queen of, all ten acres of it. Seven of the acres are dedicated to crops and gardens that I only actually need a fraction of to survive. The extra I just keep canning, dehydrating, and storing away for that mythical day when there will hopefully be more mouths to feed. Besides, what else do I really have to do to fill the long hours of each day?
Two acres are stacked end to end with solar panels that make life after civilization a little more bearable. The power they produce means that I’m two steps up from a pioneer woman and I don’t have to hand scrub my laundry … yay me. The last acre has the three RV campers we brought here to live in. Only mine is used to live in. The other two are crammed full of scavenged supplies that I will never use up by myself, but again - one day.
The campers back onto a wall of rock that goes up at least fif
ty feet and bolted into it halfway up is a massive, heavy tarp that juts out at an angle to cover all three campers. It’s supported by wooden frames at both ends and two more frames between the campers and gives me a large protected outdoor living space. There are three sets of patio furniture, fireplace tables, grilling stations, and patio heaters in front of each of the campers that were all used in the beginning but now sit covered in dust and blown leaves. Sitting around a fire and making s’mores for one lost its appeal pretty fucking quick.
If I squint, I can make out the ivy-covered inner fence that surrounds my empire and keeps me safe, or a prisoner depending on my outlook for the day. Today, I’m choosing to feel safe.
I take a big slug of coffee and get on with it, starting with turning back inside and gathering up all the gross clothing littering my bedroom floor and dresser and carrying it over to the middle camper that has a small washer and dryer in it. I have to wait for the water heater to heat up but once it’s ready I get the first load going and search for the beauty supplies Tara insisted we scavenge and haul back when we were first getting this place set up.
After the fences, security, food, and basics were stocked up, Tara and Lisa convinced the guys we needed to do a luxury run. By that point, we had leveled up so high in this zombie apocalypse game that it was an easy run to do, as were the next two. That’s how we ended up living the high life with every want we could think of scavenged and stored away.
I lay the beauty tools and products out on the dining table and dive in. I choose a cherry-colored tint for my hair and while it processes, start ripping hair from all over my body with wax strips. Legs, pits, and lady bits are attacked with much cursing and screeching but by the time the color rinse in my hair is ready to be washed out I’m as smooth as an egg and really fucking pink in places from the abuse. I jump in the camper shower and scrub from head to toe while my hair gets a deep condition. By the time I get out, the water is cold and I feel a little more like my old self. Fat rollers go up and will stay for the rest of the day until my hair dries while I go to work plucking and shaping my brows back into two distinct shapes rather than the unibrow they have been growing into. Just to ramp up the fun, I add a few falsies to bulk up my lashes and get to work on my makeup. A girl’s night of drinks and dancing calls for a bit of extra so I wing my eyes with liner and brush on a smoky eyeshadow look. When I finally lean back from the mirror and get the overall look at my face, I’m smacked hard by memories of me, Tara and Lisa crowded into Tara’s bathroom as we did our faces for a night of clubbing. When tears well up I force myself to blink them away. Tara would kick my ass if I ruined the smoky eye look I had nailed.
The first load of laundry goes into the dryer and I attack my nails and toes. Trimming, shaping, and painting them a pretty peach color for the season. Other than my hair and dress that I will do later, I’m done with the beauty maintenance portion of getting my shit together. Next up, decontaminate my camper.
When the guys first told us we would be getting RVs to live in for their master plan, I cringed and imagined the ugly orange upholstery and tacky wooden trim of my parents' camper from childhood. Turned out that RVs had seriously upped their game since then. With the majority of the population dead or in hiding and no one minding the store we picked out the best of the best in high-end campers. The one I live in has six slide-outs to double the space.
The large living room at the back has a full couch, two recliners, an electric fireplace, a flat-screen TV, and is slightly bigger than my old condo’s living room. There’s a freestanding dining table that can expand to seat six comfortably and a kitchen with a house-sized fridge, four-burner gas stove and oven, double sinks, and an island for even more counter space.
Next to the kitchen is a bunk room in its own slide-out. It has a jackknife sofa that converts to a bed, a bunk over top of that, and a small desk and cupboard. Turning right from the entrance are three steps that go up to a landing with a small ladder leading up to a loft bed area. After that is the bathroom and then the master bedroom that has two slide-outs and a king-sized bed with the very front wall covered in mirrored closet doors. It’s fucking epic as far as campers go. The camper beside mine used to be Tara and Ryan’s and has a similar layout except it doesn’t have the bunk room or loft. The final one had been Lisa and Tommy’s and it’s a huge ass motorhome. At the time, I chose this one because I was the only single in our group and had hopes that other survivors would join us in time and there would be room for them. I was a fucking fool.
