Page 11 of Slayer Mom
“Then give me some space. Also, show up when I make you meatloaf, particularly when you say that you’re going to show up.”
“I knew that you were angry.”
I shook my head and kept walking. “It doesn’t take a genius to know that your wife is angry when you’ve stood her up. That’s called a normal reaction. And now I want some space, which is also a normal reaction.” Nothing to do with zombies, and needing to take a shower so they wouldn’t smell me and hunt me and my family down. Maybe I should have kept running, so they’d be safe, but no, they’d be fine far away from me at the boarding school that was such a good idea if you introduced zombies into the picture.
He stopped following me, instead standing on the stairs watching me go and looking like, I have no idea, because I didn’t turn around to see. I had other things to worry about, like what kind of security system we really had, and whether or not I could get away with no bra for the rest of my life, particularly uncomfortable bustiers like the one my husband hadn’t seen me in.
The good news was that after another quick shower and a spritz from one of Tom’s bottles, I found out that the security people who did the house were second to none. There were all sorts of extras built in. The security guy I called was happy to talk about details, and did, extensively, because there was nothing more interesting to me than security at that moment. He didn’t think it was strange to want to be prepared for a zombie apocalypse. In fact, he brought it up, as a joke, but one Iappreciated. I stayed in my closet with the door locked. When I got tired, I pulled down a bunch of clothes and made a bed, after putting plastic bags in front of the door as a rough warning system, in case it somehow got opened while I was sleeping. I hadn’t had the best rest the night before for some reason on Tom’s old couch in the rolling room. I slept until Hazen knocked on the door.
“Lucy, I’m going to go pick up the boys. You don’t have to worry about it.”
I frowned at the knife in my hand. Good. Then they wouldn’t catch my scent. “Could you get me a pumpkin spice decaf latte while you’re out?”
There was a beat of silence. “I thought you hated coffee.”
“Is that a no?”
“Of course I can. Do you want anything else?”
Submachine gun. “I should be good.”
“All right. I’ll be back in about a half hour.”
“I’m getting tickets for the flight to the school tomorrow morning. Do you want to come?”
He may have sighed, but it was hard to hear through the door, and I wasn’t opening it. “Of course I want to come. Why don’t you let me make arrangements?”
“Are you saying that I’m incapable of booking tickets?”
“You know that I know that you’re capable of anything. You’re still angry, and I can accept that. I was terrible, but I will try to be better.”
“You don’t have to be, because the kids won’t be here. You don’t have to pretend that you want to be home with me, and I don’t have to leave this closet. I always thought that it was stupidly big, but now I can see the charm. I’m going to order a bed. Sleeping on clothes put my back out.”
“Would you like me to schedule a chiropractor?Maybe you would like me to adjust your spine. I haven’t done that in some time.”
Yeah, no, I wasn’t going to have his hands on me so I could infect him with my nutmeg zombie tracking odor. “I don’t need those things because I’m going to order a bed, unless you mind, because I would be using your money.”
That time he sighed so heavily, it was definitely audible through the door. “It is absolutely not my money. You are my wife and own half of what I have legally, but I feel that you own all of it, all of me, and I—”
“So that’s a yes. Good. You could have just said yes. Excuse me while I make a call. You were going to get the boys, right?”
“Yes. Were you going to make pizzas?”
I snorted. As if I should be cooking with nutmeg hands. “I’ll order something.”
“I could make it.”
“You’ve never made it before, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t, and since all the things I do are so mindless and easy, you’ll have no problem replacing me.”
“I’m not… Can we have this conversation without a door between us?”
“No.”
There was a long pause. “Are you okay?” he asked in a soft voice that I could barely hear.
For some reason, my eyes pricked with tears and the elegant dressing room got blurry. I was definitely not okay. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that, because he might consider that an invitation to come in and fix everything.
I took a shaky breath and exhaled. “I’m fine. I’m just coping with difficult transitions. I’m sure everything will go back to normal.” Not that normal hadbeen the best thing in the world, at least lately, but it certainly beat zombies.
