No Such Thing as Time

Over lunch, we discuss getting them set up at Tim and Rachel’s house. It’s clean and big enough. Also close enough that we would be close to each other if we need anything.

There’s no food there though, and we wiped them out of a lot of stuff they would need.

The guys all decide that the day after tomorrow they can take a drive to try to find stuff they need. Eddie had wanted to anyway, but now it will be Eddie, Spencer, Sebastian, and maybe Dave.

Lynne is going to stay here and I’m going to show her how to do stuff like take care of the chickens and bake bread.

In the spring we’ll give them some chickens and a couple of goats.

We’ll all try to figure out the apple orchard there so next year we can have apples.

And all of us will work in the gardens. We’ll have ours here and show them how to start one.

We need to try to find them a working vehicle, preferably a truck.

I’m pretty excited about having neighbors again. It would be nice to have neighbors close to my age, but I can’t be picky and they all seem really nice.

They’ll stay here the next few days while we start getting stuff together that they need.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with Maggie. I figured she would want to stay with me, but she seems very attached to Lynne. Maybe she doesn’t trust me because I left her to die.

She will sit with me, and let me feed her, but at night she goes to Lynne, sleeps with Lynne and Sebastian. I guess when they get moved to their new house she could eventually have her own room since it’s a three bedroom house similar to mine. Lynne and Sebastian will have one, Dave, his own room, and hopefully, eventually, Maggie will want her own room.

I’m happy that Eddie and I wake up before anyone else. And though all we do together is chores, I feel like it brings us closer.

Today, when I wake up all I want to do, is snuggle back into him and sleep. I know we can’t because today especially we have so much to do.

I do snuggle closer into him, kiss his cheek then his lips.

“I think I like to be woken up like this,” he mumbles sleepily.

“Yeah? We need to get up though, we have a million things to do today,” I remind him.

“Can we lay here for five minutes? Just for five minutes let me lay here and enjoy you, please…”

I kiss his cheek, lay my head on his shoulder. “Eddie…I love you…”

He reaches over and runs his fingers through my hair, then kisses my forehead. “I love you too. It scares me at times when I think that if it wasn’t for all the shit that happened if this disease or whatever it was hadn’t happened, we would have never met. And if we hadn’t met I think I would have eventually died alone.”

“Did you have a girlfriend? Like before everything happened?” I ask him.

He takes a deep breath in and slowly lets it out. “Not for a long time. I was with this one girl for a few months, and I guess at the time I thought it was serious, but she cheated on me and I’ve never felt like I could trust anyone after that.”

“You haven’t been with anyone since that? When was that?” I ask him.

“Years ago. Um I haven’t had a girlfriend since then…but I’ve had sex a couple times…just random hookups…stupid. I wish I could take a lot of that back now.”

He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“For what?”

“Being such a loser. Like if everyone else in the world wasn’t dead, I know you wouldn’t be with me. I’m not good enough for you.”

“Eddie, remember what I just said to you? I love you. I don’t care who you used to be, or what you did, before everything…I love you. If you hadn’t happened to find the farm, I think Amanda and I would be pretty fucked now. I could have tried to chop wood but I think I would have sucked at it. We’d be cold and probably freeze to death. And the animals would have starved a long time ago. You pushed us to go to the neighbor’s where we got the truck so we could go get more supplies. Spencer doesn’t do shit around here, it’s all you.”

“And you. And I guess that means the two of us better get up so we can start all the shit we do every day.”

We hurry through our morning chores. Feed the animals, take them all outside, I get four eggs today. I can’t believe they are still laying.

The cow looks better every time I see her. And every time I see her, I think we have a lesser chance of ever finding any other animals. Alive ones at least. This is something we really should have done when we first got the truck.

I can’t let it get to me though. Nothing we can do about it now. Just need to concentrate on the things we have accomplished and keep moving forward, not looking back.

I know the first thing we need to do after our chores is to kill the chicken so we can let it hang to drain the blood for a bit before we cook it.

After we’ve fed the animals and let them out, brought in the water and I’ve put some on to boil for coffee, I tell him I’m going out to the chicken coop.

“Want me to come?” he asks.

“You probably should learn how to do this. I don’t want to always have to do the dirty work.”

“Well…yeah…I agree…but don’t have a clue about how to break a chicken’s neck. So maybe you should do it this time and I can try the next time?” he suggests.

