raised her voice, so he came back out of the bathroom to look at her.
“So... days?” she asked. “Weeks? I was really little on 9/11, I don’t remember how long it took for things to... well, I know it never got back to normal. But, you know what I mean. If something like that really did happen again...?”
“I think we should plan for both,” Thomas told her. “Days and weeks. I want to give Uncle Navy another few days to get here. If he hasn’t shown up by Friday, then I’m going to hike back down to the town by the airfield—”
Tasha gasped. “Without me?!”
“—and I’m going to get help, and yes, absolutely, because without you I’ll be able to move much faster, cover way more ground. Bonus is that you get to stay here, where it’s safe and warm.”
“If you don’t come back, I’ll have to save my poop and use it to grow potatoes,” she said, which was so absurd, it was surely some pop culture reference to something that he’d somehow missed.
Sure enough, at his silence, she added, “The Martian...? The awesome book...? The also-awesome movie with Matt Damon...?”
“Ah, I missed that one,” Thomas told her. “I was overseas.”
“You are gonna love it,” she said.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” he said, turning back to the bathroom.
“What if it was nuclear?” Tash asked, and he turned back again. “The attack? What if everyone’s dead?”
“Power’s on,” he pointed out.
She immediately came to the right conclusion. “So at least part of the electric grid’s up and running. That’s good.”
“Yeah. We are going to be okay,” he told her.
She nodded her towel-covered head. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”
Thomas couldn’t promise her that. So instead he said, “That’s only our Plan B, remember.”
“Plan A is wait for someone to show up,” she reminded him. “Plan A is pure luck and timing.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Plan As often are.”
Chapter Fourteen
Still Tuesday
Evil Genius.
It was the first nickname that Thomas had bestowed upon Tasha in a long time, but after her first surge of surprise and delight, she’d done a nosedive into feeling incredibly, desperately sad.
They’d once been so close.
She used to talk to him about nearly everything, and he’d shared at least some of his secrets with her, too—telling her about the way his world had exploded when his mom died giving birth to a brother who also hadn’t survived. He’d told her about his years of hurt and anger, and how it had driven a wedge between him and his older sister, and caused him to make quite a few bad choices before he’d found his way.
He’d even told her a little about his dad—Grandma King’s only son—who’d died in prison, awaiting appeal after being found guilty of a crime that he absolutely wouldn’t even have been charged with if he were a white man. Thomas had told her that was why his grandma had become a lawyer. She couldn’t bring his father back, but she could do her part to create a more just world.
Tasha had loved them both so much—Thomas and his grandmother.
But Grandma King had a stroke and left them way too soon, and then Tasha turned eighteen and detonated her relationship with Thomas by stupidly climbing into his bed.
For years, she’d only looked at the outcome of her folly from the perspective of what she’d lost. But now it was hard not to see what she’d done to Thomas. One by one, he’d lost all of the important people in his life, through no fault of their own.
Except for Tasha, who was completely to blame. She’d taken what they’d had—that special, innocent childhood bond—and deemed it not good enough. She’d pushed for more—too hard, too far, too fast—without stopping to consider what Thomas might want or need. She’d thought only of herself. And she’d completely ruined what they’d had.
And because she was Alan’s niece, she’d jeopardized Thomas’s friendship with him and Mia, too. And maybe she hadn’t just jeopardized it. For all she knew, because of her, Thomas had put distance between himself and her aunt and uncle. For all she knew, Thomas had full-on stopped seeking advice from the man who’d been his mentor in the Navy. For all she knew, she’d fully screwed that up for him, too.
So now here they were. Trapped alone together in a relatively small space, for God knows how long. And everything Tash had taken from both of them was right there, in her face.
The teasing nicknames. Wild Thing, Martian Girl, Princess.