Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,21

Hey.”

“Hey.” I poured myself a cup of coffee.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Before I forget, if there’s anything you want from the grocery store, put it on the list. I’m going to make a trip tomorrow morning before it starts getting crowded.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Sure. That sounds like a good idea.”

“I’d go today, but…” He gestured toward the stairs. “I need to make some headway on a paper, and I probably won’t be done with it until this afternoon.”

“Okay. Going in the morning is probably better anyway. Less crowded, like you said. I’ll, um, look through the kitchen and see if there’s anything I need to add to the list.”

Tristan nodded. We held each other’s gazes a beat longer than we usually did, and then he broke eye contact and headed for the stairs.

I watched him go, and as soon as he was gone, I released my breath and went to the fridge. We kept the grocery list on a whiteboard on the freezer door, and he’d take a picture of it before he went shopping.

Skimming over it, I couldn’t think of anything to add. I was tempted to cross a few things off in the name of saving money, but I really didn’t want to start that fight with him. There was no way he’d take it as anything other than an accusation that he wasn’t pulling his weight, or a suggestion that we couldn’t afford things like milk and cereal because of him. I was stressed enough these days without getting into a fight about money.

With a sigh, I pulled open the freezer door, not even sure what I was looking for aside from a reason to move the shopping list out of my line of sight.

Is this marriage over yet?

Ugh. No. We were one year into this. Tristan was about that far into his four-year degree. And now we were looking down the barrel of a global pandemic.

Fuck.

This was going to be a long three years.

Chapter 6

Tristan

As promised, I got up early the next morning so I could drive into town with our shopping list. After I’d fed Tilly, I poured myself some coffee and scrolled through Facebook while I caffeinated myself enough to leave the house.

Casey was still asleep, though I didn’t imagine he’d be out for much longer. He was used to getting up at the crack of dawn, and even on his days off, he never slept past 0800 or so. Sometimes he stayed in bed for a while, but he was at least posting on Facebook by then.

I felt kind of guilty, being relieved he wasn’t downstairs as I was getting ready to head out. In the beginning, we’d thought this would be just like a roommate scenario. We’d both lived in much closer quarters with people we didn’t like, so this would be a cakewalk.

Except neither of us had ever been restricted to the barracks or berthings, never mind for extended periods of time with those assholes we didn’t like. If the pandemic really took hold like people said it would, then Casey and I wouldn’t be able to get away from each other, and that could last until… Until who knew when. Fuck.

It was bad enough potentially being stuck with him and being worried about the pandemic. With my income drying up and no end in sight, I was also completely dependent on him. In a pinch, I could ask my parents for some money, but things would have to get really bad here before that happened.

For now, it was what it was. Casey insisted it was fine and we’d make it work, but I was dubious about that. After all, this whole arrangement was supposed to be a breeze of just coexisting and staying out of each other’s way, but in reality I was pretty sure Casey was as quietly miserable as I was.

Well, I couldn’t fix the entire situation right now, and part of the deal was that I pulled my weight with everything at home. Starting with grocery shopping.

I took a picture of our grocery list on my phone, then headed out.

There was almost no one on the road, and it was weird, seeing the town this deserted. It wasn’t a very big town anyway, especially when the tourists weren’t here, and when no one was out and about while the sun was up, it legitimately had a ghost town vibe.

I rolled my shoulders and pretended not to notice the