I shrug my shoulders. “Maybe. I mean I had no idea how to do it before, just kinda knew what I needed to do and I did it.”

We both stand staring in the chicken coop at the chickens like I did the last time. Trying to pick up some sort of sign or something to show us which chicken will be dinner tonight.

Eddie looks at me. “So…”

“So…”

“Want me to get one? Which one? Any idea?” he asks.

“No…just grab one I guess. Unless you want me to…I can do it.”

He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter I guess. I’ll do it.”

He goes into the chicken coop reaches down and just grabs one of the chickens by her feet and lifts her up.

He holds it up to me, I look and shrug my shoulders.

“That one’s fine,” I say.

He comes out of the coop and heads over to the stump where we cut wood.

“Eddie…what are you doing? Are you going to cut her head off?” I ask while following him over there.

“I thought we could try since there’s two of us. One of us can hold her down, the other cut the head off.”

“Okay…who’s going to trust the other person to not cut their hands off?” I ask him.

He looks at me. “I trust you. I know you can do it. You’ve done this stuff your whole life, you know how to do it.”

Well, he may trust me…but do I trust me? The ax is freaking heavy and I’m not that steady with it. Plus the chicken is going to be moving around, or at least be trying to move around…so he might move.

“You can do this. Go get the ax, I’ll be right here,” he says.

I stare at him for a few seconds before I turn and find myself heading towards the barn. Like always the ax is resting where it always has unless someone is using it.

I pick it up and walk back to where Eddie and the chicken are.

He has the chicken in his arms but when he sees me walking towards him he pets it briefly, then lays it across the stump stretching the neck out as far as he can.

I stand there doubting myself.

“You can do this Mara…I know you can…you know you can…so just do it…don’t overthink it,” Eddie says.

“Eddie…”

“Just do it,” he says.

I take a deep breath, lift the ax over my head, let out the breath and swing the ax down as hard and fast as I can.

It’s silent. I thought I would hear something, a scream? Some sort of noise from the chicken or Eddie.

I realize I have my eyes closed. I open them and gasp when I see blood on Eddie. I knew I couldn’t do this.

“Mara, relax. It’s from the chicken. You did perfectly. I knew you would,” he says.

My eyes go right to his hands. He’s holding the chicken upside down by its feet, blood dripping down onto the ground. I look over at the stump and don’t see the head.

“It kinda went flying you whacked it so hard,” he says slightly laughing.

He reaches down and picks it up. “What do you do with it? Anything?”

I shake my head. He can do whatever he wants with it.

He tosses it where we have the garden. “That should help, right?”

I nod my head.

“Should we go hang him up? I mean her, it’s a chicken, it’s a girl,” he says.

I nod my head again.

He walks over to me, picks up one of my hands, and kisses it. “Are you alright?”

I nod my head. “The blood…” I say trying to explain to him why I’m quiet.

“Is there that much?” he asks. He lets go of my hand, reaches up, and swipes the back of his hand across his face smearing the blood drops he had on it now into an even gorier mess.

He looks at the back of his hand. “That’s a lot more blood than I figured. Let’s go hang her and then I can get cleaned up.”

He holds the chicken up while I tie some thin rope around the feet. Then I hook the rope on a hook in the barn and put a bucket under the chicken to let the blood drain.

“I’m going to go get some water to clean up if you want to go inside and start whatever you need to,” Eddie says as we leave the barn.

“Alright.”

I lean close to kiss him but stop when I see the blood.

Blood has always freaked me out. Maybe it was because I saw a lot of it here at the farm, but maybe not because you would think that would have desensitized me or something.

Or maybe it’s because of when my mom was sick. Not that I saw a lot of blood from her, but we had nurses here often and they would take blood and change IV’s and at times there would be a small amount of blood, and when they were here that usually meant my mom was doing worse so maybe it’s like a Pavlov’s dog effect for me. I see blood and that triggers inside of me that something is really wrong.

Anyway, that doesn’t matter, I hate that when I saw the blood I hesitated. I close my eyes and kiss him on the lips.

I hate that I can smell the blood. I immediately feel my stomach lurch.

“Be in in five minutes,” he says.

I nod my head and start walking towards the house. Push any feelings of throwing up out of my mind. I take a deep breath and swallow a few times and that seems to help luckily.

