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conversation because I’d never followed sports even when there were sports to follow.
     
    Carrying a handful of silverware, Ashleigh nudged my arm. “Come on.”
     
    I picked up as many glasses as I could carry and followed her to the dining room. I hadn’t eaten at the table since before my parents died. I usually sat in an armchair in the living room with the radio receiving either static or a weak signal from Topeka. If it was a static night or the news update was too depressing, I’d listen to my music instead, close my eyes and float away.
     
    Ashleigh dusted off the table and laid out seven placemats, the hand woven ones my mom had picked up on some vacation. A clear memory of her describing that vacation while setting out the mats sent a pang of grief through me that made me wince.
     
    “ Not much of a football guy?” Ashleigh said as she placed the cutlery. “Me either. I was on cheer team one year in high school, but I never cared much about the game. What’s your thing?”
     
    “ Killing zombies,” I answered dryly. “Literally now, of course, but I used to do a lot of gaming and killed virtual demons and monsters. What about you?”
     
    She paused. “Music. Used to think I’d be a singer but that never really panned out. I went out to Vegas with a band, but the gig a friend of a friend promised us fell through and then the band fell apart. So there I was. I waitressed and sang with a couple of other bands that went nowhere.” She shrugged. “Dancing pays a helluva lot better than serving so I did that for a while. But with all the ex-showgirls in Vegas, competition to dance, even as a stripper, is fierce. The club where I worked was pretty crappy.”
     
    I followed her around the table, putting glasses at the place settings and trying to think of how to respond. You used to be a stripper. Sorry, that sucks, or, Cool. Which was appropriate?
     
    Ashleigh paused and I nearly ran into her. “It sounds awful, but in some ways this disaster is the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It changed me, forced me to be tougher and more capable than I thought I could be. You know?” She looked up at me.
     
    I nodded. “I get it.” And I wasn’t just being polite. I knew exactly what she meant. While I hated what had happened and the things I’d had to do, it was good to learn I possessed reserves of strength I never realized I had. Character-building I guess you’d call it.
     
    Our moment of connection was broken as the rest of the group came from the kitchen, bearing dinner and filling up the room with their chatter. Daylon held court and the rest of us fell in around him. Although it was my house, I didn’t mind giving up the seat at the head of the table since I was right beside Ashleigh and she kept bumping her leg against mine. Halfway through the meal, she rubbed my ankle with her foot. Warmth crawled all the way up my leg and settled in my groin as I realized the leg-bumping hadn’t been an accident. She couldn’t be more obvious in signaling her interest.
     
    What was I supposed to do with this information? Kiss her the first opportunity we had to be alone? Casually invite her into my bed later that evening? I didn’t even know the girl. After the desert wasteland of my teen years, I’d had a few sexual experiences at college, but I could hardly be considered a player. Nervous, tense and excited, I was thinking of something besides zombies and death for the first time in weeks. The future of the world might still be bleak, but my life had definitely taken on more color, if only for now.
     
    “ So are you people going to ride out the winter here?” Daylon asked over dessert, a paint can-sized container of peaches scavenged from one of the local restaurants. “Do you have enough supplies to make it to spring?”
     
    Fes glanced at me. It wasn’t wise to let strangers know about our meager stockpile. “The town will be all right for a while,” he answered. “Besides, we