Chapter 4

When I arrived home I had some trouble getting out my keys to unlock the front door, seeing as my arms were filled with Chinese take-out. Trying to reach for my pocket was making my hold on the bags slip. I soon gave up and simply pressed the doorbell with my elbow.

After a few moments wait, Maggie's smiling face greeted me as she opened the door.

"Hey, you aren't the usual delivery boy." She said, cocking her head to the side and placing a hand on her hip theatrically.

"Ha, ha. You are sooo funny." I deadpanned. "Can I get a hand here ... and not an applause!" I caught her just as she was raising her hands.

I heard Missy and few more people burst out laughing from the living room, which in turn set off Maggie's giggles. At least she grabbed a couple of bags of food to help out, and then gave me a peck on the cheek for my trouble.

I followed her as she turned around and walked towards the kitchen. I once again found myself admiring a shapely female ass in tight shorts and a pair of long legs. I managed to remember to close the door behind me, while throwing out a brief "Hey guys" to the people in the living room.

Since our best friends had first started dating and going at it hot and heavy, Maggie and I had ended up seeing quite a lot of each other. We became friends and eventually started dating each other. It was great and lots of fun, for a while at least, but we didn't really click together on a more intimate level. We split by mutual agreement, but stayed friendly, fortunately. It didn't stop me from admiring her body though and reliving some very pleasant memories.

In fact, it had been happening more and more often. First with Missy, now Maggie ... I had also been feeling some serious emotional pangs when I saw Missy and Dave cuddle together on the couch, or leaving his room hand-in-hand, with goofy smiles on their faces. Don't even get me started on the noises they made at night. I guess it had been a while since I'd actually dated someone.

Since my family's death a few years ago, in fact. There was the occasional one night stand, but I could count those on the fingers of one hand.

If I was honest with myself, I had to admit that I was lonely. Kinda bad timing ... deciding that I wanted to get back into the dating game while preparing for an oncoming worldwide disaster.

"Need some help with that?" The soft voice brought me back out of my head, just before entering the kitchen.

Beside me was a beautiful woman who I didn't know, but I certainly wished that I did. I was about to say something, I swear. A witty, charming and memorable introduction – my absolute 'A' game.

Unfortunately, the blood rushed out of my head heading south. I was left a bit dizzy and completely unable to respond, my eyes wide and mouth open slightly in surprise. If it had happened to anybody else, I would have found it absolutely hilarious.

She was a few inches under my own five and a half feet with pale skin, clear and bright green eyes and shoulder length light blonde hair with light pink highlights. Besides the half dozen earrings on her ears, there was a small ring in on nostril and a small stud in her eyebrow. She was wearing a short sleeved, button up black shirt a size or two too small, highlighting her impressively curvy figure, and revealing a nice amount of cleavage and her flat stomach with pierced bellybutton. It also revealed a tattoo covering most of her upper right arm – it looked like a very intricate vine motif all in black. Her blue jeans seemed almost painted on over her well rounded hips, ass and legs, with tears on its knees and ragged hems over a pair of high-tops.

I had frozen as I looked her over for an embarrassingly long time. By the expression on her face though, she wasn't terribly upset. On the contrary, she was smiling with an amused and slightly embarrassed expression, her smooth and pale skin reddening faintly. She had a wide and beautiful smile that lit up her whole face and her pierced eyebrow was raised attractively, waiting for my answer.

I reigned in an impulse to drop the food, grab her in my arms and kiss her full lips.

"Sure, sure." I said, maybe a bit too quickly in an obvious attempt to act nonchalant.

I handed her a bag and we walked together into the kitchen. She placed her bag of food down on the kitchen table, with me right behind her.

"I'm Alex's sister, Crystal." She said, still smiling friendlily as she stuck out her hand to me. "I prefer Crys though."

"It's a pleasure Crys." I responded, smiling back as I took her hand and shaked it. I really liked how soft her skin felt. "I'm Marcus."

