Zeppelin (Satan's Angels MC, Book 9), page 21
So, she doesn’t.
She gives me exactly what I need.
Grace. Understanding. Encouragement. Love, in her own way.
“I’m so proud of you for doing this.” She catches me off guard. At the clinic, I thought about how much you’ve changed. How we’ve both changed. How sometimes life ages you years in just a few minutes, and it’s not always for the worst.”
My chest swells, my ribs aching like I’ve wrecked my bike and skidded along the pavement, only to have it end up on top of me, crushing me until I can’t breathe.
“You should send me the links for whatever you’ve been listening to.” Her tone is full of self-deprecation. I hate that, but she smiles through it. “It’s okay. I can admit that there’s more than enough room for improvement for me too. Just because I didn’t have a lot of childhood trauma doesn’t mean that I can’t still grow.”
“Ginny—”
“No, really. Learning about how to love is never a bad thing. You can always love more. There’s no limit.” She traces a stain on my jeans with her index finger. “I have no experience with romantic love. Maybe I didn’t meet the right person, or- or maybe there’s something inside me I didn’t realize needs adjusting or fixing. I always thought I knew who I was, but I think I might have been partly wrong.”
“I don’t think you were.” I turn her chin so that she has to look at me. It takes so much bravery for us to sit here and look each other in the eye. “You have to allow for change.”
“Maybe I just didn’t understand.”
“I didn’t understand either.”
“I’m scared,” she admits. “Excited about everything that’s coming, but scared too.”
“Me too.” Why is it the hardest thing of all to admit that?
She closes her eyes, her long lashes fluttering against her cheeks. I want to kiss them. I want to lean into her, set my head on her chest, and just listen to her breathe. Have her fingers running gently through my hair. I want all the close, tender things that I would have scoffed at before knowing her.
“I don’t know where this is going, and I know it’s the wrong thing to say right now, but I’ll miss you.”
“That’s not the wrong thing to say.”
“I’ll miss you in ways I understand and in ways that I don’t.”
I get that. I truly do. When I lost Jack, my twin, my literal other half, I thought there wouldn’t be life after. There is. In ways I don’t understand and in ways that I’m starting to, on this journey of self-discovery.
I drop my hand to her shoulder and pull her against me. She’s the one who rests her head against my chest, listening to my heart beating. Her hand splays out over my right pec, holding onto me.
“I’m still going to worry about you like crazy,” I tell her.
“I’ll be okay. I promise, I’ll be fine. We can talk. I’ve been selfish, even when I tried not to be. I knew you were still struggling with grief and change. I haven’t been here like I should have been for you.”
My fingers run down her arm, caressing her soft sweater. The one I chose for her. She’s so beautiful in it. I’ll never forget this day. Not a single detail. “Please don’t say that.”
“It’s true though.” She peers up at me through that thick fringe of sandy lashes and I swear my heart stops beating. “You need this and I want to support you. Don’t worry about how long it takes.”
Something moves across her face, a shadow of wreckage. I’m ruining her. I’m ruining me too. Does she feel as torn apart as I do? I know I need to do this, but I also want to be here, with her.
“When you’re back, you should see about getting one of those bikes that has an extra seat. I’d love to go for a ride sometime, after the baby’s born.”
I shake my head before I can stop myself. “You don’t know what that means to a biker.”
“I do,” she protests, her jaw clenching and face tilting up stubbornly. “My sister explained it to me. She told me that I could never get on the back of Jack’s bike. Never. Not unless I meant it. But… we belong to each other, don’t we?” The air punches out of my lungs at her sweet question. She’s never been so honest with me. In this moment, with that question, she’s bared everything. “Even if it’s not the typical kind of romantic belonging, you’re mine and I’m yours. We’ll always be connected.”
I know that she’s talking about the baby, but what is that fire in her eyes and the longing her voice? Why am I so bad at this? Why can’t I understand the way I want her? Why can’t it be picked apart and turned over and brought up to the light for study? Maybe it can’t be thrust under a microscope. Maybe it’s not right to separate all the moving parts of it.
She’s right.
Unequivocally.
We belong to each other.
Jack and I made a pact a long time ago. We promised each other that nothing would ever tear us apart and that included a woman. We decided that we’d never fall for the same person. It turned out that it wasn’t really a problem. We had opposite taste in women.
And then… Ginny Fields.
Who could know her and not love her?
All this time, I’ve been slowly unraveling, but seeing her this way, having her kindness, her spirit, her soul, her trust, her whole being stripped down and in my palms, I’m completely undone.
She’s never called any of this a mistake.
I think I’ve always needed something in her that I can’t even fathom. I don’t know what I want to be, other than… more. More of her. More of this. More of us.
What does that mean? Is this what people call love? How do you even know when you’ve reached it? With Jack, it was always there. I never had to question what that blind loyalty and affection was. Whatever it is I’m feeling right now, it’s foreign, but at the same time, it’s familiar. It’s right. It hurts. I want to shove it away, but at the same time, I want to grasp it in both hands, hold it close, and protect it with everything I have.
