25. Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

L aura

As I heat tonight’s chicken and dumplings MRE, I feel lighter and more optimistic than I have since the last whomp-whomp of the helicopter rotors faded into the distance. Varro and I spotted some squirrels and rabbits on our walk back from what’s going to be our new home.

Not that I’m dying to eat cute little mammals, but I won’t complain. It sounds better than starving to death. If Varro really knows how to thatch a roof, we can cobble together a life here.

I sink into one of the camp chairs sitting near our food stores.

A life.

Really? Is this where I’ll spend the rest of my life? Living with one human being in an antique house with a thatched roof and stone hearth? Existing one step above cave dwellers. Is this it?

My lips wobble and hot tears flood my eyes. I’m glad Varro is in our tent napping after our strenuous outing. I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. Weak.

We’re both lucky to be alive. That’s what I should focus on .

Throwing my scarcity mindset to the wind, I heat a taco MRE. We’ll splurge on two meals tonight rather than sharing.

Happy to be back in our warm tent, I wake Varro with, “We’re celebrating!”

He must be in a good mood, too, because he doesn’t bitch about the food. I imagine the plastic food with its mile-long list of fake ingredients must taste horrible to him. It’s actually not half bad, but I have to remind myself that I’ve been raised on processed foods.

As he’s chewing his last bite, I admit, “I’ve been keeping secrets.”

He quirks a dark eyebrow in unspoken question.

I grab my phone, which is fully charged by a solar battery. I may not be able to jump onto the Internet, but I have thousands of songs stored on my iPhone.

“That little box? It’s your secret?”

“This box, when it’s connected to something else, has all the information ever known to man in here.”

He laughs. It’s the hearty laugh of someone who knows their friend is playing a trick on them.

“But it’s not connected to the Internet, so it has a very small fraction of those things.”

A wrinkle appears between his eyes. “What is the enter-net ?”

Luckily, I’ve been using my downtime over the past few days to think of how best to explain things. “The internet is like an invisible spider’s web that stretches around the globe.” Oh. He has no idea the earth is round, so the word globe has no meaning. “It stretches from one end of the world to the other. Which is why it’s sometimes called the web. It carries all the world’s information and, if you have a device that can communicate with it, then you can also send information to another device.”

“Like the Parca, the weavers of fate? ”

I smile because I knew he’d see the similarities. “Yes. That we’re stuck here because we cannot connect to their web and call for help is our fate. Anyway, I’ll explain more later, but today, we dance.”

For a man who probably hasn’t heard more than woodwinds, brass, and stringed instruments, I need to start small for fear of blowing his mind. Before I introduce him to funk and rock and roll and rap, I’ll start with Impressionism.

I motion for him to lie on his mattress, then turn off the solar-powered lantern. After pushing my bed closer so we’re lying side by side, I let him see me turn on the phone. The video will freak him out, so I hide the screen from him, determined to wait until later for that big reveal.

“This is called ‘Clair de Lune’. One of my favorites.” The name is the same in Latin, needing no translation. I scroll to the song, press play, and set the phone down between us.

The lovely piece of classical music begins—just the piano—as the delicate notes cascade like shimmering moonlight on water, each key pressed softly to create a gentle, ethereal sound.

Varro gasps. A few seconds later, he grips my hand, and his fingers lace with mine. I love this song; it never fails to pull emotions from me. But to know that this big gladiator—born two thousand years ago, a male who has fought and killed in arenas, whose hands are somehow still calloused after all this time in a frozen block of ice—is as moved by the music as I am, well it touches my heart.

We listen without moving, without speaking, for the five minutes and thirteen seconds of the song, then sit in silence for long moments.

“Is it… Is it possible to hear it again?” His tone is wistful.

When I pick up the phone and tap the screen, the dim light casts a glow on Varro’s face. It’s the soft version of him that I like the best, and… his eyes are sparkling with a depth of emotion I wouldn’t have thought possible .

I press play again and turn the screen off. This time, though, the music is background noise in my mind as it strikes me with all the impact of a lightning bolt that I have a crush on my Roman gladiator.

His attempt to strangle me is ancient history. I’ve decided he was out of his mind in a fugue state, and who could blame him? Since he came to, he’s been amazing, considering what he’s dealing with. Still, he’s mostly shown me his harsh gladiator side—the man locked inside decades of pain and slavery.

But him letting me glimpse his softer side? Well, it undoes me.

We’ve spent the last week sleeping inches from each other. One thing is certain, lying here next to him when he’s in his soft, receptive state, is tempting me to reveal my secret crush. I need to change the mood.