“We could have still been in the jungle, eating fruit, balls out, not a care in the world,” Caleb said, clucking his tongue. “But instead, we worked nine-to-five jobs we hated in hideous buildings, wearing uncomfortable clothes, too stressed out even to enjoy our days off.”
“I think your main objection to that life seems to be wearing clothing,” I mused, and a smile tugged at his lips as he looked over at me.
I don’t know if it was the wine, the moonlight falling on his face, or the fact that he was the first live, not bitten man I’d seen in ages, or what, but I felt a weird little flutter in my belly as he looked at me.
Which was weird.
Because guys like Caleb had never been my type before.
Light. Easy. A little frat-boy-like.
I’d always sort of leaned in to dark, distant, and a bit tortured in some way.
Hence my complete and utter failure in the relationship department. Because dark, distant, tortured men rarely cared about anyone but themselves.
It was kind of a shame that I hadn’t met Caleb a couple of years ago. I bet he would have been exciting to date.
But not during the end of the world.
There was no room for relationships in a zombie apocalypse.
“Come on, be brave with me,” he demanded a few hours later after suggesting we camp out on the roof for the night.
“Is it brave, or is it stupid?”
“There’s a fine line there,” he told me as he spread out the couch cushions he’d stolen from my living room. “I always err on the side of brave.”
“I’m not brave,” I told him, shaking my head as I pictured zombies somehow climbing the walls, or infiltrating the floor below, and mauling us in our sleep.
“You? Zombie Apocalypse Barbie? Master armourer? Ex-boyfriend head chopper-offer-er? Come on now.”
I would have laughed at that.
But then he reached up and pulled off his shirt.
See, the thing was, you didn’t really have a lot of a libido when you were constantly assaulted with the sounds of people screaming as they were being eaten, or the constant grumblings of the flesh eaters themselves.
So when it came back out of nowhere, yeah, it was intense.
I’d never been one of those girls who drooled over shirtless men back when the world was operating correctly.
Now, though?
Yeah, I was actively trying to not do that.
But… goddamn.
I guess I was half-expecting for Caleb to have gone gaunt with the lack of truly balanced meals. Or, at the very least, that he would have lost most of his muscle tone.
I should have known better.
Because he had nice arms.
But the chest and shoulders? Wide, strong.
And that stomach? With eight perfect little sections and a deep V that disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
“I, ah, I didn’t chop off his head, remember?” I said, trying to occupy my mind with anything but his shirtlessness.