CHAPTER FIVE

Her mother’s head was bent over the kitchen counter, her fingers swiping in a wild blur across her phone screen.

“Gotcha, flesh-eater!”

“Saving the world, Mom?” Elle asked, as she closed the front door to her apartment.

“Somebody has to fend off the infected,” her mom said with a final slide before she looked up and closed the game.

Elle laughed. “I thought you were giving it up. You said it was giving you video game thumb or something.”

Her mother shook her head, her bouncy ponytail swinging with her. “I tried. Oh lord, you know I tried. But your son… He plays a mean game of Dying Light, and he challenged me. I can’t back down.”

“You’re going to need to work on State of Decay next. Alex and his buddies are moving on in the apocalypse gaming world,” Elle said, dropping her keys on the counter and giving her mom a peck on the cheek. Her mother wore green scrubs with Snoopys and Woodstocks on them. “How was he tonight?”

“Fine. Just fine. I plied him with pizza and schooled him with my survival skills.”

“No easier way to the heart of a fourteen-year-old boy, is there?” While there was plenty of truth in her statement, for her son, video games weren’t just the snack-food-and-candy path to winning his teenage heart—they were essential to his emotional survival. They were the difference between him talking and not talking.

Between speech and a complete breakdown.

Some parents might worry that their kids played too many video games, and while Elle set limits, she also knew what they meant for him. Because the time before? It was the end of the world. Black, empty, cold. A true pit of despair. In those dark days, she’d have given anything—a lung, a kidney, a limb—for him to talk to her. He’d shut down after his father died, completely withered, barely able to utter a word except for the essentials—yes, no, I don’t know.

Understandable, given what he’d witnessed in their home on that night three years ago.

Somehow games, zombies, and post-apocalyptic stories became a portal for him. Elle never would have predicted it, but on the days after school when Alex would come by the center, he was drawn to the gaming room, and to the raucous energy of the boys shouting at the screen. After a year of being so traumatized by what he saw he’d gone nearly mute, video games reconnected the voice inside him to the rest of the world. They unlocked the part of him that he’d kept quiet, and how she loved to hear him shouting with his friends.

God bless the living dead.

And The Walking Dead, too. Alex’s favorite show had become a key part of Elle’s lexicon, since she had to stay up to speed with Sheriff Rick Grimes in order to converse with her son again. Zombies. Who would have thought zombies would rescue her son from the near-catatonic state that the death of his father had sent him into?

Her mother tucked the phone into her purse and gathered up her keys. “How was the benefit? Did you meet your goals?” Her mom held up her hand and twisted her index finger around her middle finger. “I had ’em crossed all night for you.”

“We did. It was amazing,” Elle said, and quickly gave a recap of the night. Well, the pre-pool-deck portion of the night.

Her mom beamed, then pumped a fist in the air and did a victory dance in the kitchen. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

The woman had amazing energy.

Elle’s mom was pretty much the youngest grandma around. Like Elle, she’d started early when it came to baby making. Her mother was only eighteen when Elle was born. Barely fifty now, her mom poured her ample energy into her two grown daughters, her grandkids, her job as a nurse, and even her new boyfriend. She’d put herself through nursing school when Elle and her younger sister were toddlers, shuttling back and forth between day care and class, struggling to make ends meet with two little kids all to herself. She’d wanted different things for her daughters, and she’d achieved that with Camille, who’d wisely waited ’til she was out of college and married before getting knocked up.

Not Elle.

The bun unknowingly went in the oven on the night of high school graduation, when the condom broke with Sam, the guy who became her on-again-off-again boyfriend, then eventually her husband, then her nearly ex-husband, since she’d been separated from him the last few years of his life while he was on-again-and-off-again in all sorts of ways. On drugs. Off drugs. In rehab. Out of rehab. Like a merry-go-round that gave her whiplash and nothing else but heartache.

“I am so proud of you, baby,” her mom said, walking around the counter and clasping Elle in a big hug. “You worked so hard for this, and those kids need you. You have done so much for them.”