“I can’t not go,” I whisper brokenly.
She turns her face into my chest and plants a kiss right above my heart. It burns through the fabric of my shirt, all the way down into muscle and bone, becoming memory. “I know. Everything will be okay. Everything. I promise.”
We both know that there’s no guarantee and that’s a promise she can’t make, but she doesn’t lift her head from my chest and my heart beats and beats and beats. Just for a minute, this minute, there’s nothing else in the world. It’s only us in here, with the guttering light from a few oil lamps casting wild shadows on the wall, a whole silent play of ghosts and memories, and I believe her.
Chapter 18
Ginny
Everyone says that Tyrant is a great man who surrounds himself with equally good men. Even if he doesn’t find them that way, they all find brotherhood with the club. It’s not a prison. People can leave when they want.
When Zeppelin went to him and Raiden last week and told them that he needed to take off for a month or two, they didn’t try and lock him down. They didn’t attempt to convince him to stay. Instead, they wanted to organize a massive send-off for him, but he flat out refused. He wasn’t quitting the club, and he didn’t want anyone to make a big deal about him.
Every single person in the club made sure that in less than a week, Zeppelin was ready to leave. That included getting his paperwork in order, renewing his passport, getting him maps in case his phone died or went out of service, and getting him an extra phone as a spare. They made sure he had the proper gear for riding his bike in the rain, a new tent, a sleeping bag, and bedroll for camping out. They helped him do a tune-up on his bike.
The first time he attempted this journey with his brother, they broke down in Hart and stayed. This time they all wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any other breakdowns that prevented him from getting where he needed to go.
I don’t even know where that is, but I know, he’ll be coming back here. I have no doubt about that.
He needs to do this.
I hope that every single day in between, over the next few months, sees him safe, happy, and healthy. I’ll be right here, living my life, trying to thrive on my own, preparing the house for me and the baby, trying to find whatever it is that I need to find while he’s out there doing that for himself.
I don’t want to say that I’ll be waiting. That sounds so depressing. It seems like long, empty days that pass far too slowly. It feels like an ache in my chest, a cavern so deep that if I tip off the ledge into it and fall, I’ll never hit the bottom.
The club had a send-off for Zeppelin two days ago. He made sure it was on a Thursday, so that I could come for it and still make it back out here in time to get ready for the market on the weekend.
It was crazy busy. All the families came out for it. There were kids running around all over the front lawn of the clubhouse. I didn’t know even half the people who turned out, but I was introduced to so many of them. It was a close friends and family gathering only, but it was still remarkable to see just how many people camped out on blankets and in lawn chairs all around the clubhouse. The last event I went to there was Jack’s celebration of life. The atmosphere for Zeppelin’s going away was far less somber. There wasn’t that same mad, desperate sadness that people get when they’re reminded of their own mortality. It was more like a full circle. Zeppelin was trying to finish the journey he and his brother started years earlier.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t sad to see him go.
I managed to make it through the whole thing before I hugged Zeppelin goodbye. He hugged me back. So tight. So hard. He held me for just a few minutes too long, and I was eager to soak up every single second of it.
I made sure that my smile was so convincing that even my sister didn’t ask me if I was okay before I headed back to the farm. I would have loved to stay the night with Bronte and Dom and to see Ellie for longer, but I knew that Mom needed me in the morning.
But it wasn’t that.
I wanted to be alone when I finally broke down and allowed myself the luxury of the tears I’d held back all day and all week before that.
I managed to make it back to the farmhouse, and then I cried myself to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and cried so hard I threw up and then I cried about throwing up.
I cleaned up and headed over to the farm early, to help Mom with the chores. We were so busy Friday and Saturday that I was too exhausted to cry again.
There’s plenty of work at my parents’ farm, and plenty of work at my own house. More than enough that I can keep my mind from going continuously to the ache in my heart and the hole in my life.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself as I measure all the windows that my dad and brother are going to be replacing shortly.
Zeppelin was most worried about me here. He asked me eight times at the cookout if I was sure that I’d be okay, if I hated him for not doing the job for me that he promised, if my family was going to hate him. The assurances I gave him weren’t empty. My dad and Gabe have some time and they’re more than willing to help me out.
I think my parents were secretly waiting for me to decide that my little homesteading experiment wasn’t going to be feasible. They both want me to come back home, but if I want to be here, they’ll do everything in their power to make it happen for me.
The last thing Zeppelin told me as he leaned outside my truck door before I left the clubhouse, was that all I had to do was give Tyrant the word, and the whole club would be there, helping me renovate. He’d already arranged everything.
I just about broke down and bawled right there, even though it wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned it.
I promised him I’d be okay, and that he would be too, and then I let him lean into my own window and kiss me on the forehead and wave me off with the saddest, goofy grin that I’ve ever seen.
It’s a good thing that I want to make good on that promise to be self-sufficient.
I’m out here in shorts and a t-shirt, my hair tamed back into a bun with a ballcap on top, sturdy boots in place, cursing the damn weed-whacker for not working. When we go for windows, we’re also going to try and find a used ride on mower so that I don’t have to keep trailering my parents’ and bringing it over here. They let me borrow this asshole so I could take care of the six foot weeds growing thick all along the fence lines and up the sides of the outbuildings.
