Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

They moored in a cove the night before because of the storm. Mario thought they would reach Puget Sound in ten days but warned it might take longer because of the weather.

Miranda sat in what she called the corner, a metal seat built into the corner rail by the swim platform. It was gray again, windy and cold. If the clouds above made good on their threatening color, it would rain soon. The weather was a bummer since she felt less nauseous up on deck, but it was too cold to stay out for long. She was not sure of the time but knew it was early.

“There you are.”

Mario’s head appeared at the top of the ladder from below deck. Holding two steaming mugs in one hand, he climbed into the cockpit. A moment later he joined her, handing off a mug which she took awkwardly on account of her splinted fingers. She took a deep breath, inhaling the coffee’s heady vapor.

“This boat is ridiculous. It has coffee,” she said. “You’re gonna have to drink this, though. I’ll just barf it up.”

“This is a yacht, not a ‘boat,’” Mario said, grinning. “We’re headed for Seattle, coffee capital of Before. Your stomach needs to get with the program. How’s your knee?”

“Still fucked, thanks for asking. How’s your bite?”

Mario pulled up his pant leg. The bite was almost completely healed.

“Nice of them to give real antibiotics. I guess they believed Doug’s story.”

“Father Walter, killer priest,” Miranda snorted, laughing.

Mario budged her over with a nudge of his hip so they could share the seat. He drank their coffee, the silence companionable.

After a while Mario said, “I’ve been thinking.”

“About?”

“Connor.”

He watched her closely, trying to gauge if it was okay to continue.

“And?”

“I think he was infected by that scratch. His chain mail had a chink on the elbow, the same one that looked like the infection point.”

Miranda shivered. She could still see the spidery black streaks that had radiated from the scratch on Connor’s elbow. Mario and Doug had not wanted her to look at his body, but she had overruled them. She needed to know.

“I knew someone who turned, a long time ago,” she said. “His family swore up and down that he was never bitten, that he just got sick. I thought they were lying.”

Mario nodded. “Connor was sick those last twenty-four hours. I thought he was just exhausted like the rest of us but now… He was definitely sick. If he was infected by a scratch, it would take longer to build a high enough viral load to overwhelm his system.”

“He only had the first shot,” Miranda said bitterly, more to herself than Mario. “We left before he could get the second one, but it never occurred to me because he wasn’t bitten.”

Mario sighed. His hand lighted on the back of her neck, thumb stroking her skin. “It’s not your fault, Miranda. Even if we’d had post-bite with us, he didn’t know he’d been infected. We wouldn’t have known to give it in time.”

“I know it’s not my fault,” she whispered, the sudden pressure of tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. She could still feel his skull cracking in her hands. She kept reminding herself that it hadn’t been Connor, that the zombie hadn’t been him. It didn’t help.

She swiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’ll be okay. It’s just…”

A loud yawn preceded Doug’s head appearing at the top of the ladder from below deck. His hair stuck out in every direction.

“Hey, lovebirds,” he drawled. “Who’s making breakfast?”

A flush of heat made Miranda’s face burn. She still felt shy about Mario. He felt as familiar as her favorite pair of jeans, but she was not used to it, this ‘them’ that had so abruptly reasserted itself. Part of her was still afraid to trust it.

Her retort was good-natured. “The joy you get from teasing me means I never make breakfast again.”

Doug grinned, a wicked gleam in his eye. “So you keep me up all night with those”—his fingers made air quotes—“‘pillow fights’ going on in your cabin but I have to cook?”

“Oh fuck you, go make breakfast,” she snapped.

Doug laughed so hard that he cried. Whether his own jibe or that she had taken the bait again amused him more, Miranda couldn’t tell.

“I’m just saying, don’t shoot the messenger,” Doug said, sounding insincerely aggrieved as he disappeared below deck. “I really hope you’re planning on getting an annulment, Mario, or at least a divorce,” he called up to them. “Because otherwise, the pair of you are definitely going to Hell. I gotta say something cause you know Walter. He might fire me if I don’t.”

They looked at one another, chagrined.

“He’s never going to stop,” she said.

“He’s happy you’re happy, but pass up an opportunity to harass you?” Mario sighed, sounding anxious as he continued. “We’ve been off the grid so long… If we’re lucky, the Jesuits still control Seattle University but with everything that’s happened who knows? We need somewhere to go to ground, and a good lab.”

“If my knee is better by then. I don’t know why I keep letting these priests talk me into this shit.”

“It’s the guilt,” Mario said, laughing.

His piercing brown eyes were so beautiful it almost took her breath away. Miranda forced herself to speak, to say it.

“This scares me,” she whispered, feeling small and childish, hating that she felt so exposed and vulnerable.

Mario’s fingers traced lightly across her chin. “I know. I keep thinking to myself, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’”

A startled peal of laughter erupted from her belly. When she could speak again, she gasped, “That’s reassuring.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking sheepish. “But it’s true.”

Miranda looked at his fading smile, the way it transformed his face, how the crow’s feet around his eyes tempered his intensity.

“You can’t decide things behind my back, or think you know better. This has to be different.”

“It will be,” he said.

“I can’t do it again, Mario. I can’t decide to trust you and—”

“This food won’t eat itself,” Doug called from the galley. “And your dog needs to pee!”

Mario helped her up and wrapped her in an embrace. The wind whistled over their heads, then lulled. The shrill cry of seagulls carried over the water as Jeremiah’s muttered ravings filtered up from below deck.

“I won’t let you down this time, Miri,” Mario said fiercely. “I promise.”

She didn’t know if the love she felt for him, so urgent and needful, was good or bad. It just was, like the sun or time or weather. It could not be controlled or explained or avoided. She had tried that already—it didn’t work. Father Walter had told her to trust her instincts, that they would never steer her wrong. Right now, they were screaming at her to let him in and hang on, even though it felt like jumping off a high-wire knowing there was no net, when it hit her: love is always a leap of faith.

Miranda loosened their embrace enough to look at him. As she smoothed Mario’s wind-whipped hair away from his face, she took a deep breath.

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

THE END

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Damage in an Undead Age, the second installment of the Undead Age series.

Damage in an Undead Age - Book 2 of the Undead Age Series. Read it now!

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