I make coffee so it will be ready hopefully about the time Eddie has finished cleaning up.

I sit down at the table and flip open my notebook to see what I need to start on first.

I read over the menu, not much I need to make today.

Not really much I need to do other than getting the chicken ready and in the oven.

I do need to tear up the dried bread for the dressing and start my mirepoix.

We always did a mirepoix of carrots, celery, and onions, but I have no celery and my poor carrots are starting to get limp, but they’ll work. I also don’t have very many onions so I’m only using one medium sized one. I do have some canned mushrooms so I guess I’ll toss those in.

I don’t want to use much butter either so I need to carefully watch how much I use.

But it will still be delicious, I know it will. If for no other reason than sentimental.

Eddie comes in carrying a bucket of water.

He pauses briefly and kisses the top of my head before going into the bathroom.

I’m chopping the veggies when he returns to the kitchen.

“Better?” he asks when he’s standing next to me.

I look over at him and smile. “Yes,” I say right before kissing him.

I start to pull away, finish chopping the onion I was working on, but he pulls me to him.

He kisses me quickly before nuzzling my neck.

“Why don’t we take a break. No one else is up yet. We could go back to bed for an hour and no one would even notice,” he says.

I set the knife down on the counter and wrap my arms around him, nuzzling his neck. “That is very tempting.”

He smells different. Clean. I’m not sure if I like it. I’m so used to all of our own natural scents. It’s not like we can just jump in the shower or take a bath whenever the mood hits, or the need arises, and yeah we probably could clean ourselves more often than we do, which is maybe once a week now that it’s gotten colder out, but I think I’ve gotten so used to our own natural scents that Eddie smelling like soap is almost distasteful to my nose.

He holds me tighter. I love how his body feels against mine. Not to sound all cliché, but we fit together perfectly like we were made for each other.

He’s nuzzling my neck, up by my ear, it tickles and I’m immediately covered in goosebumps. I love how my body reacts to his touch.

Maybe we could go back upstairs for thirty minutes or so. No one would notice. They’ll probably think we’re outside working or something.

His lips are on mine. We kiss. I love kissing him. Yeah, sex is nice, and even though it’s the most intimate thing two people can do, I feel like kissing is more intimate. Kissing him I get all tingly. This is when my body is happiest. It responds to him. If it’s possible I have even more goosebumps…my nipples are so hard and sensitive they hurt brushing against the inside of my shirt…and I am starting to feel so much warmer between my legs.

Eddie moves a step over shifting me so I’m leaning against the counter now. I feel my legs spreading apart welcoming his hips closer to me.

I reach my hands up the back of his shirt caressing his warm smooth back. He’s always so warm, even when he says he’s freezing sometimes he feels warm to me.

I would enjoy just this, be happy with us doing what we are now, kissing, touching, but I feel his cock starting to take notice of what’s going on, and I know he’s going to want me to give it some attention.

And like I said, sex is nice, but I’d rather just continue this for a while, then get back to cooking. For me it’s the small things, a quick kiss as he’s heading out somewhere, squeezing my hand while we’re in the truck and he’s driving, even just a look and his half-assed smile show me he loves me way more than his dick inside of me.

He roughly pushes my shirt up exposing my boobs to the cold air, my poor nipples react to the sudden chill and if possible get even harder.

His hands grope at my boobs briefly before they move down and he starts to unfasten my jeans.

“Let’s fuck right here. No one will know,” he whispers breathlessly in my ear.

My mind instantly wonders if anyone will wake up and catch us. Amanda has already walked in on us once, Spencer watched that one time, but now we have other people here. Strangers pretty much. I don’t know if I’d feel better or worse if it would be them that walked in.

I reach up and put my hands on either side of his face his cheeks resting against my palms. I gently move his lips back to mine.

We’re still kissing when I hear, “Sorry…I don’t want to interrupt…she’s hungry…”

Eddie pulls away from me, I can hear him sigh.

“It’s fine,” I say.

“I’m going to go…do…something…” he says and goes outside grabbing a jacket from the coat rack by the door.

“I’m sorry…I feel so bad interrupting…” Lynne says.

I shake my head. “Really it’s fine. Give him a minute,” I say smiling.

“She woke me up, I know she’s hungry.”

“Yeah. I completely forgot about making breakfast. I’ll figure something out. We only got a couple eggs so can’t really make eggs, I can probably do pancakes though. Maybe add some fruit to them…” I say distractedly.

