Chapter 1

Walking into the market place, Willow has things ready to trade for what he needs for his date. Because after a year of pining after Jay, the former wanderer, Willow had finally confessed his feelings for the other man. Jay had said he had feelings for him too, and they agreed to start a relationship. Willow had suggested a picnic to get out of the built-up safe zone, and the day was here. They’d be meeting to set out in an hour.

Willow heads straight for the right stool in the marketplace. He has everything he’d agreed to bring to the picnic in his backpack already, but he wants to get this extra thing.

“Barter?” Willow asks, pointing to what he wants. Money had quickly lost its charm after the end times, a war that had killed over half the population on earth and rolled back technology thousands of years.

“What have you got?” the middle age woman asks him. She’s beautiful and doesn’t hide her war and battle scars like some.

Willow produces a bullet, unfired, and sees the woman’s eyes light up. “Where did you get that?”

“None of your business. So, you want it?” Bullets have become harder to find, and Willow isn’t giving up his source. He’s been venturing outside the safe zone where bandits roam, and he’d found a lot of things. He’d been inspired to leave the safety of the protected settlement he was born into by Jay. They’d been friends for a long time before Jay told him stories of outside. He’d been a wanderer, not a settler, and that meant he travelled from settlement to settlement, passing through danger zones. He’d only stopped here so long because he needed access to a medical team. He’d been injured, and his leg never completely healed. He walked with a limp and a cane.

“I want it,” the woman says, pushing what he came for towards him.

Willow checks it and puts it in the satchel he also wears and then hands her the bullet.

“Good barter,” Willow says as he has a hundred times.

“To many more,” the woman replies in kind, nodding her head.

Willow nods back and leaves. He heads for his planned meeting place with Jay. He spots him easily by the trees. Jay is a tall, broad, handsome, dark-skinned man, dressed sensibly for the weather in thinner cotton clothes, all with a layer of dust from the constant dust storms in the city.

“Jay.” Willow raises a hand in greeting, still not sure how to greet Jay now they’re in a romantic relationship, as well as friends.

“Willow.” Jay seems less uncertain. Stepping into Willow’s space, he reaches out and touches Willow’s chin, giving him time to pull away before he swoops in for a quick kiss. It’s firm, like the press of his fingers on Willow’s skin, and it makes his blood heat up a notch or two

“Ready for our picnic?” Jay asks, ending the kiss, but still touching Willow. They’re so close Willow just wants to kiss Jay again, but he knows they can only do so much in public without a fine. The king of the Iron Settlement had his rules. Lewd behavior in public is against the rules, and anything can be seen as an infraction.

The Iron King frightens Willow, but Jay has never seemed afraid of him and has been known to test his limits. Jay says the king is corrupt, taking more than he should be from the people of the town.

“Ready? Let’s go.” Willow nods, and feeling bold due to Jay’s closeness, he takes Jay’s hand and starts walking with him out of the shelter of the Iron Settlement, into the open spaces and structures left over from the time before, when they’d thought the world would end. Somehow, life had gone on.

“I’ve been wanting to get out the city with you for a while,” Jay says as they walk.

Willow ducks his head, blushing. “Sorry it took me so long to ask you out.”

Jay squeezes his hand briefly. “No apologies needed. I didn’t exactly make my interest clear, either.”

“I guess I was scared to lose you as a friend. I value your friendship. I have a lot of friends, but none have ever treated me with the respect and kindness you do. None of them supported my need to explore,” Willow explains.

“I haven’t had as many friends as you have, never stayed one place long enough to put down roots, but as soon as we met, I wanted you in my life. I think it helped that you didn’t treat me like I was broken. So many people do since I hurt my leg.” Jay shakes his head, and Willow knows people can be shitty to him, a wanderer who no longer wonders, but it’s not as if injuries are not common in the settlements. Life is dangerous here.