20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

L aura

Before we left the men’s tent to enter the large multi-purpose room, I practically had to arm wrestle Varro to put on a shirt. He finally chose a clean one that’s so tight it hugs his broad chest and muscular shoulders like a glove. That man’s body could drive a nun to sin. All I have to do is remind myself of my terror when he wrapped his hands around my throat the other night, and I find it easy to ignore his sex appeal.

I announce his choices as I paw through Tony’s recently unearthed stash. “Chili with beans.” When he cocks his head, I translate to, “Spicy beans and meat. Barbecue beef, which is beef in a sweet sauce. Chicken, noodles, and sauce. Beef in a… hard corn shell. We call them tacos.”

“Do they taste like food?” His facial expression is skeptical—forehead furrowed, eyes narrowed, and mouth slightly twisted in a questioning smirk. That face would be more at home on a toddler being ordered to eat his peas than on a gigantic gladiator.

“They’re not what you’re used to, but they’re all we’ve got. And sorry to tell you, at some point rations will be so low we’ll be sharing them. Then you’ll wish we had more.”

“My apologies. You pick.”

I grab the chili with beans package, getting ready to shake it to get it cooking in its little pouch. “My mom had a saying. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’.”

“Yes. Good point.” As the food heats, he adds, “Your Latin isn’t bad, for it being an ancient language.”

“Actually, we don’t call it an ancient language. It’s considered a dead language.”

Shit! The minute that’s out of my mouth, I wish I could grab the words and shove them back inside. I don’t need to see the shocked and saddened look on his face to know I totally fucked up. “Sorry!”

“Dead?”

“Um. Shouldn’t have said that.”

“What does dead mean?”

I don’t want to say it. It’s so final, so terrible. How would I feel if someone told me I’d been transported so far into the future that no one spoke English anymore? Those words would be like hearing nails being pounded into my coffin.

“Laura?”

“It means no one speaks it anymore.”

Perhaps I’ve hit him with so much shit he’s inured to it by now. His face shows nothing, but maybe that’s the point. I’ve stunned him into silence.

“H-how long?”

He’s done so well. Just that slight stutter tells me how much this conversation is costing him.

“It hasn’t been used in daily life for about fifteen hundred years.”

His hand reaches out, flailing, as he seeks something to lean on. I pull the generator close enough that he can lean on its handle.

Looking around as if he just woke up, he gestures to my room and asks, “Is that where you want me to sleep? I need to lie down.”

I control my urge to escort him there and simply say, “Yes.” Me and my big mouth and thoughtless comments.

Poor guy. Big and proud and he’s been through so much. I took a good look at him today in the men’s tent. There’s a roadmap of scars crisscrossing his beautiful body. And it’s not just physical pain he’s endured. I’ll never ask a follow-up question about his statements that he lost his family, was sold into slavery, and was forced into a gladiator ludus . But no one could survive that and have their sanity fully intact.

And now this. Something no human has ever endured and all he has to help navigate this is me .

The thought slams into me and just to make sure I got the message, it reverberates in my head as though I was hit on the skull with a shovel.

All Varro has is me. Period. No family. No friends. Not one familiar thing. Even our clothes are different; that struck me when he pulled on those sweatpants as though he’d rarely stepped into a pair of pants before. Of course he hadn’t. Romans wore togas or loincloths.

The look on his face when I cut up a sheet to make loincloths was sheer relief.

Okay, Laura. You’re going to forgive that poor man for trying to strangle you the other night. Who knows what twilight fugue state he was in at the time? He’s struggling and you’re going to do everything in your power on this forsaken little island to help him through this. We may die of starvation soon, but until then, you’re going to give this guy the best weeks of his life.

Starting now.