World Enough and Time

I waver at the crackers, undecided between a box of saltines and a box of unsalted tops. Hmm ... it's almost like a bad joke, isn't it? Beside me someone reaches for the saltines and I look up from the slim, strong hand to a young, boyish face framed with neat black hair along the jawline and around the chin. The hair that curls from under his baseball cap looks like spilt ink against the burnished gold of his skin.

Great, I think as I stare at him, the smooth hair lining his face, the full lips, the dark eyes. I've been searching for someone like you my whole life and when I finally find you, the world's about to end. Just my luck.

He glances at me with a slight frown on his face. "Hey," he says, a little too loudly. He takes in my lips, my eyes, my hair, and then back to my mouth because I run my tongue over my upper lip unconsciously. He's quite cute. And young, too, not as built as Hans and Frans outside, and I know I'm staring but so what? A few more weeks it won't matter anyway.

A few more weeks and we'll both be dead.

He takes a step back from me, still frowning. "You okay?"

"Fine." I smile a disarming grin and hope he doesn't run, not now, not when we've just met. I force a laugh and that makes him smile, too. "Well, except for the salt."

"Yeah," he says, a breathless rush. I'm just about to say something else, something I hope is witty enough to get him to come back to my place and lie in my bed with me, we can take in the end of the world together, when he turns away. Apparently I'm not that interesting to him.

Or he's got other things on his mind, because he looks towards the front of the store where the cops stand, and then back at the shelf full of Cheez-its and Ritz crackers and Little Debbie snack cakes. He pats at his back pocket like he's feeling for a wallet and then bends down for something on a low shelf, and that's when I see the gun shoved into his jeans. It rests along the small of his back and his shirt pulls up just enough for me to get a glimpse of cold, hard steel; then he stands again and it's hidden from view.

Okay.

This time when he smiles at me, I'm the one to take a step back. He's got a gun.

"Take care," I tell him. I hope he's not thinking I saw the gun but I'm hurrying as fast as I can from the aisle without trying to look suspicious, and I wonder if he's going to pay for whatever it is he's getting or if he's going to hold up the cashier or what. Then I tell myself I don't care, I'm just here for some frozen Bagel Bites and a pan of Healthy Choice lasagna and that's it. I'll think about him later, when I'm alone and lying in my bed and touching myself, thinking I'd rather have him with me, but he has a gun so I'm not even going to ask. These may be desperate times and he may be sexy as hell, but I'm not that desperate.

I'm not.