I grab a box of pancake mix out of the cabinet. We have double the amount of people here now, well at least for today and probably another few days at least I have never cooked for this amount of people, I hope I can do it.

I get a bowl out, get the vanilla. What will we do when the vanilla is gone? I mean yeah I guess it’s not a huge thing in life, but I think we’ll miss it. If we can find some vanilla beans we can make vanilla. I guess we should start a list of things like this. Things we want to learn or try.

I’m mixing the batter when Eddie gets back inside. He stands behind me, wraps his arms around me, and kisses the back of my neck.

“What do you need me to do?” he asks.

“Um…fruit maybe? I’m making pancakes so maybe we can have fruit with them.”

“Apples? Or canned stuff?” he asks.

“Whichever we have most of, or need to use.”

“Do we need anything else while I’m down there?” he asks.

“I don’t think so. I think we brought everything up the past couple days,” I say before he takes his arms off of me.

“I’ll be right back then,” he says and heads to the basement.

“I’m really sorry we interrupted…” Lynne says again.

“No really, it’s okay. Let him get some coffee in him and he’ll be fine.”

“So you two only met after everything happened?” she asks.

“Yeah. Um…it’s a long story. I guess all of our lives are long stories now. But Amanda’s mom died so she moved here with me and my dad, then he died so it was just us. One day Eddie and Spencer found this place and I think it was Eddie that asked…well more like heavily suggested they would like to stay here at least through the winter. Of course, now I don’t think they plan on leaving,” I say giving her the short version.

“Was there any disagreeing about who gets who…or did it just work out?” she asks.

“It seems to have just worked out. I guess from nearly the time we met I was attracted to Eddie. And not really for his looks, more because he seemed like a leader. I think I was tired of trying to survive and welcomed someone else to help. He stepped in…and up…and it seems to have worked out for all of us.”

“That’s good. There’s some pretty nasty stuff going on everywhere else in the world. You guys are the firstnormal people we’ve come across,” she says.

“I guess I’m sheltered here. Probably have been my whole life, but really especially now. Eddie and Spencer were telling us things in the city were bad, I guess I’m lucky to have always lived here,” I say.

“Yeah, maybe you are. It’s really bad everywhere we’ve been. Seems like all the decent people died and we’re left trying to exist…to survive among the worst element of human beings now.”

“Seems like here on the farm we haven’t had to deal with anyone like that,” I tell her not mentioning Scott since Maggie is in here.

“I’m so glad we found this place…found all of you,” Lynne says.

“Oh my god, I know what you mean! I’m so glad you guys found us. I was beginning to think there were no other people alive. We tried to find people the other day, well we were really trying to find animals to breed with the ones we have but figured if we find people alive we might find their livestock was still alive too. But so far we haven’t had much luck. Honestly, though we really haven’t checked but two places. And now I’m afraid it’s going to be too late and there won’t be any other animals alive.”

Eddie comes back upstairs and sets a couple of cans on the counter.

He comes over to where Lynne and I are standing.

“Hey…sorry if I seemed grouchy before…” Eddie starts.

“I told her you would be nicer after you have some coffee,” I say.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry for interrupting. Not much we can be happy about now, so I feel bad if I took a little bit of pleasure from you guys,” Lynne says.

“So is the coffee ready?” Eddie asks.

I smile at him, nod my head.

I get two coffee cups out and set them on the counter.

“Do you want coffee?” I ask Lynne.

“Yes if you’re willing to share.”

“We’ll find some more…hopefully. Otherwise, I’ll have to deal with this grouchy boy,” I tell her.

“Find me some weed then, I’d be happy with that,” he says.

I shake my head at him. “Be a good boy. Maggie is here, don’t say things like that. And I need to get breakfast made because she’s hungry.”

I add a couple drops of oil to the pan and set it on the burner we warmed the coffee water up on.

“So do you guys have plans for when your supplies run out?” Lynne asks.

I look at Eddie who is looking at me.

I smile. “I guess we’re assuming we can just find more. And yeah eventually there will be nothing, or it won’t be any good, but for now, I think we’re just hoping we can find more.”

“And when it does run out we’ll hopefully have food stored from the garden and be breeding animals…or we get used to eating grass or something,” Eddie says laughing.

