Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,23

was the store would be restocked before long. Given the situation in other places, I couldn’t take for granted that empty shelves would be replenished any time soon.

The final total was a gut punch, especially without any more money coming in, but there was no turning back now. I paid, loaded everything into my truck, and pretended not to notice half a dozen other shoppers shoving more groceries into their cars than they’d probably ever tried to fit.

One woman called out to a guy who I assumed was her husband, “There’s more room than I thought. Go in and grab some more!” Immediately, her husband took the empty cart and hurried back inside.

Another couple were using cargo netting to secure everything in the bed of their pickup. If my haul qualified as panicked, then they were in doomsday prepper territory.

I got in my truck and got the hell out of there. If nothing else, I was glad I’d bought this much because I probably wouldn’t need to come back here for a while. I didn’t like being around people right now. The panic was low-key but growing, and there was too much uncertainty. Too much possibility that any one of the freaked-out people here was unknowingly carrying that ugly bug.

Getting back to the duplex was a bigger relief than it had ever been. I just wanted to hunker down, lock the doors, and be away from the weirdness out there. How bad were things getting when locking myself in the house with Casey sounded like the best possible option?

I didn’t dwell on that thought. Instead, I started unloading groceries. What usually took one, maybe two trips took five this time. Did that mean I had gone overboard? Though some things—like the packs of paper products—were big and cumbersome and not exactly stuff I could carry while balancing something else. Still.

Ugh. Can we please go back to when grocery shopping felt normal?

I’d finally gotten everything into the house and was just starting to put it away when footsteps came down the stairs. A second later, Casey walked into the kitchen and halted. “Uh. What’s all this?”

I glanced at him, and his wide-eyed expression mirrored how I’d felt at the grocery store. “I, um…” I cleared my throat and started putting cat food cans into their designated cabinet. “I figured we should stock up on a few things. Considering…you know…”

He was quiet for a moment. “Do I want to know how much it cost?”

With my back safely to him, I rolled my eyes. “I paid for it out of my account.”

“Oh. Awesome.” The sarcasm set my teeth on edge. “So you’re dipping into your reserves, which means you’ll run out sooner, and then—”

“And then I’ll be completely dependent on you. I know.” I slammed down the stack of cat food cans and turned around to glare at him. “Believe me, I was well aware of that the entire time I was there.”

“But you still—”

“But I still wanted to make sure we’re fucking prepared in case shit starts getting locked down and stores start running out of things we need.” I flailed a hand at the bags. “This is literally all stuff we’d have been buying in the next month or two anyway.”

“And what happens if something comes up between now and payday?” He narrowed his eyes. “Now and my payday? We don’t have enough money to fuck around and—”

“You don’t think I know that? Christ, it’s not like I went out and got beer or swung into the weed shop. This is shit we’ll need, and now we won’t have to worry about running out if—”

“We have to worry about running out of money!” He made a sharp, frustrated gesture. “I don’t get paid again until the end of the month. What happens if one of our cars craps out? Or we have to take Tilly to the vet? We don’t—”

“What happens if all the people out there panicking strip the stores of everything, and we can’t get what we need?” I gestured at the bags at my feet and on the counter. “This is a fraction of what other people were grabbing there. The panic-shopping everyone’s talking about? It’s happening here, and the stores are going to run out of—”

“We’re going to run out of money,” he snapped. “At the very fucking least, this is something we need to decide on together, not something for you to do on a whim.”

I glared at him. He glared back at me.

“For fuck’s sake.”