by Lake, D. K.
"Yeah, your legs were starting to look like a gorilla." he laughed, his hand sliding under the blanket and feeling my smooth leg.
"Stop it! Go and get cleaned up, you still have mud on your face."
Drew wiped his cheek and climbed off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom with his stuff. I remembered seeing some yoga pants in one of the drawers and decided to wear them as getting washed and standing in a cold bathroom had left me all shivery. While I waited for Drew, I reorganized my bag and got everything ready to go. You needed to be ready to run at any minute so I liked to keep all my stuff in one place so I could just grab it and go if I needed to. Drew came out of the bathroom, shirtless, with a towel slung over his shoulder, and he was wearing a pair of gray jogging bottoms and looked so out of place.
"What are you wearing?" I asked, quickly looking back at my word search to stop myself from staring at his lean body. Drew wasn't large and muscular but lean and toned with a Day of the Dead tattoo peeking out of his waistband. And he was so tanned, I wondered how he managed to get such an even tan. Did he walk around with his shirt off when he went off on his own? I realized I was licking my lips and looking at Drew like he was my next meal. What was wrong with me?
He picked up the champagne bottle and sat down on the edge of the bed as close as he could get to me and I had to move my feet out of the way. His face was clean and I'd never seen it so smooth, and I could smell the yummy shampoo he'd washed his hair in. He quickly ran a hand through his hair to push it off his face and passed me a glass to hold. He then popped the lid off and it started to overflow onto the floor and I quickly put the glass underneath to catch the bubbles. I took a sip and let the bubbles slide down my throat.
"What do you think?" he asked, watching my face for a reaction.
"It's bubbly." I smiled, taking another sip.
"It's better chilled." he told me.
"It's still nice."
He smiled and topped up my glass, and picked up his beer and climbed over me and sat down next to me.
"So what do you want to do?" he asked.
"Hmm...I'm not really tired anymore." I said, trying to find the next word on my word search.
Drew was about to point out where it was so I smacked his hand away and pushed my empty glass into his hand.
"More please."
Drew chuckled and got up to refill my glass again.
"Ah, found it!" I smiled.
"Here." He sat down next to me and lifted his beer bottle and clinked it against my glass.
"Bottoms up." he said, and downed his drink. I smiled and lifted my glass to my lips. "So what do you wanna do?" he asked again.
"I dunno, surprise me."
A mischievous smile appeared on his lips and I knew I was in trouble.
Chapter 27
I felt uncomfortable as I tried to snuggle into the pillow and soon woke up when I realized I wasn't even in bed. I looked around, feeling sore and very confused.
How had I ended up in the bathtub? I could see the sun streaming through the window and the broken blind was on the floor. I didn't remember breaking the blind. Actually, I didn't remember much of anything. Ugh. My head hurt and sleeping in the tub had given me a bad back.
I tried to sit up but was trapped. I wasn't the only one in the bath. Drew was passed out at the other end of the tub and our legs had got tangled together, but that wasn't the only thing I noticed when I looked down. I was wearing the lacy two piece I threw back in the closet and one of my boobs was on display. I quickly covered myself over and noticed Drew wasn't wearing a shirt still...and he wasn't wearing anything else! He was completely naked. OMG!
"Drew!" I kicked him and tried to escape from the bathtub.
"Huh?" Drew mumbled as I pulled myself over the side and landed on the floor with a thud.
"Where are your clothes?" I asked, grabbing the first towel I could find and chucking it over the side of the bath.
Drew sat up and rubbed his eyes, he looked just as confused as me.
"What the hell happened last night?" I asked, trying not to look at him as he covered himself over.
"How did we end up in the tub? And why are you naked?!"
Drew climbed out of the tub, yawning and looking around at the mess we had made of the bathroom. I marched into the bedroom and was hit with even more destruction, there was a red stain on the carpet and a wine bottle next to it, a broken chair, the curtains had been pulled down but thankfully the blinds were still up, and the bed was all over the place and the sheets were crumpled, and ohmigawd!
I quickly picked up the box of condoms and tipped them out on the bed. It was new and unopened yesterday. Now there was two missing as it was only a three pack.
"Drew?" I said in a strangled voice.
"Yeah," he replied in a coarse morning voice.
"Did we...did we have sex last night?" I whispered, fidgeting around.
"Um, maybe." he replied casually, scratching his head.
"Maybe?"
"I can't really remember anything after you started dancing."
"Dancing? I don't dance."
"Well it was more of a lap dance and then you hit your head on the edge of the bed."
"What?!" I felt my head and sure enough, there was a lump sticking out the side of my head.
"Why was I lap dancing? And why didn't you stop me?"
"You looked like you were having a good time and it was funny. Even funnier when you hit your head."
"Grrr...You're such a jerk!"
I covered my face and turned away from him and started searching for more evidence from last night, specifically the two missing condoms but the room was such a mess it was hard to find anything.
"What are you looking for?" he asked, picking up a bottle of water and unscrewing the cap, he still hadn't put any clothes on and was walking around with a towel around his waist.
"My bag." I lied, I had seen my bag stuffed under the bed.