I pour batter for three pancakes into the pan since it’s ready and then turn my attention to the cans of fruit Eddie brought up to try to figure out if I need to do anything to them or just open them.

I pick up one can and see that it’s pineapple. I check to see if that’s what the other one is kinda thinking he must have grabbed the wrong thing for one of the cans but nope the other one is pineapple too.

I hold it up to him and ask, “Pineapple? Pineapple pancakes?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “It’s what we had most of so I thought we need to use it.”

“It doesn’t sound horrible…” Lynne says.

I open both cans and dump them in a pan. I add some brown sugar, a bit of molasses and set the pot on a burner.

I flip the first three pancakes since they’re ready.

Eddie pours the three of us coffee and gets a glass of water for Maggie.

“What can I do to help?” Lynne asks.

“If you want to get plates out, and forks,” Eddie tells her and shows her where everything is.

“Do you think Dave and Sebastian will get up soon?” I ask her.

We always have eaten at the table in the kitchen, but there’s really only space for four, maybe six if we bring in some of the dining room chairs, but with everyone including Maggie that’s eight.

“Maybe? We all used to just try to sleep when the sun went down and were up when it came up, but it’s been so long since we’ve slept inside on something comfortable they may sleep in extra long this morning.”

“Well Amanda and Spencer usually sleep in longer than us, but usually wake up about the time breakfast is ready. After all the work is finished it seems,” I explain.

“How do you guys split up everything that needs to be done?” Lynne asks.

“We do everything, they do nothing. Pretty simple,” Eddie says.

Sadly it’s true.

I put the three pancakes on a plate and set it in front of Lynne for her and Maggie. I stir the pineapple brown sugar mixture and it seems to have thickened enough that I am hoping it’s edible.

I pour it into a bowl and put a measuring cup in it to use as a scoop and set it on the table.

Lynne cuts up the pancakes and pours some of the pineapple mixture on top and feeds a bite to Maggie.

“What? Why?” she asks.

“When Spence and I first got here we talked about making a chore list, but that never happened. Then we kinda mentioned that since Mara and I got up earlier maybe we could take care of the animals get breakfast started and they could get the water we need for the day when they get up. But slowly it seems like we’ve more and more picked up the slack and do pretty much everything. I guess they do the dishes after dinner most of the time, maybe bring in some of the water, but all the animal care and cooking seem to be left to us,” Eddie says.

“Well for as long as we’re here I plan to help as much as possible, so don’t be afraid to tell me what to do,” she says.

“Today will be busier than usual, but honestly there isn’t a lot to do every day. Right now though we’re trying to get ready for winter and snow and mostly that means cutting wood and trying to find straw for the animals,” Eddie says.

I’m beginning to think that if we can survive this winter, we can survive just about anything. I’m seriously afraid we’re going to freeze to death. It gets so cold in the winter. Below freezing.

Eddie tells me he’ll keep me warm all night, and I know he thinks it’s funny…or a turn on…or something…but he probably doesn’t understand just how cold it gets here.

Since no one else is awake yet, I cook just enough pancakes for the four of us and we sit and eat and talk.

It’s nice to have someone new to talk to. Maggie is quiet. Silent actually. I’m not surprised she isn’t talking, I am sad though. But fuck, I know most of what she’s been through, I’ve been through it too and I’m not sure how I’ve survived and I’m older, hopefully, more mature, and I know she’s dealt with worse than I’ve had to.

I have to admit the pineapple pancakes are pretty good. I’m actually surprised. Maybe I’ve become less picky than I was before, and I wasn’t picky at all. Or maybe I’m just more accepting of this way of eating knowing I can’t be picky at all or I’ll starve.

We finish breakfast pretty quickly even though we sat and talked a fair amount.

I explain to Lynne how we do the dishes and she starts them while Eddie and I start peeling potatoes.

“How many of these do you think we’ll need?” Eddie asks after he’s attempted to peel one, but has hacked the poor thing to pieces.

“Maybe I can work on the potatoes and you can do something else…” I suggest.

He holds up his potato, “That bad?”

I try to not laugh, I slightly smirk and nod my head.

He sighs.

“Why don’t you work on the bread for the dressing. The bread is all dried out, so just break it into pieces.”

“Yeah…I don’t think I can fuck that up. Well…hopefully…” he says.

