He walked up the short hill to where Beth and Kearie were playing. He smiled and circled his arm around Beth’s waist, pulling her in close.
She looked up, into his eyes, and spoke quietly. “How is it going?”
“It’s going how it’s going. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said.
“Don’t be. It was my idea.”
He kissed her. It was awkward, and she hadn’t been expecting it.
He pulled back, tucking her hair behind one ear. “I’m sorry. I won’t do that again. He was watching us, though.”
Beth looked over his shoulder and saw Thom, who was indeed eyeballing them. She turned back to Marques and smiled. “It’s OK.” She leaned up and pressed her lips into his, the feeling more familiar this time, and she minded less when she was the one initiating it. She made it good, counting to five in her mind, then pulled back and rested her forehead on his chest. “I have to admit, I was wondering about that. Like if you were going to—you know, expect anything.”
“It’s not like that. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled. “Tell Kearie she’s gotta try to be more affectionate with me.”
“She’s kind of freaked out.”
“Who isn’t?”
Thom walked into the big aboveground house and looked around. The living room was stunning, with enormous, angled plate-glass windows that looked out on the stark badlands and snowcapped mountains in the distance. The place had been built all on one level, bedrooms radiating off the great room and kitchen like spokes on a wheel. Everything else was underground, starting with the playroom, family area, library, and gym, and eventually leading to the emergency exit tunnel. The tunnel opened onto the private elevator down into the main complex, where all other residents were housed in a series of stacked apartments ranging from eighteen hundred square feet for singles all the way up to the bunker penthouse, which was about twice as large. It was to there the family would retreat if and when things got rough. Until then, they’d live above ground, the lords of the manor, the only ones not confined to the lower depths.
Thom went first to the kitchen, to check on food and other supplies, which had been laid in exactly as discussed and signed off on. All was in readiness there. He could hear Ann-Sophie in the master bedroom, putting things away, and he took a deep breath and wandered over to take her emotional temperature once more.
He stopped in the doorway, watching as she unpacked. The closets were already reasonably full, doubles of all her favorite things that were appropriate to the desert climate had been bought, laundered, and hung up, the spaces opened and aired regularly. There really wasn’t much, if anything, for her to do.
Or for Thom, for that matter, and for the first time all day he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Prepping was more than a hobby. It had been his avocation, and a competitive game for he and his fellow billionaire friends. Who had anticipated the most? Who had actually implemented their plans, and how sturdy were they? But now the prep was over, the game strategies had been put into motion, and there wasn’t anything left to do except watch things play out and see who had the most chips when it was over.
Ann-Sophie stood between the bed and the closet, holding a plum-colored cashmere cardigan in one hand and a bottle of coconut water in the other. She had her back to the door, and Thom could see her head moving from the sweater to the water bottle, wondering to herself how on earth she’d ended up with them, why those two items, above all others, and what was she supposed to do with them now? She backed up, felt the edge of the bed with the back of her knee, and sagged down onto it.
“I wonder—”
She turned, startled. She hadn’t heard him in the doorway. Two-foot-thick walls, twelve-inch soundproof glass, and carpet-over-wood-over-concrete floors made the place as quiet as a recording studio. You could snap your fingers and practically feel it evaporate in the air around you.
Thom gestured, sorry, and tried to continue. “I wonder if maybe this isn’t a good chance.”
“For what?”
“For us. To start over.”
He took a step into the room and closed the door behind him. Immediately, she got up from the bed, sensing an implication.
He sighed. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Come on. It’s been shitty, right?”
“Yes. It has.”
“Well, I’ve apologized. Several times. Now the world is going to fall apart. We’re all we’ve got.”