I stubbed my toe on a glass bottle and it spun around and rolled across the floor.
"Tequila? Why did you give me tequila?" I asked, looking at the half empty bottle.
"Me? You were the one trying to get me to drink it!" he said, holding up a shot glass and a hazy memory of doing body shots with Drew popped into my head.
We had been totally reckless last night and I knew how stupid that was, and how lucky we were that nothing had heard us. Drew made me do things I didn't normally do, like getting completely trashed and having sex. The only problem was I couldn't remember the sex part, and neither could Drew by the look of it. I opened the blinds and let some light into the room, and I was pleased when I didn't see a massive fire heading this way, I couldn't even see any smoke in the distance, we must have really got some distance on the quad last night. I walked over to the closet, the doors were open and there were clothes strewn all over the place. We were really messy guests in this house.
"Could you please put some clothes on." I said as he stood next to me while I was on my knees searching inside the closet.
"Ah ha. Found one!" I said, looking at the unopened condom wrapper. One more to find.
I turned around and scanned the floor and saw Drew in a pair of tight black boxers.
"I meant put more clothes on." I blushed and crawled across the floor. This was so weird and embarrassing. I had no idea what else I had done last night with Drew.
"Do you remember anything else?" I asked with my head under the bed.
"I remember you tried on a few of those dresses and you pranced around in a massive hat with feathers."
"Anything else?"
"You said your boobs were cold and you made me hold them."
I wanted the floor to swallow me. I sighed and lifted my head out from under the bed and saw Drew with his back to me as he pulled on a t-shirt.
"Uhh..."
"What?" Drew looked over his shoulder at me, waiting to pull the t-shirt over his head.
"Nothing." I lied and decided not to tell him that
someone had written his name on his back and drawn a heart around it, and it must have been me because he's not that flexible. There were also a bunch of penises with wings but he didn't need to know about that either. Drew finished getting dressed and decided to go with a clean pair of jeans from out of the closet, they were a little baggy on him but his brown pants were beyond repair. I picked up my clothes and disappeared into the bathroom to freshen up and get dressed. When I came out he was holding a plastic pink travel case, the kind with a long handle and wheels.
"Found this, you can fill it with food and water to take."
"That's great." I smiled but the smile quickly dropped off my face. I wish I could remember last night. We packed up our stuff, not really talking or saying much, I think we were both embarrassed. I sat on the edge of the bed to put my boots on and when I stuck my foot inside I found something in there. I pulled it out and looked at the condom wrapper.
"Huh." Drew said, looking at the unopened wrapper in my hand.
"So we didn't have sex. Problem solved!" I said feeling relieved, but it felt like I was lying to myself.
Drew studied me as I stood up and put my bag on my back.
"Stop looking at me like that. We didn't do anything, we just got drunk, you got naked for some reason, and then we fell asleep in the tub, nothing else happened, right?"
"Or you just can't remember." Drew said, picking up his crossbow.
"And you can?" I asked.
He chewed on his lip ring and looked at his boots.
"I can't believe you let me drink so much. I feel like crap."
"Don't put this all on me. You were the one that suggested we go downstairs and get more alcohol."
"And you being the older and more responsible one should have told me when I had had enough."
"A little hard to tell you to stop drinking when I'm already wasted myself."
"That's because you were chugging all those beers. Ugh, look, it doesn't matter, let's just get out of here and see if we can find the others."
"How?"
"You can track them. They won't have caught up with us, we'll just backtrack."
"Great." Drew mumbled under his breath.
My head thumped and I rubbed the sore spot. I had taken some aspirin that I had found in the bathroom but I was still majorly hungover. I walked to the door and wobbled into the dresser.
"We could stay another night?" Drew suggested.
"No. I don't think that's a good idea."
I didn't want to be alone with Drew with alcohol in the vicinity.
"Wait...I need my map." I said, walking back into the room, remembering I had found a map tucked into a magazine he had brought up last night.
"What map?"
"My map. There's one of those fold-out maps in here somewhere." I sifted through the books and magazines on the floor. I found the map and tucked it into the side of my bag. Drew didn't look too happy that I had found a map, or maybe he was going to throw up?
I made it downstairs in one piece, even though the floor seemed to be moving and I was still quite drunk. I went into the pantry and packed the pink suitcase up with as much food and drink as I could cram into it, and then we left the cabin, loaded down with food supplies.
I had planned to stay in the area, waiting for the others to find us, and Drew was good at locating people so we'd wait and hopefully they'd turn up. My suitcase rolled along the driveway, bouncing over a dip. It was making a bit of a racket but the noisy suitcase was the least of my worries. I wanted to find the others. And I wanted a time machine to go back and not get drunk last night, and possibly not have unprotected sex with Drew.
We hadn't spoken about it anymore and I think we were both pretending last night hadn't happened. Drew suddenly took the handle and dragged it into the bushes and I hurried after him. He didn't like following the road as it made us an easy target. We had slept late into the day and it was nearly four o'clock when I had finally had enough of trekking through fields and through wooded areas. I wanted to stop for a break so I found a nice spot under the trees and helped myself to a Pop-Tart and sipped on my water bottle. I reached for the map but it was gone.
