red hill - jamie mcguire

Cooper spit out the bite of sandwich in his mouth and laughed uncontrollably, and Bryce and Joey
began to chuckle, too.
I rolled my eyes. “Stop it.”
“It’s okay, Scarlet. You don’t have to be a badass all the time,” Joey said.
“What is that supposed to mean” I asked.
Bryce handed me his leftovers to put in my pack. “Nathan is a good guy. One of the best. Even
before all this. You shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
“Am I” I asked, a little offended. How was I being hard on him Just because I wasn’t throwing
myself at him Why I was even entertaining this conversation with a bunch of barely pubescent boys
was a joke in itself.
Joey smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with being happy, Scarlet.”
“Are you happy, Joey” As soon as the words passed my lips, I regretted them. The question
wiped the smile off Joey’s face, and the others fell silent. “I’m sorry. God, I am so sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Joey said, standing. “We better get going.”
I stood and brushed the dead grass off my clothes. “I guess Nathan is okay.”
Joey’s small smile returned, and he closed one eye tight to help him look at me despite the sun.
“You like him, then”
“A little. I think.”
“I think a lot,” Cooper teased.
“Shut up,” I replied.
“What if something happened to him” Bryce asked.
I was quiet for a long time, and then finally said, “It would break me.”
We continued until dinnertime. By the time we’d returned to the house, I had downed fourteen, and
the boys had taken care of at least ten apiece. We’d stumbled on a herd just before we got to the
highway, significantly upping our count for the day.
Ashley nearly tackled Cooper to the floor when we walked into the house, and the rest of us
grabbed clean clothes and then found different places to wash up.
I was filthy, covered in sweat, dirt, and the thick, coagulated blood of shufflers. I went out the
laundry-room door to the patio on the side of the house and pulled off my shirt, letting it slap to the
ground. I used my foot to pull off one tennis shoe, and then did the same with the other before
shimmying off my jeans. They were Leah’s, and a bit tight, but my scrub pants weren’t made for an
apocalypse, and were shredded by week two.
I pulled the garden hose from its coil and twisted the water spigot. The water came out with a gush
just as Nathan came outside. His eyes pored over my body. A month ago, it would have been
embarrassing to be standing in front of someone in just a bra and panties, but we lived in a different
world, now. In truth, I just felt like one of the guys.
The way Nathan was looking at me in that moment, though, was not like he was just looking at one
of the guys. He took the hose from my hand and I bent over, letting him spray my back and hair.
“Looks like a productive trip,” he said.
I stood up and scrubbed my face as he sprayed me with the water, and then used my hands to scrub