Her throat hitched. “I’m lucky to work with them.”

Her mom stiffened and wrenched back, narrowing her eyes. “Young lady, didn’t you have your hair up when you left?” She arched an all-knowing eyebrow that somehow had the power to see right through her daughter.

But Elle wasn’t eighteen. She was thirty-two, and she didn’t have to hide her activities. Elle patted her mussed-up hair, then raised her chin up high. “I did have it up, but someone took it down.”

Her mother held up a palm to high-five her then snapped it back. “Say you used protection. Did you use a condom, young lady?”

Elle rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mommy. I used a condom,” she said in a sing-song voice. “And I’m on the pill. So don’t worry your pretty little head about me.”

“As if I could ever not worry about my baby girl,” she scoffed. “Wait. Was it good? Will we see him around here?”

Elle shook her head.

“It wasn’t good?”

Elle laughed. “Yes. It was amazing, as in out-of-this-world epic, incredible. But no, you won’t see him around. He’s not the type of guy I can have a relationship with.”

“Why not? Is he an asshole?”

“Definitely not.”

Her mom parked her hands on her hips. “Then what is it?”

Elle shooed her to the door. “Get out of here. You’re going to be late for your shift. You have fifteen minutes to get to the hospital.” Her mom fixed her with a stare that said this conversation isn’t over, missy, and Elle rolled her eyes. “I love you, but you need to skedaddle. Thank you again.”

“Anytime,” she said and walked out. But in two seconds, she popped the door back open and held up a finger. “And ‘anytime’ also applies if you want to booty call this epic, incredible, out-of-this-world guy again, and you need a warm body here. You know where to find me. Because I’ve got some flesh-eaters to destroy with my grandson.”

“Your booty call offer is duly noted,” Elle said, then shut and locked the door and walked down the hall to check on her son. Alex was sound asleep, curled up under the covers, air conditioning rattling loudly in his pigsty bedroom. His dark hair was a wild mess and would be sticking up in all directions in the morning. She bent down and dropped a quick kiss on his forehead.

“Night, sleepy boy,” she said, then left his room and returned to the living room where she sank down on the couch.

And waited.

Waited to feel the regret.

Waited to feel the shame.

Waited to feel the sting of her bad choices.

She sat, watching the clock, then closed her eyes, trying to meditate, aiming to let her mind clear so she would feel all the things she was supposed to feel after sleeping with a man like Colin. All the things that gnawed at her and vexed her. That nagged and twisted away at her heart. The things that would cement her decision to make this the last time with him.

When she opened her eyes, she didn’t feel any of those things. Not a one.

Instead, she simply felt…good.

What the hell? She wasn’t supposed to feel okay. Being with Colin broke promises. She needed to feel like shit so she wouldn’t go there again with that man.

Maybe a distraction would let the feeling sneak up on her. Leaning forward, she grabbed the game controller from the coffee table and turned on the TV. Lowering the volume so as not to wake her son, she proceeded to blast through a town of the infected, quickly clearing several blocks of zombies as night fell in video-game land. When a flesh-eater appeared out of nowhere, she panicked.

“You need to run away.”

Pausing the game, Elle leaned her head back and looked up at her son. “I do?”

With his rumpled hair, basketball shorts, and gray T-shirt, he walked around the couch, and parked himself next to her. “Yeah, you don’t have to fight the super zombies every time. If you successfully run away from them, you can level up your agility skills.”

“My agility skills suck,” Elle admitted, then added, “Why are you up?”

“Had to pee. Is that a crime?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I’ll let you know if that changes though.”

Alex laughed and grabbed the controller. “I’ll show you how to run away from the zombies.”

“Run! Run! C’mon you can do it,” she said in a rah-rah voice to the big screen.

He swiveled his head to stare at her, then rolled his eyes. Typical fourteen-year-old. “No cheering, Mom. Anyway, here’s how it’s done,” he said, turning the game back on and demonstrating his speed and skill in evading the enemy. “Now, we just need to get back to the safe house.”