I get up and get a big casserole pan and bring it to the table where we’re working. I pick up a piece of the dried bread and break it up into pieces into the pan.

“Just like that,” I tell Eddie.

He gets to work on the bread while I go back to peeling potatoes.

We work quietly for several minutes and then hear movement from upstairs. Maggie gets scared and runs to Lynne.

Lynne picks her up. “It’s okay Maggie, just someone upstairs waking up.”

I start to wonder what she’s afraid of. Scott? Or people coming? People like us who came there and left her there pretty much to die? I hope if there is some sort of entity…deity…whatever…some life after death situation run by something…I hope they understand why we felt we had to just leave her.

I’m sure it’s Scott she’s afraid of though. We’ll probably never know what she lived through there with him.

Sebastian comes downstairs and excuses himself to the bathroom. We’ll probably have to flush the toilet more than once today.

We really should consider making an outhouse. I’ll bring that up to Eddie soon.

Since Lynne is finished with the dishes she offers to make pancakes for Sebastian so I can continue peeling potatoes.

I finish peeling the potatoes. I put them in a big pot, add some water to it and set it on the stove.

“Eddie, when you’re finished with that will you bring in some more water?” I ask him.

“Yeah, I guess I better because who knows when Spencer will be up. I’m almost finished anyway”

“Hey let me come with you so you can show me how to do it. Does the other house have a well?” Sebastian asks.

“Yeah. All the houses around here do,” I tell him.

Since the potatoes are cooking I decide to go back to working on the veggies I was cutting before Eddie interrupted me earlier.

I finish the onion and start on my sad carrots. When I’m almost finished with them we hear people moving.

“Sounds like Spencer and Amanda are up,” I mention to Lynne hoping Maggie overhears and doesn’t get scared.

“Should I go ahead and make pancakes for them too?” Lynne asks.

“If you don’t mind.”

Eddie and Sebastian put on coats and head outside to get water.

“Will the well freeze this winter?” Lynne asks.

“It shouldn’t. It’s down so far in the ground it should be fine. I was just thinking earlier though that we probably need to consider building an outhouse. That would make life easier. I guess build one for you guys too.”

“Do Eddie and Spencer know how to build?” she asks.

I sigh. “I don’t think so. Eddie has all these lofty dreams of finding and breeding a bunch of animals and all I can think about is where does he plan on keeping them? The barn is full as is. And we have no means to feed any other animals. I’m not sure when the feed we have will run out.”

“Can’t always tell men stuff can you?” she says laughing.

“I’m beginning to find that out.”

“And if the well does freeze? Or dry up? Do wells really dry up?” she asks.

“I guess they can, but I don’t think ours will. We could always try to dig a new one but it would probably be easiest to get water from the pond for drinking and cooking. We have a pond not too far from here.”

“Good morning everyone,” Dave says coming into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” I reply.

“Are you hungry? I’m making pancakes,” Lynne says.

“That sounds amazing…but first…” he says and heads towards the bathroom.

Amanda and Spencer come downstairs.

“See we aren’t the last ones up,” Spencer says to Amanda.

“Actually you are,” I say.

“Where is everybody else then?” Spencer asks.

“Dave just excused himself to the bathroom and Eddie and Sebastian are getting water,” I say just as Eddie and Sebastian are coming back inside.

Eddie sets a bucket by the stove, takes the one Sebastian is carrying, and sets it on the counter by me.

He kisses my cheek. “Now what can I do to help?”

“Will you go upstairs to our room and look around on my desk for markers or crayons. Maybe some paper. Or really anything that might entertain Maggie. I’m afraid I don’t have any toys anymore. You could look in my closet though, or under the bed to see if there is anything lurking around.”

“Be back in a minute,” he says and kisses me. He pulls away slowly. Looks at me. Those beautiful blue eyes staring right into my eyes. I cock my head to the right, raise an eyebrow at him.

His half-assed smile starts to form on his perfect lips. I smile back. His tongue slowly licks his lips. I take a deep breath and slowly let it out, then bite my bottom lip.

He grabs my hand and starts walking towards the stairs pulling me along.

“Maybe you should come help me look…” he says while we’re walking.

“Eddie…I have stuff to do…”

“I think Lynne can handle things for a few minutes,” he says and starts going up the stairs pulling me along behind him.

When we go in my room he shuts the door, grabs me, and kisses me so hard I can barely breathe.

