Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse

Spam... a Lot

Ten minutes outside of the city, we pulled into our current residence, a four-bedroom, two-story house, sitting on roughly an acre of land. There were several outbuildings, sheds, and a two-car garage that we never used, because it didn't lend itself to an easy escape.

Devin backed into the driveway and brought the truck as close to the house as he could without ruining the sidewalk. He killed the engine and hopped out to help us off the tailgate. He helped August first, who thanked him politely before heading into the house. He made it a point to drag Haden down his body as he set her down, which prompted her to give him a wet, sensual kiss.

I moved to slip out of the truck without his help so I didn't disrupt them, but he snapped his fingers at me from behind Haden's head. She finally released him, dragging her hand down his chest as she went.

Once she was gone he looked at me. "What was that?" He crossed his arms and scolded me with a half-serious sternness I rarely saw on him.

"You were occupied," I mumbled.

"Temporarily. Come here." I let him help me down. I would have liked for him to give me the same attention that he gave Haden, but there was no way to outright ask someone to fondle you.

I stepped back and smiled. I reached for a bag of groceries, which I knew would be met with reproach. He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away. "What are you doing? I'll get those."

I smiled. "It will be faster if I help you."

"I will get them," he said firmly before forcibly turning me around and pushing me to the house with a spank. I yelped for the sake of flirting, but he hadn't actually hurt me.

"Fine," I said as I headed into the house.

I admired Devin's devotions to his minor chivalries. The world had changed so much, but it was the little things that kept us all from becoming an excerpt from the Lord of the Flies. Devin would claim his manners were all flirtation, but I suspected that he needed to do certain things to keep things civil in his mind. Sure, it was just a bag of groceries, but when you're killing what look like human beings left and right, it's important to define how you treat the real people.

The front door was more or less the side door, since the house was positioned stupidly on the property. As a result, I entered straight into the kitchen.

I immediately started my prep work for supper, which was going to be spaghetti. There were a lot of spaghetti nights, post-apocalypse. We had the option of going hunting for fresh meat, but as you might imagine, modern conveniences left us all lazy. No one wanted to go find, shoot, skin, and process an animal when they could just have spam-ghetti.

Devin dragged in all seven bags of groceries in one trip and set them on the floor. "Anything else?" he asked.

I wanted to tell him that bringing the groceries in was the easy part, and that if he really wanted to help he could put them away, but I didn't. Kitchen duty was the job of the third sidekick. At least that's what I told myself.

"No, dinner should be ready in forty."

"Great, I'm starving. I don't suppose you would let me spoil my appetite a little?" He leaned on the counter beside the stove. The kitchen was relatively open to the living room, except for the stove and its gigantic exhaust vent that obscured the view.

"Go ahead, August already has the Newtons."

"Ooh, Newtons. Okay, August." Devin eyed August on the couch in the living room. She looked up at him, defensively hugging her bag of cookies. "Pass the cookies."

"They're not cookies," she mumbled over her full mouth with mock offense. "They're fruited cake."

"Yeah, whatever, cough 'em up." Devin went in after the cookies, which August playfully pulled from his grip a few times before giving in. Despite his enthusiasm he only took one and gave the rest back. He knew how much she enjoyed them, and wouldn't dare deprive her of her guilty pleasure.