“So does this count if you’re playing for me?”

He nodded. “Of course. I’m like your pinch hitter.”

“When we enter the Xbox tournament, can you just fill in for me when I get in a pickle?”

“If there’s a tournament and you’re holding out on letting me play in it, you’re in big trouble,” he said, his voice deepening on the final words as he attacked bad guys on the screen.

“Hey! Your voice just went all crazy low there,” she said, in her own imitation of a baritone. Alex had been hovering in voice-changing limbo for so long she was sure he was going to set some kind of record. While his friends paraded in and out of the home with Al Greene-esque vocal stylings as they sailed over that cusp of adolescence, Alex was still swinging in between the higher-pitched boy’s voice and the deeper notes of an older teen.

“Mom, my voice is fine,” he said then thrust the controller into her hand, his way of saying any conversation that dared to touch on the horrific topic of puberty was so over they’d need a new word for it.

“Fine, fine,” she said, holding up her hands in surrender. “Forget I said a word about your voice.”

“It’s forgotten.” He yawned. “Try not to get killed before you get back to the safe house.”

“I’ll do my best. See you in the morning, sleepyhead.”

“See you in the morning,” he echoed, and returned to his room.

A few minutes later, she flicked off the game. Late-night encounters like that—random, casual, exceedingly normal—had a way of settling her nerves and calming her heart. Things were back to business as usual with Alex, and she was so damn grateful for that.

The question remained, though—what the hell was she going to do about Colin? Tonight was supposed to rid her dirty dreams of him. But who was she kidding? What woman in her rightful mind would want to ditch that? She made her way to her bedroom, stripping out of her evening dress and completely useless panties. She tossed them in the hamper on top of her roller derby uniform from last night’s game, laughing to herself over the number of pairs of panties he’d melted right off her.

One time at the center, he’d stopped by her office to chit-chat after his volunteer shift and somehow his hands had wound up on her shoulders, and he’d given her one of the best massages she’d ever had, undoing the knots of tension in her shoulders, all while turning her on. Yup, a pair melted that afternoon. A few weeks later, her first kiss with him had pretty much scorched her body and fried all her brain cells. After a movie for the kids in the rec room, he’d stayed behind to help her straighten up, and when they were through disposing of bags of microwave popcorn and washing their hands, she’d turned around to find him behind her at the sink, a hungry look in his dark eyes.

There were no questions. They’d smashed into each other, all sizzle and heat and pent-up desire.

She pulled on a fresh, clean pair of undies, and a soft, faded cotton tee. She headed to her bathroom and scrubbed off all her makeup, staring at the calligraphy T tattooed on her wrist. T for her roller derby name. She dried her face and brushed out her hair.

Okay, the evidence of her evening was gone. She was ready to shed Colin, too. Just molt him off, like a snake’s skin.

And yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Elle had wanted Colin since the day she’d met him. The initial reaction had been purely chemical. It had been instant and intense, and so damn easy to write off as lust. From his broody eyes, to his dark hair, to the body that was everything she’d dreamt up late at night when spending time with her toys—because she had a drawer full, and the dirty books to go along with them. Fuck romance novels; Elle went straight for the hard stuff. Dirty, filthy short stories that took the edge off her days, helping her sleep peacefully at night, so different from the time when she used to twist and turn under the covers, haunted by memories, by broken vows, and fights. By this time will be different pleas. Then she discovered she could self-medicate with erotica to relieve the tension in her brain and body and send herself to the land of nod, courtesy of a naughty fireman ménage story or a horny, hot professor tale paired with her battery-operated Joy Delivered rabbit.

But soon her late-night fantasies zeroed in on one man. Colin Sloan—tall, tatted, tempting, witty, and forthright. The more she got to know him, the more she liked him, and once they touched…it was a pure rush.

He wasn’t an asshole. He was a very good guy.