“Eddie…we’re supposed to be looking for toys…” I say when he stops kissing me.

“You sure that’s what we came up here for?”

I look at him and nod my head.

He takes a couple of steps backward and sits on our bed. He holds a hand out to me. “Sit with me for a minute…”

I walk towards him, but I’m thinking this probably isn’t a good idea.

I sit on my bed, well our bed I guess it is now, next to him. He leans close and kisses me. His hand reaches up, he runs his fingers through my hair then rests his hand on my cheek cupping it in his palm.

We kiss for a few minutes. This is nice. I feel like once we started having sex, after the first time we fucked, we stopped having this kind of intimacy. We don’t ever just sit and enjoy each other as much as we used to like this.

He nuzzles my neck, moves up to my ear. “Wanna lose some clothes…”

I lay back on the bed, pull him down with me.

“No…but we can enjoy each other for a few minutes.”

He starts to pull away from me, but I wrap my arms around him and hold onto him tightly.

We scoot up in the bed and snuggle up together.

“You know…this can be nice…just laying here and enjoying each other…” I say in between kissing him.

He sighs.

“You don’t think so? You don’t enjoy this?” I ask him.

I think back to the whole fight the other day. What Spencer said about Eddie just wanting to fuck me and then get rid of me. Would he ever really do that? I guess if I’m pregnant and tell him I am, then we’ll find out if that’s all he wants from me.

He kisses me, then pulls away, he looks at me, caresses my cheek, smiles that cheeky half-assed smile. “Of course I enjoy this. I enjoy you any way I can get you. I love the mornings when we’re alone just doing the stuff that has to be done because it’s just us alone…but I also like doing other stuff. I like fucking you Mara.”

“Me…or do you just like fucking?” I ask him.

“You,” he replies right away.

I kiss him. “I feel like sometimes that’s all we do though.”

“It’s been a while.”

“We did it last night…”

“We didn’t. It was a couple days ago at least. I miss the closeness. Fucking you..us being together like that…I mean there’s no way to be closer is there? And then after, you always lay your head on my chest and fall asleep. I never thought I would be in a relationship like this.”

“Why not? Do I want to know how many girls you’ve been with?” I ask.

“Not many really. And it wasn’t that…I never liked being in relationships. I told you, my first girlfriend, kinda fucked up my mind when she cheated on me…then she dumped me. I guess ever since then I’ve been afraid to be open and let myself fall in love. She fucking crushed me.”

“When was that?” I ask him.

He sighs. “A long time ago. Years. We met in high school, well when I was still in high school, didn’t get together though until a while later. I was nineteen, we both were. We were together for almost a year. And I really don’t want to talk about this…” he says and rolls onto his back.

He lays there just staring at the ceiling.

I look over at him. I reach my hand up and stroke his cheek with my finger.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up old feelings, especially bad ones. Seems like you really loved her.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “At the time I thought I did…but now that I’m with you…I think I never knew what love was…and now I do.”

I roll towards him, kiss his cheek, then I sit on him straddling him.

“Well I can honestly say I never knew what love was either…and now I do.”

I lay down on him, nuzzling his neck under that mess of curls. I love to be here, this is my favorite place beside my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat, here I can inhale him, breathe in his musky scent. I love the way he smells. His natural scent, but today since he washed the blood off he smells like soap a bit still, but if I bury my nose deeper into his curls all I smell is him.

He’s kissing my neck…sucking on it. I feel one of his hands slip under my shirt and he’s playing with my nipple, then caressing my boob.

I find myself getting into this. My hips grinding against him now. I feel his cock starting to get harder and I think I want to play with it.

“Maybe you were right. Maybe we should lose some clothes…” I say.

He takes his hand out of my shirt and moves it down so he can unfasten my jeans.

I reach down to unfasten his pants so he knows I’m ready to play, but when I touch his zipper I can feel his cock and he’s so hard now. I stroke down it and then slowly back up a couple times before I unzip his pants and reach my hand inside so I can play with it.

I grip his cock tightly near the head. I run my thumb across the tip in a circle a couple of times.

He reaches down and starts to push his pants and boxers down.

“Wanna just give me a blow job? Jerk me off?” he asks.

I look at him confused. “What? I thought you wanted to have sex. Closeness and all that? Was that just bullshit so I would get you off?”

