Assuming Room Temperature (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 3) (23 page)

The two of them plunked down on opposite cushions and Jake lifted the lid. The ninja-girl’s stomach growled savagely when her olfactory sense organs took in the smell wafting up from the still warm dish, causing him to swallow a laugh as he began cutting into the quiche. She all but snatched the portion from him and, using her fingers to lift it from her plate like a slice of pizza, unashamedly took a large bite.

“Mmmmm,” Kat moaned around the mouthful. “
This
is great! We own Mooney big time.”

“For letting me use the propane stove in his kitchen, yeah.”

Cho sat up straighter. “Wait,
you
made
this?”

Jake nodded and forked some of his own slice into his mouth.

She looked down at the fluffy goodness in her hand. She could taste eggs—likely powdered, but who cared—and a hint of the same wild-growing, minced green onions used in dinner the night before, but there was more in there. Things she couldn’t
possibly
be
tasting.

“Where did you find the cheese? And mushrooms? And is that…?” Using two fingers, she pulled a large chuck of bacon free from near the crust. “Oh. My. God!”

O’Connor grinned at her reaction.

Kat shoved the piece into her mouth. Yep. It was real piggy.

“Are you a wizard? Seriously, are you? Where did you find
actual
bacon?”

“The cheese is just dried Parmesan. Plenty of that around. And Mooney had a few envelopes of precooked bacon left, along with an enormous can of mushrooms. I only needed a cup, so he’ll use the rest of them for something over the next day or so. I traded him two cases of Meals Ready to Eat for that stuff. They’ll go a lot farther towards feeding people in Langley than a half-pound package of bacon would anyway, so no big loss. Besides, I gave him every last meatloaf MREs we had. I won’t have to suffer through choking down another one of those again for a while, so I call that a win-win.” He took another bite and chewed critically. “The crust didn’t turn out the way it should, but then there’s no butter left anywhere now. I had to fake it with a little olive oil.”

Kat was clearly stunned. “When did you learn how to cook?”

“Hello? Ghost writer? Edited cookbooks?” O’Connor reminded her. “I kind of taught myself the basics when I was in my teens, but really only started preparing new dishes when I was in college. You can only eat so many pizzas, burgers, and packs of Ramen noodles before you want something more you know. Anything more. I’ve had some long conversations with Leo over the last few months, too.”

Trying to listen and stuff her face simultaneously looked like it was proving to be a challenge, but Cho seemed game.

“You should open a restaurant when we get over the Rockies.”

Jake waved his fork at her and worked on his serving. “No way! I’d tell the first person who complained about the food to piss off. The Better Business Bureau would blacklist me in a week.”

“I could take out the director,” she offered, all but inhaling the last of her slice. “No-one would know. Don’t worry, I’ll even be able to make it look like a zombie attack if I use a little bit of creativity.”

“If I didn’t think you might be serious I’d say you had a deal. I’m certain whoever is in charge in the Safe Zone would frown upon assassination over culinary differences.” He opened the jug and poured a measure into her glass. “Fresh from the can. Go easy though, that’s a ‘Mooney Mimosa.’ He started making them just after everything went to hell by mixing equal parts water and peach schnapps into the Tang.”

Kat took a swig. “Whoa! More like Rum 151!”

“He didn’t say anything about
that
.” Jake sipped and his eyes widened. “Holy…! It’s like gasoline that’s been passed over a lifesaver!”

“I know, it’s pretty good.” She downed the rest of her drink as he gaped on in horror, then shook the glass at him. “A little more here?”

“Didn’t you all just have just have a ladies’ night?” He poured another—smaller—amount into her pint.

She downed that one too. “Meh. It was okay I guess. Just a bunch of girls sitting around, getting plastered and trying to outdo each other with stories about how wild we’ve been.”

“You? Wild?” While O’Connor’s tone implied disbelief, his face implied something else entirety. “No, surely not.”

“Humph.” She gave him an amused glance. “Smart-ass gaijin.”

“I do my best.”

Cho stuck her tongue out at him.

“You wouldn’t want your face to freeze that way, would you?”

“There are worse fates.” She shrugged.

“Like what?”

“You could be on the wall right now with George and little Miss Big-Chested Blabbermouth, not sitting here with me drinking mimosas.” She had him there.

