I sleep at Delilah's home.

You shower at Delilah’s place, and Delilah takes one too; by the time she’s finished, however, you are dozing off and finding yourself at your energy limit and begin drifting into a slumber as another snow begins to fall. The noiseless interior of Delilah’s abode whisks you away as everything goes dark.

Delilah sees you lying on her couch and smirks a little as she runs a towel through her hair. There’s a sense of success inside her and a strong feeling of love that warms her core. Despite her worries, nothing has gone wrong, and there’s no reason to think you’re not in love with each other. She goes to her room, grabs a blanket, and joins you, sleeping in the tightly contested cushion space of the couch.

In the meantime, your mind travels through your thoughts, recalling moments in life that you hadn’t thought of for years, deep in the past. When you come to your senses, you wake up on your old bed in Oklahoma. The room has a harsh lingering winter chill, but you can already hear the early morning cheers from your neighbors outside.

You stir, finding the energy to swing your legs off the bed and into the day. Outside your dorm-like living quarters, you can hear your co-workers from your security firm. Someone sings “Jingle Bells” while someone else tells him to shut up. The voices are only vaguely familiar, and their faces are blurry smudges in your dream. Your uniform hangs unmodified and clean on your wardrobe, a rifle and holster remain beside it, and the leather webbing and issued equipment are beside it.

Finally, you get out of bed and wipe the tears from your face. Your palms are dry, and the cold air whips around you as you escape the warm covers of your bed. You waste no time grabbing your hygiene kit and leave the room into a busy corridor where every one of your coworkers is. Names return to your memory as their faces are seen.

Fintan. Gideon Rufus; they’re handing out gifts to each other while wishing everyone a good morning as, one by one, doors swing open in either joy or annoyance. They’re all singing loudly, and despite the anger they cause spreading Christmas cheer, there is also a brotherly presence in the corridor.

The adjacent hallway is filled with more bustle from the rest of the headquarters, less male-dominated, as you see Addison and Savannah rushing past you, and someone chases them with a pull-string firecracker. You don’t pause until you see Grace behind a desk, her eyes downward on a book as she sips what you think is hot chocolate. Her eyes, sharp and green, meet yours. She smiles, her pink lips curling as your face registers for the first time for the day… You hadn’t thought of Grace in forever, and seeing her in your dream makes your body ride with goosebumps and unexplainable joy.

“Warren,” she says, setting her cup and book down all at once to lean into the desk. “Merry Christmas, sir!”

“Thanks,” you say, feeling the weight of your uniform and hygiene bag in your hands. “Everyone seems to be up and active today.”

Grace looks around, her green eyes spotting all the people whose names you had forgotten. “A lot of us left to go back to our families. Why don’t you? I’m sure your mama and daddy would like to see their kid,” she says, sliding you a green letter and tilting her head to one side.

“Not ready for that,” you sigh. “My mom will nag me about my love life and inquire if I plan to settle in with someone.”

Grace chuckles, eyes on you again. “Who would the lucky lady be?”

“No one at the moment,” you say, letting your gaze leave hers as a sudden surge of nervousness washes over you. “Let me know if anyone pops up.”

Grace crosses her arms. “Want to get out of here once you’re showered and dressed?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing, more or less, anyway…”

“Well, my answer is YES.”

…

..

.

“Warren,” your eyes open to the present and see Delilah beside you. “Good morning.”

Barely able to leave your daze, you blink a few times and yawn, smiling at Delilah as your mind scurries to bury the memories it upturned.

As easily as the memories came, they suddenly vanished.

Delilah slid onto the couch and handed you a cup. The contents are black and steaming. The scent isn’t just bold, but it’s earthy, too. It is bitter yet energizes you with a jolt. You smack your lips. “That’s good, Delilah.”

“Thaaank you,” Delilah folds her legs in, bringing her own cup to her lips. “Sleep well?”

A slight stir again within your brain. Grace. Oklahoma. Red Dirt Watch. As you’ve trained yourself to do, your expression remains cheerful, and you easily answer. “I did. How about you?”

“Very well,” she purrs, rubbing her knee against your thigh. “I cuddled right next to you after a cool shower.”

You smile, nodding to yourself as you squeeze playfully on her leg. For a very brief moment, you’re just drinking your coffee and enjoying the silence of the day after Christmas.

Delilah clears her throat. “Did you celebrate at all? Christmas, I mean. Any of the holidays.”

You exhaled and thought, your dream coming to mind as you made it seem like you were thinking hard. You did celebrate, but it had been years since you last bought a gift. Delilah changed that, however. “Not much as an adult. My family had some traditions, but I think they did it for me because I was their kid, you know? Haven’t had a need to pass or make traditions with anyone.”

