Love in an Undead Age by A.M. Geever (good non fiction books to read .TXT) 📕
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“What? I…no!” he stammered, taking a step back. “I mean, yeah— It’s—”
He stood there, dazed, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to form a coherent response. He could not have been more mortified if she’d accused him of molesting an altar boy.
“I’m just fucking with you, Connor.” Miranda started to laugh. “You should see the look on your face!”
She retreated a few more steps and leaned against one of the architectural columns that lined either side of the room, making no pretense of trying to get her laughter under control. On one level, he knew he deserved it but still felt ambushed and blindsided. Nothing like coming two thousand plus miles, risking life and limb, to be mocked and ridiculed. Probably best to just get it over with.
“I know I owe you an explanation,” he began.
“Don’t, Connor. Don’t,” she implored, shaking her head, eyes wide and abruptly serious. “That was mean; I shouldn’t have said it.” The words tumbled out of her mouth. She looked shocked, like she could not believe what had just transpired. She looked like she might burst into tears. “Can we please not do this now? I’m so happy you’re alive, but I don’t want to do this.”
She was only a step away, but he felt like he was approaching a wounded animal. Gently, slowly, so as not to spook her.
“Sure, Miri,” he whispered. “We don’t have to talk about it.” He started to put his hand on her cheek before hesitating and withdrawing it. They just stood there, looking at each other.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Hold on a sec, I’ll be right back.”
Like a will-o'-the-wisp, he vanished. Miranda crumpled to the couch.
What the hell was that? Had she actually said that out loud?
He must think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy, she thought, horrified. Leaning against him had felt so right, so familiar. A million happy moments spent with Connor had flashed through her mind. He’d held her too tight around her injured shoulder, but she hadn’t protested, hadn’t cared.
This is the jerk who left you high and dry, her brain shouted as it struggled to establish a toehold against the sensory overload, but her body had not listened. Instead, it had nestled against him, responded to him, started to have its own ideas of what it wanted, of what it needed, and she panicked. The warmth of his body against hers went from wonderful to terrifying, and then she said what she said.
Christ on a bike, she thought, pull yourself together.
She felt a warm weight on her knee: Delilah, ever faithful. She rubbed the pit bull’s snout.
“Hey, little dog.”
At least Delilah didn’t care if she was unhinged. Encouraged by the petting, she put her paws on Miranda’s legs and with an efficient hop, settled into her lap. Miranda snuggled her face into Delilah’s neck, feeling buoyed by her unconditional acceptance. She had yet to meet a pittie that did not consider itself a lap dog, no matter its size.
After a few moments, she heard footsteps in the hall. Connor returned carrying a small beaten-up paper bag in his hand. He held it out to her.
“I found this a few years ago. You might still have it, but I couldn’t think of anyone who’d appreciate it more than you.”
Miranda shifted Delilah from her lap and reached into the bag to find a battered CD case. The jewel case was cracked diagonally across the front, but the liner notes were intact. The cover featured a three-quarter profile of a man wearing an orange striped shirt. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Pass the dust, I think I’m Bowie, was printed below him. Above was the name of the band: Black Randy and the Metro Squad.
“Oh my God!” Miranda cried, “Black Randy? Where did you find this?”
“In a backpack, lying by the road outside San Salvador,” Connor said. “I couldn’t believe it. Who finds a Black Randy CD in Central America?”
Miranda gave him a look of frank disbelief. “And you never listened to it? Jesus, Connor!” She turned the CD over and squealed. “‘I Slept in an Arcade’… ‘Marlon Brando’… ‘Loner with a Boner’! Oh my God, this is great!”
“I didn’t have any way to play it, not at first, and then I couldn’t waste batteries on a CD. I figured it’d be safer in the case.”
“Come on, we’re playing this right now!” Miranda jumped up, then grabbed his shoulder. She felt a little dizzy. She started across the room, Delilah following in her wake. She turned back when she realized Connor had not moved. “Are you coming?”
He just looked at her for a moment, then almost jumped up from the couch. “Yeah, absolutely.”
“Doug told me they brought my car over,” she said as she walked through the front door. “Do you see it? It’s a green Range Rover.”
Connor looked down the block toward Lafayette Street but did not see anything matching her description.
“Oh! There it is, come on!” she answered her own question and headed for a vehicle that looked like it had seen the wrong side of an incinerator.
“I’ve seen a lot of shades of green, Miri, but this isn’t one of them,” Connor said as he looked at the charred sides of the vehicle. “What the hell have you been doing?”
Miranda paused, her hand on the front door handle, and considered the Rover.
“Well, it used to be. It still is on the hood. That,” she continued, pointing to the bubbling, charred paint and exposed steel of the doors, “is from the flamethrowers. I’ll show them to you later.”
She hopped in the driver’s seat. Connor went around the other side. Delilah, forgotten for the moment, sat on the curb. Miranda turned the ignition enough to engage the electrical system amid beeps and radio static. Just as she went to slide the CD into the player, Miranda paused.
“You found it; you get to pick. What first?”
She needn’t have asked. She already knew what his answer would be.
Connor smiled. “You know it’s ‘Marlon Brando.’”
She turned up the volume and queued up the track. Blatantly politically incorrect ‘oh woh woh woh… oh woh woh woh’ “American Indian”-style chanting blared from the speakers, followed by a high, tinny synthesizer. And then Black Randy himself, belting out the melody like a punk rock Sinatra. They began to laugh, sharing the joy of rediscovering a lost pleasure. Black Randy and the fucking Metrosquad, she thought, awestruck. Never thought I’d hear this again.
She lay her head against the headrest and listened, then sneaked a sideways glance at Connor. He caught her looking and flashed a smile that made her pulse speed up.
He carried this around for years, for me, on the off chance he’d see me again. Or did he just not want to listen without me?
The thought startled, pleased, and freaked her out. It had been a long time, but Miranda knew Connor MacGuire. If she’d had any doubts about his intentions, she didn’t anymore.
Since she didn’t know what to do about Connor, Miranda did something she had not done since high school, zombies excepted.
She hid.
There had been a meeting about the upcoming mission a few days after Connor gave her the Black Randy CD. He had tried to talk to her afterward but she shut him down. Doug had suggested they all go get a beer, which pissed her off. She did not appreciate Doug meddling in something he knew nothing about.
She had decided that apart from the mission, there was no now for her and Connor. She had promised Father Walter she would work with him, and she would, but she was not prepared to go any further. She wasn’t interested in anything Connor had to say about before. It was nice to see him, but she did not want to examine their history together. What was the point?
She was home today, with too much time on her hands. Harold had all but chased her out of the Farm at lunchtime, saying she looked like death warmed over. She could hardly argue since she could pack for a six-month-long trip using just the bags under her eyes, and she still suffered from concussion symptoms. Sometimes she used the wrong word, like when she’d said ‘book’ when she meant ‘cat’ just this morning. She still got dizzy, and the room spun a little when she turned her head too fast. She had not bounced back from the scuffs and scrapes and burns she got saving those dumbass kids like she normally did. Maybe she was coming down with a cold.
Yeah, right, a little voice mocked her, or maybe seeing Connor MacGuire again is too much for your immune system.
She never expected an old boyfriend to show up, much less the first man she had ever fallen hard for before blindsiding her with his decision to become a priest. Connor’s reappearance had shaken Miranda’s equilibrium. Finding out he had changed his mind about being a priest before the ZA made it worse. Had he backed out because of
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