Page 35 of Trade
Dalton curls his fingers so he’s holding my hand and waits for my reaction. My lower belly swirls. Even crouched, he looms over me. I have no doubt that even in the bunker, if he’d been a random intern or apprentice, his beauty would’ve stunned me, but out here, alone, it bulldozes straight through all the self-possession I’ve earned over the years.
I tingle. My mouth and brain disconnect. My hand curls around his thumb, pinning the seed between us, and my face blazes at my own boldness.
His lips tilt. “I used to think it was such a cool trick,” he says.
“It’s friction.” My voice is soft, breathless.
“Yeah, but when I was a kid, I thought it was magic. Whenever we saw pods like these, Dad would collect them, and at night by the fire, he’d do his trick, and the next day, we’d pass time trying to hit shit with them while we walked.”
An old story from school pops into my head. Johnny Appleseed. I know what his dad was doing. “It’s called scarification. We do it in the bunker with some of the legumes. You scratch the seed coat to make it easier for water to get in. It helps with germination.”
“Nah,” Dalton says, his soft lips curving into a real smile. “It’s called magic.” He rises to his feet, drawing me up with him. “Do you need to take a piss?”
Well, whatever magic there was is squashed. I shake my head and pull my hand loose, but I keep the seed.
We continue on. Every time he stops to wait, he has something to show me when I catch up. A bird’s nest. A hole that might house a critter, although he’s not sure what kind. A green, bumpy hedge apple he calls a “monkey ball.”
I have completely run out of room in my pockets by the time we break for lunch. He tells me to rest under a weeping willow while he ducks off to the nearby creek to fill our canteen.
When he comes back, he digs more dried fruit from his bag, as well as a hard, wafer-like cracker with a mild rye flavor. We eat in silence, both sitting cross-legged in our bare feet. It’s funny to see our boots side by side. His are almost twice as big as mine.
When we’re done eating, he rearranges things in his backpack while I scooch to lean against the trunk of the willow whose branches droop nearly to the ground, creating a fluttery umbrella that sways in the breeze. The sunlight filters through the tapered leaves and dapples the grass. I yawn as the carbs from the cracker hit me.
Dalton finishes with his rummaging and sits, bent-kneed, to watch me, his favorite pastime. He lazily gathers broken willow boughs within reach and begins to weave them together, looping one around another.
“What are you making?” I ask drowsily.
“Something.”
“So it’s a secret?”
“A surprise,” he says.
“You know I can see you making it?”
His lips twitch. “There’s no fooling Glory.”
I wish. A pang of sadness twinges in my chest. I will it away. This moment is good. I’m not letting anything drag me backward or forward. I live here, under a willow tree with a full belly and the prettiest man alive.
He winds one branch all the way around another and then does it again, tucking the ends, until he’s made a crown of leaves.
“Are you the king of the Outside now?” I ask.
He shakes his head. His mouth curves in an actual smile, not wide, and no teeth showing, but still, a genuine smile.
He shuffles forward until he’s kneeling at my feet. There’s speculation in his eyes, but it isn’t as predatory as before. He’s a mellow hunter, hungry but content that his prey has been lulled, and he’s about to feast.
He holds up the crown. “Trade?”
I hold my hand out. He’s been giving me things all day—black seeds and monkey balls and even a silver coin from the Before he somehow noticed in the grass. I fully expect him to hand me the crown.
He raises an eyebrow and sets the crown on the ground behind him.
“After,” he says and sits back on his heels, watching me, waiting. He knows that I know what he wants.
My belly stirs. The world around our willow fades. No one will ever know what I do here. No one can judge me. I find my zipper and slide it down, shrugging the coverall off my shoulders.
“I want to come this time,” I say.