"Where's the map? It was just here!"
Drew was eating a brunch bar and flicking bugs off of his leg.
"Drew! Where's the map?"
"I dunno." he said with his mouth full.
This day just got better and better. I let it go, there was no way I was going to walk back across the field to look for it. I knew I had put it back. I looked at Drew and it crossed my mind he had taken it, and that he was leading me around in circles, but that was silly, right? But I was sure we had climbed the same gate twice. Or maybe I was just that drunk still.
"You still plan on going to D.C.?" Drew asked as I sipped my water.
"You have a better idea?"
"Um...we could get out of here."
"Uh, no! I need to find Lane and the others, and you're going to help me, and then we're all going to go to D.C. together."
"What if we don't find them?" Drew said.
"We will." I said firmly.
"But if we don't?"
"We'll give it a few days and if we don't find them we'll start making our own way to D.C. and maybe we'll cross paths."
"What if we get to D.C. and we still haven't found them? Can we go home then? I mean, it's not like you can just offer yourself up for science experiments."
"Drew, I don't know. Stop asking me about this right now! My head is thumping."
"Ok. What else do you want to talk about?"
"Nothing. I'm too tired to talk."
"Do you wanna stay here for the night?"
I looked around at my choices.
"This is stupid. We might as well trek back to the cabin and stay there for another night, it would be easier, right?"
He nodded but didn't say anything.
"I suppose we could stay there for a few more days, maybe the others will find it. Oh, we could put up a sign or something."
"A sign? Inviting everyone to find us, err...how 'bout no! They can find it on their own."
"I'm putting a sign up." I said firmly.
We crossed the field and I followed Drew because I didn't know the way back...but it took us all of forty minutes to get back.
"Drew!" I said sternly as we walked back up the driveway. "Don't you think it's weird, we were walking around for hours but we were just in the next field the whole time?" Drew ignored me. "If you wanted to stay that badly you could have just said, you didn't have to drag me around the fields all day."
"I did ask to stay and you said no."
"So you purposely got me lost and stole my map?"
"I did no such thing."
"Whatever."
"C'mon, Pretty, think of it as a vacation. You could do with the break." Drew said, walking ahead and pulling my pink suitcase behind him.
"Ok. Fine!" I sighed and trudged up the slope. "But don't let me drink anything tonight." I said.
"What makes you think I can stop you?" he replied with a chuckle.
Chapter 28
"My feet hurt!" I whined.
"Your feet always hurt." Drew grumbled.
"Can you give me a ride again?" I asked nicely.
Drew pretended not to hear me and dug in his pocket for his lighter and lit a cigarette. We had just found a few useful things at the last gas station and when I say useful I mean Drew had found some cigarettes and it had put him in a better mood, and I had found some gum.
"Pretty please."
"All right! You drive me crazy woman." Drew groaned.
I hopped up onto the suitcase and let Drew pull me along.
"Happy?" he asked.
"Very." I smiled, resting my machete on my knees.
We had stayed at the cabin for nearly a week together and seen no sign of the others. It rained heavily for half the week which must have slowed down the fire, but I knew we couldn't stay in the cabin forever, even if the bed was super comfy after I
actually slept it in and Drew had slept on the floor next to me. So we finally decided it was time to leave and we had been on the road for three days."
"Do you know how close Louisiana is from here compared to D.C.?" he said.
"Uh-huh." Here we go again, he had spent the last week and a bit going on about calling off the trip, and to be honest, I had nearly given up myself. What could I do without Nick? I didn't even know where they were or if any of them were still alive. How was I ever going to find any of them?
"We could go back to Louisiana, stock up on supplies, pick up a vehicle and make our way back to Colorado to get Ozma." Drew suggested.
He kept dropping her name into the plan to make it more appealing. He knew I missed her like mad.
"I told you. We keep going and putting up signs like we have been and hopefully, we'll run into someone we know."
"Lame plan." Drew muttered and exhaled smoke and it drifted into my face. "Uh...we should get off the road." Drew said suddenly.
"Why? There's no one around here." I said, watching a field mouse running in and out of the grass.
Drew stopped pulling me and hauled me off the suitcase and manhandled me until I started walking with him into the field.
"What's the rush?" I asked, looking around and I spotted a vehicle further down the road and people moving around.
"Hey, what's that?" I said, trying to look around him.
"Nothing. I just saw some deadbies."
"They don't look like deadbies." I said, noticing one of them was sitting on the roof of the vehicle.
"C'mon!" Drew urged in a low voice and he sounded serious.
"Drew, wait up! They could help us."
"Or they could kill us. Your choice?"
I followed him into the field.
"Can't you creep up on them and see who it is? See if they look friendly?"
"No. We don't need anyone."
He was so stubborn.
"Fine, then you wait here and I'll sneak over there and have a snoop."
"What? No! Alex, come back!" Drew whisper-shouted but it was too late as I was already creeping through the field. I could hear him coming up behind me and I ducked into the tall grass and crawled away from him. I just wanted to take a peek at them, and if they looked friendly we could ask them if they had seen our friends. As I got closer I could hear someone talking and I recognized the voice.
