Page 57 of Doomsdate

I frown at him. “What are you doing?”

He rolls his eyes and smiles, exasperated. “It’s a hug, Maisie. Can I hug you?”

“Oh.” My eyebrows rise, and I lean forward, lifting my arms. His wrap around me first, warm and enveloping and lovely all at once. This close, I have to crane my neck away to keep any distance between my face and his chest, which is so uncomfortable that surely it can’t be right. Tentatively, I let my cheek rest against his chest, and the comforting thump of his heartbeat feels like a balm. I sigh into it, my whole body relaxing within the walls of his arms.

“Did you really think I was trying to get away from you?” His words land against my hair. “After last night, is that how you think I feel about you?”

I sigh out a long, shaky breath. “No. I was scared I was wrong about that, though. It’s not just other people I don’t trust. It’s me, too. My own perception of things. I’ve trained myself to second-guess everything I think and feel so I don’t end up like my mother, and it leaves me so confused sometimes.”

“Oh, Maisie.” His sympathy is gentle and soft, and it doesn’t feel insulting. It feels like understanding.

“Did you really think I’d hurt you with my machete?” I glance up, needing to see his face for this. “That I’m some crazy prepper woman trying to Misery you still?”

His lips quirk up to the side. “No, I didn’t, and I don’t. I was just scared that I was wrong, too, in that moment. It really hurt, after everything we’ve been through already, that you still doubt how much I care about you.”

“You care about me?”

“Of course I do. You’re the best thing about the end of the world, Maisie, even when you’re brandishing a machete at my head.” He breathes out a soft sigh. “You’re my survival partner, and my friend. My only friend in the whole world.” He reaches down and lifts my chin, then smiles at me ruefully. “Which makes you my best friend, by the way. And don’t worry, I know I’m second to Gramps for you.”

I sniff. “Yeah. You are.”

But infinitely hotter.

His eyes crinkle at the corners in a sad not-quite smile, and he pulls me back into his arms.

“I’m sorry for assuming you were an absolute villain,” I say into his chest. “And I’m sorry I violated your trust.”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Sandeep and the dating profile sooner.” He holds me a little tighter. “But I’m not sorry he did it. I wouldn’t be here right now, alive and with you, if he hadn’t.”

I pull away, just enough to look up into his eyes once more. My stomach drops out at what I’m about to say, but I’m so tired of living only to survive. I want to break our rules. And dammit, this risk is worth the pain it will cause when I’m driving away, alone.

“Can I—kiss you goodbye? Now? Before we get to your sister’s so we’re not, um, rushed, and it’s private?” My face feels like it’s on fire. “You might be the last kissable man I ever meet.”

His smile softens. “Yes. You’re definitely the most kissable woman alive.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“Yeah, but you cleared it the moment we met.”

The world’s quiet around us, nothing but the breeze whispering through the evergreens outside our windows and Chicken’s loud purring. When Everett leans down, his finger beneath my jaw, strumming the skin there lazily back and forth, our lips connect like magnets colliding. Drawn together, pulled by the inevitability of something bigger that we don’t understand.

It’s a sweet kiss, and a simple one. A goodbye uttered between our bodies.

“Good luck, Maisie Bennett,” he says against my lips. His hazel eyes look pained, as though he’s as sad at the idea of leaving me as I am him. “Though you don’t need it.”

I hug my friend tightly.

Chapter Thirteen

Everett

Ten miles before we reach the exit that will deliver us into Gemma’s D.C. neighborhood, the roads become more congested, and fear bubbles in my stomach. I place a hand on Maisie’s arm. “You don’t have to take me all the way in, you know. It’s a big city. My sister lives in a residential area. There will be more zombies than we’ve seen yet.”

Maisie huffs. “What, you want to walk the rest of the way?”

“I could steal a car. Drive the rest of the way in myself.” I try to put conviction behind the words, but despite my best efforts, it sounds as implausible out loud as it does in my brain.

Maisie rolls her eyes. “You don’t know how to drive, and I don’t think figuring it out by yourself in a zombie-infested city is really the time to learn, either.”