“Awful mimosas,” he clarified.

“Semantics,” she countered.

Jake nodded conceding the point and saluted her with his liquid awfulness. Kat took the win gracefully, then folded her legs Indian-style to look out over the lake. She could see the western shore in the distance even though specific details weren’t visible, and wondered aloud, “Kind of pretty here, huh?”

“Yeah. It is.”

Cho pointed at the dam holding back the waters of the Neosho River that fed the lake. “Do you think we’ll be able to do something like that again?”

O’Connor followed her gaze. “You mean the dam?”

Kat nodded. “Uh-huh. Can we bounce back from this? I mean, I know it’s never going to be like it was before the maggot-heads: but what’s next? Will people start over from scratch, or try to pick up the pieces, or what? That’s assuming it’ll even be possible for enough of us to stay alive, you understand.”

If he lived to be a thousand years old, it would never cease to amaze Jake how Kat’s mind worked. He’d been wondering that very thing from the beginning of the outbreak, but hadn’t seen fit to voice his concerns with anyone. Not even with Laurel. It would’ve depressed her.

“Chances aren’t good. From what we’ve encountered so far—at least on this side of the Divide—society has reverted to tribalism.” He pulled that from what he remembered from the required Psychology 101 course he’d suffered through and tried to explain. “While tragic, that makes sense. It’s human nature to gravitate towards other people during hard times.”

“Like primitive man did, back when we all still wore wooly mammoth hide as underwear.”

“Gather together around a leader who was really strong—even if they were kind of a dick—who could protect and feed them.”

“Exactly like that. We’ve seen it in spades. The Purifiers, Penny’s old group with Rebecca... Hell, even here in Langley. Mooney really stepped up when everything went to shit. There’s no way these folks would’ve survived otherwise.”

Cho snorted. “We did it too.”

That was a touchy subject for him. “No, the rest of you forced the whole ‘leader’ thing on me. That’s nothing like—”

“You don’t get it do you?” Kat looked back to him in amusement. “That’s
exactly
what we did. Many tribes chose whoever they thought the best person was to lead. That doesn’t mean they were the biggest, or baddest, or the most intelligent either. Sometimes, they were just good at organization. Sometimes they came up with a new way of building shelters, or finding new food sources during hard times.”

Jake became worried. “Yeah, but sometimes they were monsters. Hitler, Stalin, Attila... David Koresh... There are plenty of examples of men who’ve become drunk on power, and then brought about incredible levels of suffering.”

“What about Lincoln? Washington? Churchill? FDR? Gandhi?”

“Did you just compare me to Gandhi?” O’Connor’s face was quizzical. “Because I don’t think I’d look very good in a diaper.”

Cho laughed at the mental image. “That’s right! I forgot, you don’t do underwear.”

“Eh?”

“Don’t all Irishmen ‘go regimental’?” She teased.

O’Connor sighed. “Dear Lord, you have
no
idea how many times I’ve been asked that question. What is it about kilts that turn American women into slobbering animals?”

“You could blame it all on alcohol, I suppose. Wow. That came out way different than it sounded in my head.”

“So you ladies get beer-goggles?” He asked incredulously.

“I said it came out wrong. Give me a minute.” Kat’s forehead wrinkled in thought while he waited. “I think it’s because kilts aren’t the norm. I’m sure they’re more common in Great Britain and Ireland, but they’re still pretty novel here. You only really see a man in a kilt when there’s a parade, or a funeral, or if it’s St. Paddy’s Day, so of course that occasion brings the question to mind. It’s kind of the same thing with fruitcake.”

“Huh?”

Kat nodded. “Lots of people always have fruitcake during the holidays, but they don’t think about it the rest of the year. If someone offered it to them say, in the middle of Summer, they’d find it was strange but maybe think, ‘You know what, I
haven’t
had that in a while...’ and—as long as they don’t hate it—have themselves a slice.”

“You know what? That theory is totally weird, but it’s probably spot-on.”

“Of course. I’m a woman. I’m always right.” Cho gave him a pitying look. “Haven’t you figured that out by now? Not very observant of you. How did you manage to survive your time as a combat journalist?”