"I guessed so. Alex has a lot of good things to say about you." Once again I was left speechless and for some reason I wasn't the only one. We just stood there in the kitchen looking at each other for a while with slight smiles on our faces.

"I'm taking beer for the masses." Maggie broke us out of our trance.

I'd actually forgotten about her being in the kitchen with us. Now there she was smirking at us, carrying two six packs and a couple of colas in her arms.

"You two can bring the food, plates and utensils." She said on her way into the living room.

"Sure." Yup, that's me, eloquent as always.

I opened a kitchen cabinet and removed several large plastic bowls. Handing them over to Crys, I told her to pour out the Chinese food into them. As she did that, I removed a dozen plastic plates, serving spoons, eating utensils, plates and napkins. We worked in silence for a while, but I couldn't help glancing back at her now and then.

I hadn't felt this awkward since I was in junior high. How could this woman that I had just met affect me like this?

"I assume that Alex has filled you in on the situation." I finally said.

The silence had been a bit too tense for me – I hoped that talking shop would be much more relaxing.

"Yeah. Its some real heavy shit." She sighed in relief. Apparently I hadn't been the only one feeling the tension. She then paused and looked at me, "Do you really think it's going to be as bad as Alex told me?" Her eyes were sad and worried. I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be all right. I didn't though.

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it? What everybody wants to know. The short answer is that I simply don't know." My response had clearly surprised her. "It's definitely possible. Maybe even probable. There are just too many variables involved to know exactly how things will turn out. But even if we are lucky, and the impacts only cause minor damage and disruption, we'll still be looking at millions of deaths and worldwide chaos and depression."

She nodded considering my words. "So you're taking it on yourself to save the day?"

"I'm just trying to take care of my little corner of the world. I'm going to make a safe haven for my friends and family. A stronghold of safety and order against the coming anarchy."

"Stronghold?" she asked with a small smile, her eyebrow raised once again.

"I like the image it transmits. Sue me." I shrugged and gave her a smile of my own. We both had a small laugh, and just like that, the tension was gone.

We were soon done with all the food prep and carried our loads to the crowd waiting in the living room. After setting all the food, plates and utensils on the coffee table I gave a proper greeting to everyone and met our group's newcomers.

Lee introduced his older sister Erin and her fiancé Roberto - "just call me Rob". They were another odd couple.

She shared her brother's pale skin with freckles and red hair, only she wore hers long and wavy down past the middle of her back. On the other hand, Rob was clearly Latino, but I couldn't tell from where. The slant of his eyes and slight accent hinted at a Filipino ancestry though. He was also damn big, as in tall and heavily muscled, very little of it fat.

I idly wondered if the couch could handle the weight.

Despite his size and obvious strength, when we shook hands, there was no squeezing test of strength. My father had once told me that real men don't need those types of juvenile tests – they have nothing to prove and are completely secure with who they are.

Rob definitely went up several notches in my consideration.

Alex then introduced his girlfriend Nina, a petite and very cute looking Japanese girl in glasses. She was dressed in a goth style, with mostly blacks with a few dark colors, with a very light amount of dark makeup. She also wore a very detailed and elaborate skull ring on her finger and gothic cross on a choker around her neck. As I shook her hand she smiled shyly, but genuinely at me.

I told her that it was a pleasure to meet her and that Alex had told me many good things about her. That was a bit of a lie though. I had heard him mention her and his sister, but that was about it. Alex had always been very closed off about his life and past.

I could relate, so I never pried.

By mutual agreement, we all decided to postpone any serious discussions until after we ate. So, sitting around the coffee table, plates in our hands or laps, we served ourselves and ate Chinese food while making small talk and getting to know each other.

Erin and Rob took the love seat, with Alex and Lee taking their usual seats on the beanbags on either side. Nina was offered the armchair beside Alex, while I offered my own to Crys.

That garnered me some surprised and curious looks from Dave and Missy. I loved my chair and almost never allowed other people to use it.