“No. I just thought you were kind of enjoying touching me…maybe you just wanted to do something to me. I love fucking you…didn’t I just tell you that a minute ago?”

Someone knocks on our door. “Are you guys going to be…finished…with whatever you’re doing soon? We’re all just wondering what we should be doing,” Spencer says.

“Fuck,” Eddie says.

“Guess we’re not doing anything,” I say to Eddie.

He knocks on the door again. “Hello…can I come in?”

“We’ll be out in a minute,” Eddie yells to him.

“Are you fucking?” Spencer asks.

“Does it matter?” I ask him.

I hear him making a scoffing noise.

“Can I come in?” he asks again.

“We’ll be out in a minute,” Eddie tells him again.

“Whatever…” Spencer kind of mumbles as he’s walking away.

I sigh at the same time Eddie does. We both look at each other and laugh.

He kisses my cheek. “Maybe tonight we can…finish…something?”

“Date,” I reply.

I find a few things that I’m hoping will keep Maggie entertained. A color book and some paper, colored pencils. Nothing else in my room though. Eddie says he thinks there’s at least one box in the basement labeled ‘Mara’s Toys’ so he’s going to go check.

When we get to the kitchen I give Maggie the stuff we found upstairs. She opens the coloring book right away and starts coloring.

“Eddie is going to see if I have any toys in the basement. Wasn’t really anything you would find fun to play with in my room,” I tell her.

She looks up at me and smiles. I’m glad she doesn’t hate me for leaving her.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I was reading over the menu and I know how to make most of this stuff, so whatever I can do to help, just let me know,” Lynne says.

“Yeah…that’s fine. If you want to start on…anything…go ahead. I guess we should go get the chicken from the barn and start getting rid of her feathers so we can cook her. Do you want to work on the dressing? I still need to get those onions and stuff sauteed…if you want to do that.”

“I can do that. All this stuff you have chopped up here?” she says pointing to the cutting board.

I nod my head. “Yeah. But be real stingy with the butter because we don’t have much.”

Eddie makes a quick trip downstairs and grabs the box that is labeled ‘Mara’s Toys’ before he comes out to the barn with me to get the chicken.

He hands the box to Sebastian to open for Maggie while we are busy with the chicken.

This is probably my least favorite part about preparing a chicken. I’m not sure why exactly though. Maybe because it’s a long tedious process making sure you get most of the feathers off.

I show Eddie how to dunk it in the hot water to make the feathers easier to pull out, then show him that you just have to pull the feathers out being careful to not tear the skin.

This is impossible to do with gloves on, and with the gloves off my poor fingers feel like they’re getting frostbite.

“Hey, why don’t you go inside and work on something else and I can finish up here,” Eddie says to me.

“Are you sure?”

He nods his head. “Yeah, you look pretty miserable and we’re almost finished anyway.”

I kiss his cheek before heading to the door.

“Hey…you owe me now,” he says with his cheeky smile on his lips.

“What? I thought I already owed you…or we had plans for later…or something?”

“Yeah, we do. But now I think you owe me something special,” he says.

“Oh? Something…special…like?” I ask teasing him.

He blushes. “Um…you’ll think of something…or I will.”

“I’ve got some ideas already,” I say and go inside quickly.

“Mara, you can’t go in now,” I hear him yelling from outside.

“What are you up to?” Amanda asks me.

I casually shrug my shoulders. “Nothing. I’m innocent.”

“I’m not sure I believe you with the huge smile on your face…”

“Innocent,” I say and walk to the dining room to grab the roasting pan for the chicken.

With Lynne, Amanda, and me cooking, Eddie helping when we need him, we get everything finished in a couple of hours.

We set the table in the dining room and bring all the food in there. It looks so beautiful and everything smells delicious.

“I honestly don’t know what to say. I think I’m dreaming,” Sebastian says.

“Yeah me either,” Dave says.

“I’m not much of a praying guy…never had much religion, if any, in my life, but since this is our Thanksgiving I can’t begin to tell all of you how thankful I am that you not only accepted us into your house but to share your food with us. I don’t think we would have lasted much longer out there in the cold. Probably wouldn’t have made it to the south for the winter. All I can offer is thanks,” Sebastian says.

“Well, I have to agree. Religion has never done anything for me, but I’m so thankful you kids let us in, pretty readily, although I know Eddie was going do what he had to to protect all of you,” Dave says laughing.