“Stop.” O’Connor fought back a chuckle and took a sip of spiked Tang. “I give. I can’t out-argue anyone in possession of that much cuteness and brains
too
, so we’ll go with your theory. It works. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask—”

He stopped talking when he noticed Cho’s smile.

“Yeah. Totally just admitted you think I’m hot.”

“You’re translating ‘cuteness’ into ‘Holy shit, I want to see her naked’?” Jake raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little bit of a stretch, isn’t it?”

“So you admit you want to see me naked?” Her smile grew wider.

O’Connor tried to moderate his fumble-tongue. “You’re twisting what I said. You do that a lot. I’m just expressing that it’s difficult to apply logic to a conversation—as enjoyable as it may be—when you’re distracted by the other person’s appearance.”

“
So
making my case for me here.” Kat’s smile nearly gave her a flip-top head. “And I don’t have any sympathy for you. Now you know how I feel all the time.”

That took him by surprise. “I don’t get it.”

“I realized a while back you don’t possess a typical male ego—meaning you don’t think you’re the gods’ gift—but do you have the
first
clue how you affect some of us? And by some of us, I mean the female members our party with a pair of working eyeballs?”

She’s messing with me,
he thought.

“That’s flattering, but let’s be honest: I couldn’t model baseball hats. From the rear.” Jake had no illusions. He didn’t look anything like the block-chinned action stars who used to grace the big screens. “Besides, everyone’s choices are pretty limited right now, so—”

“Limited. Really. I think I’m insulted.”

That was obviously the wrong way to say it, so he tried again. “You’re doing it again! Jesus Chr…! Okay, let me put it this way. I’m the only ‘available’ male, at least in our little group. I’m not including the guys here in Langley by the way, many of whom have significant others. Leo’s taken, George is from another generation, and Henry doesn’t swing that way, so—”

“So you think some of us are shallow enough to go for anyone who’s still a free agent?” She asked.

Jake didn’t catch the levity in her voice. “That is
not
what I’m saying!”

“Well, what
are
you saying?”

“That you’ve been on my mind a lot, alright?” He wasn’t thinking about the words spewing unchecked from his throat. “More and more after you broke me out of the walking coma—which I thank you for—and it doesn’t seem to be going away.”

“Why’s that?”

“Shit. This isn’t even close to easy,” O’Connor mumbled.

“So talking with me is difficult?”

“When all I can think about is how much I want kiss you again? Yeah, you could say that,” Jake blurted. “I’m positive you’ve heard it before, but you want the truth? Okay, fine. You’re an incredible woman who can more than take care of herself, that doesn’t give two shits what anyone thinks of her. You hide ‘you’ away behind this vixen persona—which I don’t understand—to keep people from taking you seriously, even though your
real
personality is all kinds of sexy in some pretty impressive ways. You’ve got a frighteningly quick mind, but for some reason hide that too, and that’s even more of a damn shame. You proved
that
fact while I was away with the fairies. Then, there’s—”

Putting her plate on the blanket while he spoke, Kat rose, stepped over the quiche, bent at the waist, and cut Jake off mid-rant by pressing her lips to his.

It went on for a dozen heartbeats before she pulled away to take in his stunned face. She’d obviously shocked him, judging from the way his mouth hung open as she knelt caddy-corner to him on the blanket, and gave O’Connor a moment to collect himself before she spoke.

“You’re kind of long-winded, you know that?” she said, “Let’s dispense with the oratory-based method and try it like this.”

Cho kissed him again, wrapping her arms over his shoulders and leaning into the embrace. That pressed their upper bodies together, prompting O’Connor to tense the muscles of his core to keep himself from being pushed over backwards, as the kiss stretched on and on and on. He placed one hand against the rough planks of the dock behind his tailbone for more support while his other moved to her hip, and Kat ran nimble, nimble fingers through his hair. They remained that way for some minutes, unhurriedly exploring each-others mouths in the slight mid-morning breeze wafting over the water, until she pulled away with lingering touches of her lips. It was hard, but she managed not to begin frantically ripping at his clothing.

“See? That’s
way
better than another ten minutes of inadequate dialog and verbal fencing.” She ran her hands over his neck, feeling the cords tense as he kept them both in a sitting position. “Don’t you think?”