Maybe sex with him tonight hadn’t been the worst idea in the world.

As she flopped down on her bed, shoving a hand through her hair, she found herself wondering if she could have it both ways.

After years of nothing but broken promises from Alex’s father, she’d vowed never to put her son in a situation where they might face the demons of addiction again. True, Colin was a recovering addict, but he was still an addict. And an addict was an addict was an addict.

No two ways about it.

Hell, Alex’s father had been in and out of rehab so many times you’d think he’d invented the revolving door. He’d sober up, then he’d relapse. Lather, rinse, repeat. That was the pattern with people like him. Before she joined the center as director, she ran several addiction recovery groups as a social worker, and she was well aware of the stark reality of the disease—half of recovering addicts would relapse at some point.

Half.

It could happen with anyone. It could happen with Colin. He had a hell of a history trailing behind him. Sure, the art on his body symbolized his struggle and his sobriety, but while she admired that sobriety deeply, she didn’t trust it.

Because she couldn’t trust anyone’s sobriety one hundred percent, not when it involved the person she loved most in the world—her boy. She had the scars on her heart, the countless nights of lost sleep, the never-ending battles, and bargains, and empty pleas from Alex’s dad to prove sobriety didn’t always stick.

She’d taken ten thousand chances with the father of her child, and they’d nearly destroyed her and her son. All those chances had ripped her life to shreds, and she’d finally put the pieces back together. How could she take even one with a man she was simply hot for?

Even for someone who seemed together. Even for someone who lived a life of recovery.

But as she tugged the sheets over her body—her body that still hummed with leftover bliss from earlier—she asked what if. What if she didn’t let Colin into her life or her home? What if she kept him neatly in an after-hours box like she’d done tonight? Hell, she’d managed an orgiastic frenzy of mind-blowing kissing and epic fucking, and it hadn’t spilled into her life with her son, who’d been busy warring with zombies and gobbling pizza with his grandma—the same woman who was willing to aid and abet another “booty call.” And her own run-in with Alex in the living room had been as normal as they came. Nothing bad had happened from her choice tonight.

Maybe, just maybe, she could manage something with Colin that never got serious. That never crossed the line. That remained below the belt. She could separate the emotions from the sex. The connection from the hotness. She could be with him out of the house and still come home to her son.

She’d maintain her boundaries. Only sex. Only contact. No strings allowed.

Crazy idea?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps it was brilliant.

She picked up her phone and texted Colin.

I still want you.

His reply arrived two minutes later, and they quickly bantered.

Colin: You can have me anytime.

Elle: Anytime, anywhere?

Colin: I believe we established the anywhere tonight. But there was also the time on the hiking path and on the stairwell at the library. If you needed a reminder of our ingenuity in finding places.

Elle smiled wickedly at the memory of the day he’d given her a ride home after his volunteer shift and stopped at the library so she could pick up a book she’d reserved. He’d gone in with her, hunting for a new paperback, and when she found him in the stacks, he’d proceeded to kiss the hell out of her, turning her so hot and molten that she’d decided she had to have him right then and there. In the stairwell at the public library. God, she was reckless with him. It had been amazing. A few weeks later, he’d invited her to go hiking when Alex was away with friends for the weekend, so they’d hiked high in the hills, under the sun, and gotten hot and sweaty. Then hotter and sweatier in a secluded patch of woods shielded by a boulder, when he’d shown her precisely how magic his fingers were as he fucked her with them, standing up against a tree, next to a stream.

Mother nature rocked.

So did automobiles. They’d screwed in his car after she’d won at poker a few weeks ago.

Elle: The stream was good, too. Everything with you has been.

Colin: Good or excellent?

Elle: Excellent. Most excellent. So excellent I want more. I think Wednesday night could work?

Colin: You let me know the time, and I will not only be at your service, I will service you until you can’t think straight and you risk turning into the most orgasmic woman in the history of the universe. Just wanted to give you fair warning.

Elle: Consider me warned.