“It’s all right, I can go with you.”
“Serena,” he deadpans, peering over his glasses at me for dramatic effect, something which should be annoying but which I actually still find kind of endearing, “I’m twenty-nine years old. I think I can buy you another box of tampons and get the right brand of cheese from the supermarket.”
“Don’t forget the halloumi,” I tell him, reaching for the remote and snuggling back down, my butt becoming one with the sofa for the next hour. “Or the chicken breast for fajitas. Get diced chicken, though.”
“What’s the difference?”
I can’t be bothered to explain that if he buys a whole chicken breast, he’ll chop it up, and I don’t like the idea of using the same chopping board for vegetables as he’ll use for meat, even though one of us will obviously clean it beforehand, so buying precut chicken is easier for both of us, and it might stop some of the “meat is murder”/“you squeamish plant-eater” snipes we always seem to make at each other.
So instead I wave a hand in the air, not bothering to look over at him. “Just get whatever, Zach, it’ll be fine.”
Zach potters around our little one-bedroom apartment, getting ready to go out to the shops, collecting our list from the notepad on the fridge and checking the cupboards for anything we might have missed that he needs to pick up. I zone out, losing myself in my corny romance movie.
Just when Stephanie and hunky handyman Jared share a kiss in a rainstorm, the music swelling, the TV pauses.
“Hey!”
I sit up abruptly, glaring at Zach and reaching for the remote in his hands.
Everything about him gives me pause, though. A deep frown creases his forehead and he sighs heavily through his nose, his mouth pressed into a thin line. The TV remote hangs at his side, and his other hand is clutched tightly around a piece of paper; his shoulders are squared, stiff.
My glare disappears and I get up. Nervousness starts to creep through me, even though, rationally, I know that some scrap of paper can’t be that bad. What’s it going to be? I mean, really. A neighbor asking us to be quiet? Some junk mail?
But then, I have to wonder: Why does he look so worried about it?
“Zach?”
“We have a problem.”
*
The kitchen is an absolute mess when Zach gets back upstairs. I abandon my collection of tinned tomatoes and Dolmio pasta sauce to rush into our little hallway, grabbing him by the shoulders before he even gets the chance to put his keys down, before the door has even closed behind him.
“What did he say? Zach, what did he say?”
He tries to give me a patient smile, but he can’t really manage it.
He puts his hands on my hips, though, which does do something to comfort me. Being trapped in the building is a pretty terrifying notion, but at least I won’t have to go through it alone.
Zach shakes his head. “No luck. I’ll have to call work, tell them I can’t come in. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to anyway, you know, the hospital’s on pretty strict instructions to self-isolate if you think you’ve been exposed to the virus, but—”
“Zach.”
“Right. Yeah, so, we can’t go to work. Mr. Harris said we can’t even go out for groceries. He said we can get a delivery, but he wants to make sure everything gets sanitized and cleaned properly before it comes into the building.”
“What, so he’s going to stand outside spraying Dettol on our cereal and bread before we can have it?”
“I don’t know, Rena.”
“Well, did you ask him?”
“I was a bit busy trying to get my head around it all. We’re in full lockdown until next Sunday, he said. You’ll have to call the office in the morning. Shall I place a food order? Where’s your iPad?”
He follows me into the kitchen, stopping to stare, wide-eyed at all the food I’ve emptied out of the cupboards while he was downstairs.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if we’ve got enough food to get us through a week.”
He laughs, coming close enough to wrap his arms around me from behind, planting a noisy kiss on the side of my face. One of my hands automatically reaches up to hold his arm, my thumb brushing back and forth. “I’ll get my ration book ready for stamps, shall I?”
“Oh, shut up. We might have to live on pasta and pesto for three days straight, but I think we’ll survive. We definitely do need more toilet paper, though. And we’ve got absolutely nothing for breakfast—we’ll run out of bread tomorrow, and there’s only enough cereal left for one bowl.”
Zach’s face scrunches in a curious frown and he peels away, reaching over my head for a cupboard. “I thought we bought some Cheerios on sale a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah, and I’m telling you we’re almost out.”
“No, no, I’m sure we bought more.”
“I literally just looked in there, Zach. This is what happens when you come in from shift at all hours and eat a bowl of cereal before you do anything else. We run out, and we need more.”
He gives up looking, conceding the argument with a small grunt.
“Better get started on that online order then,” he says, clapping his hands together. He goes off in search of my iPad to get started while I tidy up the kitchen. The note the building’s caretaker left under our door at some point today is on the counter, and my heart leaps into my throat at the sight of it.
With the news around the pandemic gradually ramping up and the hospital Zach works at trying to prepare for the worst, it’s not as though I thought we’d just skate by totally unscathed, but . . . I guess I wasn’t expecting to be put on house arrest in our apartment for an entire week, not this soon. And I hadn’t even stocked up on extra toilet paper!
Still, I remind myself again, at least if I have to be put on lockdown, I don’t have to go through it alone. At least I’ve got Zach by my side.
APARTMENT #15 – ISLA
Chapter Four
"Stay,” I tell him, leaning in for another kiss.
I cling to Danny’s jacket as though I might physically be able to keep him here. As though he’s not about a foot taller than me, with those big broad shoulders, and like I don’t have to shop in the petite section half the time. Me, the girl who doesn’t use the top shelves in the kitchen cupboards because she can’t reach them, versus the guy who used to play rugby at university.
But he lingers, laughing that deep, rich laugh that makes my stomach fill with butterflies, letting his bag drop to the floor in favor of wrapping his arms around me again. He kisses me on my nose, cheeks, forehead, lips, and I sigh into him.
Is it bad how much I don’t want him to leave?
Is it bad how quickly I’m falling for him?
Danny and I have only been dating a few weeks—a month, last Wednesday, actually. I’d been with a friend for her birthday on Wednesday, though, so he’d come over on Friday after work to spend the weekend. We’d had plans to go out and celebrate, except . . .
Well.