Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,26

GPS, and we headed out.

We took my truck since it had more cargo space than Casey’s Corolla. That made me vaguely uncomfortable. Like instead of just cautiously buying a few extras the way I’d done earlier, we were jumping on the panic-buying bandwagon with both feet. The fact that Casey not only wanted to do this, he wanted to do it right away? That didn’t help at all. I really, really didn’t like how urgent he was making all this sound. Coming from Casey, “we should think about doing this, and maybe we should do it like now” translated to “this needs to happen immediately to avoid disaster.”

Or maybe I was still keyed up because we’d blown up at each other in the kitchen. I’d still been fuming when he’d walked in to apologize, and I supposed that would take some time to fully go away.

And there was also the part where I was in a vehicle with Casey. We almost never went anywhere together, and the close quarters of my truck’s spacious cab made me want to squirm. Apology or not, I was never comfortable when I was in the same room as my husband.

That could complicate things if shit starts shutting down.

My mouth went dry. Oh God. I’d read the stories coming out of China and Italy, where people were restricted to their homes, and one person from each household could leave once a week or every ten days or whatever to get groceries and essentials. How much of that could Casey and I deal with before we killed each other? Even Tilly would probably get sick of us.

I glanced at him, drumming my fingers on the wheel. “So, um. With everything getting locked down and…” I swallowed. “We might be stuck together. Until this is over.”

“You think it’ll go on longer than it takes you to finish school?”

“God, I hope not. But however long it does last, we might be stuck together. Like, stuck at home all the time without being able to go anywhere.”

Without being able to get away from each other like we both need to.

“Oh. Yeah. I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess we are. Fuck.”

Fuck was right. I stared out the windshield. No more nights to myself while he was working. No more taking off for sex with strangers to get out of the house. He would still be working because he was essential, but it sounded likely that the Navy would drop the hammer on that instruction restricting service members to home and short trips for things like the groceries. No word on if they’d ever get on the ball with PPE, especially for security who had to check IDs all damn day, but what did I know?

The pandemic might not last the duration of this arrangement, but it probably meant that, for at least the foreseeable future, we were going to be in the same space a lot more than we’d been before now.

Which meant that, at the very least, we needed to pull ourselves together and try to get along. Butting heads was miserable enough when we weren’t stuck together.

Still tapping my thumbs on the wheel, I said, “Listen, um…” I glanced at him. “I’m sorry I made the decision without you. I know money’s tight, and…” I sighed. “You were right about that.”

Casey pressed back against the seat and exhaled. “Nah, I shouldn’t have flipped shit like that. I guess I freaked out about money because… I mean, because I am freaked out about money.” He turned to me. “But you were smart, and I overreacted.”

I glanced at him. “So let’s meet in the middle, then. You cut me some slack about money. I’ll remember to talk to you about anything that big.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah, I can live with that.”

I looked at him again, and he offered a quick smile.

Neither of us said much for the rest of the drive. I knew it wasn’t this simple, and we’d probably still butt heads, but it was a start. Enough to get us through this shopping trip anyway. Hopefully.

It took about half an hour to get to the warehouse store. The parking lot wasn’t packed, but there were definitely more people than I would’ve expected in the middle of the day during the week. After the grocery store this morning, I wasn’t even surprised, but I was a little nervous.

“Well.” Casey shut his door. “Let’s do this.”

I locked the truck, and as we headed inside, I said, “I just hope