Dave, Missy, Maggie and I sat in chairs taken from the kitchen table, placed opposite the love seat.

Nina truly was a shy girl, rarely speaking and when she did, it was in a soft and gentle voice. She also had the habit of reddening slightly whenever she became the center of attention and nervously pulling back her straight black hair behind her ears. She told us that she worked as a temp, doing mostly administrative and accounting work. She admitted freely that it was boring work, but she was very good at it and it paid the bills.

Apparently, she and Alex had been very close when they were young teenagers, but lost touch of each other for some reason. They had only recently been able to reconnect and their romance grew.

Alex's sister Crys shared his artistic temperament and had dreams of being a professional photographer and writer. In the meantime though, she had been working two part time jobs, one as a waitress and another for one of those shopping mall photographers that take family and school photos.

Erin was a registered nurse with experience in obstetrics, neo-natal and emergency medicine and Rob was a former army medic who now worked as an EMT. They had met some years ago when he brought in a hit and run victim to the ER where she was on call. She was an obvious type A personality – ambitious competitive and borderline workaholic, almost the exact opposite of her patient, relaxed and easy-going brother. Rob though, seemed to be a solid middle ground between them, personality wise.

Though definitely polite, as we neared the end of the meal it became clear, at least to me, that Rob was not particularly happy. After watching him for some time, I could tell that he was on guard, keeping a certain amount of distance. But why?

Upon finishing eating and cleaning up the living room, we all prepared ourselves for our meeting.

"I'm assuming you've all been fully clued in to what is going to happen and what we're planning on doing." I asked. I received nods from all the new people.

"I recapped and summarized our first meeting for them." Alex put in.

"Good, good. So we can get started -"

"Wait a minute. I want to ask something." Rob cut me off mid-sentence. "How are we supposed to know that all this is on the up and up? What if this is some sort of con?" His voice wasn't exactly belligerent, but definitely challenging.

Erin seemed surprised and a bit embarrassed by his outburst, but it was also clear that she too wanted an answer.

So that was the reason he was tense.

I had to admit, his concerns were understandable – the idea that asteroids were about to impact the Earth was the stuff of science fiction. Who would actually believe that! Plus he obviously didn't know or trust me. That could only come with time.

I simply nodded, got up and left the room. I came back with my bag filled with money and once again dumped its contents on the coffee table. The others had already seen it, but Erin, Rob, Nina and Crys were left wide-eyed.

"I'm not asking for your money." I told all of them forcibly. "In fact, I'm paying for just about everything. All I'm asking you is for you to lend a hand and join us."

"Just like that?" Nina asked, visibly confused. "You don't even know us."

"But they do." I answered, pointing at Lee and Alex. "They're my family. You're their family. Therefore, you're all my family." I grimaced slightly, "Maybe that's a bit too touchy feely, but true nonetheless."

They were silent as they considered my words, but they eventually smiled and nodded in consent, voicing that they were willing to join us. At least for now. I admit it, the growing smile on Crys's face kinda stole my attention at this point and made my heart race.

"As a proof of good faith..." I picked up several bundles of cash and tossed one to each person. "Consider this some petty cash for expenses and such." Some tried to give it back, but I was adamant. "You can give it back if you end up not using it. I'm going back to the bank at the end of the week anyway, to get some more. Banking regulations and such are a bitch if you want to make a big withdrawal, so I had to wait a few days."

"Didn't you withdraw this money?" Maggie asked confused.

"No, this was simply the money that I had available in my safety deposit box. Ten thousand dollars."

"You really should keep a detailed accounting of what you buy and how much you spend." Nina put in. She shrugged as we all looked at her.

"That's a good idea," I answered. "From now on everybody hands Nina receipts from purchases and detailed inventories." She seemed a bit stunned that I had given her such responsibilities.

"You used to handle that sort of things, right?" At her nod, I simply said, "Good. Make a note of the money I just gave everybody." I gave her an encouraging smile as I passed her a notepad and pencil. She started scribbling right away.