I took the can of gas that I know it needs, but I’ve been pulling the damn cord for a while, and nothing is happening. Not so much as even a sputter.
Is it possible to flood it?
It’s as hot as hell out here, and instead of taking out my frustrations on the weeds, I’m only getting more aggravated. I had zero problems being by myself out here before, but now I realize just how alone I am.
“Fuck me for letting Gabe start this thing for me every time at home,” I mutter.
A crow calls from the trees lining the shelterbelt along the north edge of the yard. Most people hate them, and magpies, but I don’t mind that they’re nesting in my trees. I’m up before they’re noisy cawing anyway. I’ve never been particular about bird calls. Sweet or scratchy, it makes no difference to me. I like just about all things living and looked forward to seeing our wildlife year after year return to the farm.
I set the weed-whacker down, cursing under my breath. It’s a bad habit that I’ve grown way too used to now that my mom isn’t out here with me. I’d never be this foul mouthed if she was around. I better untrain myself out of it before the baby comes because I don’t want their first word to be ‘fuck’.
Zeppelin promised he’d be back before the baby was born, but that seems even further away than ever.
I kick a clump of weeds with my boot, stomping them down because I can’t cut them down. Sweat trickles down my back under my t-shirt. It’s pretty much already sodden, because it’s also humid as heck after a small shower this morning. I have at least twenty bug bites, and I’m ready to call it a day before I’ve even started.
I came out here to get the yard in order, but also so I didn’t have to think, and now I’m doing exactly that.
Zeppelin is going to miss so much, but I’m determined that as long as he has cell reception, I’ll make sure that he’ll be a part of all of this.
I don’t feel less important for him leaving.
I admire him for having the courage to go out there, but also to face himself. None of that is easy.
He wanted to be the kind of man that I could look up to, and the baby could too. I know how important that is to him, not having had that for himself growing up. He’s already inspired me, though. He’s changed my mind about so many things. He’s helped me grow as a person because I’ve had to take a hard look at myself and everything I thought I believed.
I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to ask him to take me with him, but I understood that neither of those things could happen. I had to grow up in the span of an hour. In one evening, I learned what heartbreak, longing, and maybe even the early stages of love feel like. Romantic love? The love one person can share with another when they’re bonded together through life? The love of friends?
I don’t know how to define it, but I know it’s real. The pain, the gnawing longing, the way I ache like a part of me has been ripped away—that’s very, very real.
A dust cloud in the distance has me looking up. I raise a hand to shade my eyes against the sun out of habit, even though the hat provides plenty of relief already. There’s not much traffic down this road. I walk a few paces, over to the looping gravel driveway. It needs a fresh layer of gravel and some serious weeding as well, but that’s a task for- well- I guess for another day.
So few vehicles come down this way that I’m even more interested, watching the road to see if it’s my mom or dad, or maybe even Gabe by himself. I’m going over to their place this afternoon to help with the garden and baking, but they might have come to stop in and check on me as they were driving in the area to check their fields. A good portion border this farmhouse, so it’s entirely possible.
I’m okay with looking like a sweaty wreck. All my life, getting dirty meant working hard and getting a job done, which meant pulling together to survive as a family. That’s what farming is about.
I’m not self-conscious or confused until the dust clears and the nose of a brown van emerges. The body comes into sight, dark brown stripes running the length of the tan paint. It’s dappled with rust spots, and it’s clearly old and not in a good classic car kind of way, but it chugs along just fine.
I frown when it slows by my driveway. Some people do slow their speed so they don’t lambaste the house and yard with road dust, but this van is going way too slow.
Part of me wants to race to the house and lock myself in when it turns down the driveway. I’m alone out here, and even though I know most of the people in the area, I still have a strong sense of stranger danger and self-preservation.
The sun glints off the windshield as I step forward, ready to at least be by the house just in case.
The van stops abruptly, as soon as I start moving, which scares the hell out of me. Not really, but close. I dash across the yard, ready to leap the crumbling old porch and race through the door to at least a semblance of safety, but the van’s door opens and a broad, tall figure steps out.
Holy. Fuck. I must have cooked my brain a good one out here, battling the weed-whacker because that person resembles Zeppelin so closely, from his biker boots to his grease-stained jeans, all the way up to his t-shirt, that I start to sway.
It’s not until I see his face that I have to sit down.
I grasp the crumbling porch railing and lower myself down before I fall.
Either I’ve got sunstroke and I’m hallucinating or it truly is Zeppelin. He really is here. In a beater van. At my house. Not on his bike. Not halfway across the country. Here. Real.
I leap up and carefully take the stairs, but as soon as my feet are on solid ground, I race across the yard and driveway. He just stands there, watching me come at him, but when I launch myself at him, his arms open like I’m the only one with the magic password. I’m enveloped in him, held upright by his muscular arms. He interlaces his fingers at the small of my back, locking me in place as I twine mine around his neck.