Delilah falls into thought, but you don’t think she’s faking it like you were. “I did for a while before I was a teenager. My mom and dad did a lot for me and my siblings.”

“Who are your siblings?” You inquired, hoping to keep the spotlight on her.

“Everett,” she says after a moment. “That was my brother. My sister's name is Tara. She got everything I didn’t and then some, but that’s all in the past now. More or less, anyway.”

“Missing them?”

Delilah lets out a hearty laugh, shaking her head. “Not even remotely. And now that I’ve found you, I have no doubt I made the right choice.”

After a moment, she sips coffee and looks at you, asking, “Who do you miss from your past?”

…

..

.

That night, you lay in bed, recalling the events before sleeping. Your answer to Delilah was a few friends that you were curious about what happened to them, but for some reason, you couldn’t bring up Grace so casually. You changed the subject, and after a while, you went your separate ways; the thoughts faded away until your head hit the pillow, and then it all came back in a blink.

...The air became colder the longer you lingered outside. As you exhaled, you closed your eyes and stowed your hands deeper into your pockets. A breeze cut through the open field and caressed your cheeks with an unforgiving brush. When you exhaled, it appeared visible and thick, giving the landscape over the walls a ghostly appearance. Behind you, there was a hard contrast of the ghostly dark world beyond the high walls of your city.

Twinkling lights of reds, blues, and greens speckled the background of homes, shops, and parks. Christmas trees adorned by glass ornaments made every home unique as they, too, were lit with fantastic colors. Through the windows, you saw purples, blues, greens, and so forth, but in some windows' warm light ignited the trees in a subtle invitation of the tradition that’s continued even through nuclear war.

The sun faded beneath the horizon, but the fields still mustered an eerie blue as the clear sky allowed moonlight to bless them with its hue. Everything was calm, so when the breeze stopped, you were greeted by a silence that made you feel at peace.

The silence is short-lived, but there’s no regret or wish when it ends. The snow crunches and a light voice comes out to greet you. “Warren,” Grace says behind you. You turn to face Grace, dressed in her casual clothes and boots. Her hair is tied back and is topped by a Christmas-colored beanie. “Thought I’d find you out here…”

Grace doesn’t need to get close for you to see she’s holding onto two steaming cups. She hands one to you and then stands beside you, overlooking the darkened Oklahoma field. “Santa’s already gone back to the South Pole,” she sighs.

“North Pole,” you correct, bringing the cup close to your nose so you can smell it. Hot chocolate, probably containing ****. Grace always “spiced” eggnog, so you weren’t surprised to get the hint of whiskey beneath the chocolate. “Santa lives in the North Pole.”

“Whatever,” she laughs. “Decided not to go home after all, huh?”

You drink a nice flavor, and kick rolls around your throat and tongue. You pause, wondering if you should mention the outsourcing job you allowed yourself to get hired for… It will bring you out of this place and along the outskirts of the pre-war state, bordering close to Kansas and Colorado. “Yeah, I just thought… maybe it would be better if people got used to not having me around so much, you know?”

“Planning on doing more hours next year?”

“Something like that,” you say. In the back of your mind, you realize this was the most dreaded conversation. Telling Grace of your departure and your **** to return to this area. You both drink in the shared silence of winter. The moon painted the area in strange, foreboding colors. “What would you say about leaving?”

Grace scoffs. “I wouldn’t. I like it here. I have my family and friends, and my preferred future is probably here. Might even marry someone here…” she trails off.

“You want to shack up with someone?” You ask.

“Of course,” she laughs. “I come from a big family. I feel like… I don’t know. I feel like I ought to. It’s… almost like my calling. I want tons of babies.”

You laugh next, and she joins you. But she had three sisters and four brothers. The Tiffins were like that, though. Grace’s oldest sister had twins the year before. “That checks out,” you say, still laughing. “Your sisters telling you should hurry? Or your mother?”

“No,” she sighs longingly. “I think they know I’m watching. And I’ve been to everyone’s weddings, so it’s pretty well implemented in my head. I don’t need anyone telling me I must find my true love.”

“Yeah? How's that search going?” You worried slightly; the setting was right, and it was just you. To deny the chemistry between you two would be more than foolish; it would be close to being a criminal.

“He might be a little slow,” she looks at you. “But I think he might be a little scared of commitment.”

The punch line… Struck by a bullet… Her words were said as quickly as though she planned this whole thing to happen. You regretted coming here. You sipped on your drink and looked outside. “Grace…”

“Warren,” she said. “Why don’t we start going steady? We… we get along so well, and we know each other so well.”