LovewithaChanceofZombies Read Free Page A

you have a room to yourself though?”
    Was it his subtle way of finding out if she was attached? Or
was she making assumptions that would come back to embarrass her later?
    “I do,” she admitted, “but it’s not quiet. I can hear
everybody in the rooms around me.” Their little enclave of humanity had settled
on what had once been a college campus, adjacent to a teaching hospital, and
Lena’s room was in an actual dormitory. It had been constructed for efficiency,
not privacy.
    Nye quirked an eyebrow, a surprisingly sexy expression.
“That could be either really torturous or really entertaining.”
    Despite herself, she chuckled. She knew what he meant, and
he knew that she knew. It was one of those generally known things. Sex hadn’t
really been private in years. “Most of the time it’s just annoying. I have
enough trouble sleeping without listening to…people who aren’t sleeping. It’s
the same few people too, so even if it had been interesting at first, it would
just be boring by now.”
    “I used to feel the same way,” he said. “I had a room at the
end of a hall, so only one neighbor…but it was Jip Chambliss.”
    “Ouch. Not much sleep for you then.”
    Jip Chambliss was a notorious womanizer, though Lena
couldn’t deny that, in a sense, he was also a hero. In his way, the man who
occupied the primary watchtower at the front gate was as big a celebrity as
Nye. Women didn’t mind at all being pursued by the tall, rangy sniper who had
scored so many legendary zombie kills. He had as many notches on his bedpost,
she suspected, as on his gunstock.
    “He rarely sleeps alone,” Nye confirmed.
    “So you weren’t always in the room down here, that—”
    “No. They moved me after the bite. So I’d be closer to here,
contained in one building. Also no windows, although it does have a shower and
a toilet. I think it may have been the interns’ and residents’ break room at
one point. Anyway, nobody will see me this way. It all supports the story that
I’m spending a few weeks on a research project out at the big farm.”
    He didn’t even get to spend his remaining days sleeping in
the room that had been his home for several of the last ten years. The reality
of just how short a time Nye had left suddenly struck Lena in a way it hadn’t
before. Their greatest hero. If it could happen to him…
    “Now I sort of miss old Jip and his lady parade,” Nye
remarked. “He was always trying to fix me up too. If I’d realized how short my
time was going to be, I probably would have taken him up on it a few times at
least.”
    Lena listened to the regret in his voice and could tell from
the way he was eyeing her that he was considering the obvious potential in
their situation. She was considering it too.
    Lena was young, unattached, apparently healthy. She might
well be the last woman Nye ever saw. Nye was a hero, and he had only a few
weeks left. Time was short, babies were precious and Nye had never fathered
one. They would be in no danger of contamination yet. The virus was known not
to transmit sexually until the carrier showed symptoms. How people had
discovered that little tidbit was a gruesome story in itself.
    She watched the idea play around Nye’s face, her gaze never
leaving him. Lena knew she was blushing, could feel the heat rising in her face
and in other places too. Had this been on Watson’s mind all along, when he
assigned Lena to this task? He had hinted broadly over the past few years that
she should find a partner. Women who could get pregnant were generally expected
and encouraged to do so. It was one of the many usually unspoken assumptions of
life post-apocalypse—repopulation was a priority. Lena had never felt like the
time was right, never met a man who felt right for more than a dalliance.
    Nye hadn’t done it, as far as she could tell, because he was
always working, always busy, never taking time out to engage in social
interaction. Lena knew a few girls he’d been with,