Kelsey’s camper:
I take a couple of deep breaths and remind myself about the whole new outlook thing and snap on a pair of rubber gloves because - fresh nails and all. It takes me a few hours to get everything shipshape and sparkling again with all the laundry, dishes, sheets, and bathroom cleaned up. After a snack of cheese and slightly stale crackers I head out to check on the girls and let them know they need to put their party hats on for tonight. I walk past the other two campers and follow the rock wall for thirty feet with my eyes tracking up the rock. I scan the strong mesh rock fall nets that the guys bolted into the rock ten feet above the tarp, looking for any fallen rocks or random zombies. It had only happened once and none of us could figure out how one of the dead had gotten up there in the first place but it had freaked us all out in a big way. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards about zombies dive-bombing our camp from above. The nets started out bright orange but we spray painted them a flat grey before putting them up to help them blend into the scenery.
Seeing that the nets are clear, I take another look over the gardens, noting that the corn was getting to be a nice height, and step into the cavern. Right away I’m greeted by my girls with squawks and balks. Feathers start flying as they rush to the gate in welcome or more likely for feed. I grab a scoop of chicken feed and my egg bucket and wade into the flock.
“Ladies! Big news … Huge news!” I call out to the flapping hens as I toss feed in an arc to spread it out. “We are lighting this shit UP! Put your best feathers on because tonight is GIRLS NIGHT! Whoop-whoop!”
With the last of the feed spread out I move over to the nesting cubbies and start gathering eggs while I chatter away at them.
“Yes, ma’am we are going to rock the cavern tonight. I expect all of you to put your best effort in but watch your drunk levels. Don’t think I’m going to be holding back your feathers if you start puking.”
I turn and point. “Yes, I’m looking at you Snookie! You’re always the first one who takes it too far, you lightweight.” The chicken in question flaps her wings and balks at me in outrage. I cock a hip and glare back at her.
“Well, flock you too! You and J-Wow are always stirring up shit around here. Girl, push me and see if you don’t end up in the pot. I ain’t playing!” When Snookie settles her feathers and goes back to pecking at the ground I nod. “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought."
With one last scowl to show I mean business, I turn away and open the gate between the inside and outside pen so the girls can go get some sun after they’re done eating.
I leave them to it and carry the egg bucket to the cavern kitchen, setting it beside two other buckets that are already brimming with eggs on a long stainless steel table that we appropriated from a high school cafeteria. I sigh at just how much work I’ve let pile up in my funk and pull my phone from my back pocket to check the time. I still have a few hours before I have to do my hair and get dressed for the party so I get cracking … literally.
I crack eggs into a ginormous steel bowl, tossing the shells into the compost box. I keep careful count until I hit fifty and then whisk them up until they get frothy. Each one of the five dehydrators can process fifty eggs at a time and when I’m done, I have three filled and cooking for the next ten hours before I will grind them up for storage. I need to get this out of my way because the early tomatoes, peppers, and onions will need to be picked and processed into sauces and salsa in the next few days. I wash everything up and clean the mess a
way, flick off the lights and head out of the cavern and back into the sun.
I spend the next hour walking my gardens, pulling the occasional weed, and checking for any bugs or rot before finally heading to Lisa’s motorhome to find something to wear tonight. Where Tara loved her makeup and beauty products, Lisa was a total fashionista. She threw herself into scavenging as many apocalypse inappropriate outfits as she could, like a kid in a candy store with an unlimited allowance. I miss my best bitches so hard right now and try not to hate them too much for leaving me. It takes me a while to go through the many stacked storage totes she had filled with men’s and women’s clothes and finally strike gold in the master closet. The space is crammed with high-end women’s fashions and I can’t help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of Lisa hoarding such clothing when she would never get to wear it, even if she had lived. I run my hands over silk, satin, and lace knowing for a fact she’d have even more if there had been space.
I finally settle on a short, silver, strapless number that flares out - stopping mid-thigh with layers of silver ribbon hemmed black crinoline under the skirt. It’s completely over the top for my hen party but why the hell not? My girls don’t judge me … most of the time. There’s a bag looped over the hanger with silver strappy stilettos to match the dress and a slim case with jewelry but I leave the shoes because - still a zombie apocalypse - and you never really know when you might need to run. Instead, I find a pair of thigh-high black boots with silver buckles and sturdier block heels. They don’t really match the dress, but close enough for the hens.
I carry everything over to my sparkling clean camper and prepare the most important item to get the night started, a strawberry margarita. Thank god for the bottles of mix that only need ice and tequila to make a club-worthy drink. As I sip my first cocktail for the night I throw on a dance playlist to set the mood and start pulling rollers from my hair. The color rinse was a success and I tilt my head back and forth, loving the cherry overlay on my dark curls. The second cocktail I make goes down even smoother than the first as I touch up my makeup and shimmy into the silver dress.
