Zero

[9]

Here is Chapter 9! Hope you enjoy :] It's unedited, so please forgive any mistakes and feel free to point them out! Let me know what you think of the chapter :] And Happy New Years to everyone! 

 

“I told you,” he says to me, but the smile on his face and the laughter in his voice negates the holier-than-thou tone.

Still, I have to give it to him, he was right. It started raining, really raining. We walked through it for as long as we could manage before we had to stop. Between the cold of the rain and the sun setting, there was really no point to continue onward. Even I recognized that. On the bright side, there’s not a creep in sight. Maybe even they don’t like to come out and play in such awful weather. Only the craziest of us on rescue missions brave this rain.

We find some trees, a grouping of what was once part of a forest probably, before people came in and destroyed them to build the highway. They’re close enough to the highway that will hopefully offer us a little cover from the downpour and shelter from anything or anyone whose interest we might catch.

Hunter immediately gets to work on the tent, setting it up like a pro while I watch in awe. Our tents never go up this smoothly. It’s part of the reason we stay in one place for as long as possible, because getting the tents up and down is no easy task. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gotten better at it, but not as good as Hunter who gets it up in less than five minutes.

 I don’t think any of us were outdoorsmen types before the world ended, so setting up tent in an efficient manner wasn’t really on our resumes. We’ve always taken too long and argued over what goes where. The result is always lopsided tents that manage to stay standing and sturdy despite the fact that they look as though they’ll topple over in a light breeze.

When it’s up I stare at it with wide eyes. Running into Hunter may have been the best thing to happen to us in a long while. But something is obviously wrong with the tent. It’s long, but a lot narrower than I expected. I know he grabbed one that fit two people, but looking at it now, I’m not so sure. Hunter tosses the bag in that holds our sleeping bags and then climbs in after it.

“You coming?” he says a beat later when I make no move to follow. Realizing I’m still standing in the rain, I crawl into the tent and am suddenly sharing intimate space with Hunter. Hunter who has no shirt.

“You’re not wearing clothes,” I state the obvious. Blushing I turn back and focus on zipping the weather door shut so that rain doesn’t spill into the dry tent.

“I haven’t taken my shorts off, yet,” he points out sounding rather amused with himself and I purse my lips. “Zero, I get that this is uncomfortable for you and I’m sorry, but I’m not sleeping in wet clothes. You shouldn’t either.”

He tosses me one of the sleeping bags. I roll it out and get it unzipped so that I can cover myself up the moment I get out of my wet clothes. Our sleeping bags overlap just a little, proving my theory right that this tent can’t really have been made for more than a single person. Once I’m satisfied with my sleeping bag, I start to lift the sopping wet shirt from my skin but stop painfully aware that he has made no move to avert his eyes as I undress.

“Don’t watch,” I tell him. “Turn around.”

Wearing a smirk, he turns to face the polyester wall of the tent and I do the same, just incase he peaks. Then I strip off my shirt and quickly shift so I can kick off my shoes and wiggle out of my jeans. Of course the soaked denim doesn’t slide down my legs easily so I spend nearly a minute shifting until I get them off.

I glance behind me to make sure I don’t have an audience before stripping off the remainder of my clothes. Then I unzip the sleeping bag enough to slide in and quickly zip it back so that I’m covered. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right, this is nice. It would have sucked to sleep in soaked clothes, but this sleeping bag is warm and snuggly.