“I wish I could have seen you do both those things,” I say.

“I wanted them so bad that I gave up things. Like, I hardly had any friends at all. Sometimes I’d get together with the guys on the weekend to play Madden, but definitely no one like Shawntelle. I was just working and practicing and studying, twenty-four seven, and it left no time for anything else. Now I’m wondering if I made the wrong decision. I didn’t make any memories with people. All that time was wasted.”

In the passenger side mirror, I see light edging the cloudy horizon behind us. “Hey, we can turn off the fog lamps now,” I say.

He flicks them off. It’s still dangerously dark, but we can make out the general shapes of things, and the dawning light is just enough for the street reflectors to mark our lane.

“Should be okay if we go slow,” he says.

“You have memories of Teena and your mom,” I remind him. “I don’t mean to be flippant. Those aren’t wasted moments. You’re sharing them with me, and now I get to remember them, too.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Besides, you have friends now, and we are going to make our own memories.”

“Honestly, the fact that it took an apocalypse for me to make friends makes me feel like a shitty human being.”

I shake my head. “You were a busy human being, and now that everything is different, you’re shifting priorities. That’s all.”

He smiles a little at that. “So what kind of memories are we going to make, Paige? Running from creepy alien creatures? Scrounging for food?”

“Damn right,” I say. And then, because I’m feeling brave: “Also, I’m eventually going to kiss you. You’ll remember that for sure.” There. I’ve said something.

His smile widens. “I’m taking that for a promise,” he says.

“Please do.”

“But not until we take down that tower,” he says.

“That’s . . . arbitrary. I mean, I know you said you didn’t want to rush, but—”

His smile disappears. His gaze is straight ahead, on the road where it should be, but I sense that he’s as deeply aware of me as I am of him right now. The El Camino’s cab is not large. I could slide across the bench seat and be shoulder to shoulder with him, if I wanted to.

“Taking down that tower will be like playing in the big game,” he says. “It’s about focus. Compartmentalization. And once I start kissing you, I don’t think I’ll stop for a while. I’ll want plenty of time. No distractions.”

I’m silent a good long minute as my heart does dribble drills with my stomach.

“Paige?” he says, sounding suddenly vulnerable.

“I find your terms acceptable,” I manage.