Page 13 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

She’s walking back into the kitchen, tugging me from my thoughts. I quickly strip off my leather jacket. It’s too hot for it anyway.

I shove it quickly over my waist hiding the trouser situation while pretending that I’m casual, leaning against a cupboard that looks like it’s from another century.

It’s tall and yellow, the paint rubbed away from the wood all over it.

That’s probably what Ginny liked best about it.

The imperfections made it perfect to her.

I can practically hear Jack laughing at me for trying to act like a gentleman.

When Ginny spreads the drawings out over the round quarter sawn oak table and bends over, her floral skirt tightening around her perfectly round ass, Jack’s tone shifts in my head to a low warning growl.

I want to flip him off, but in reality, I never would have done that. If Ginny was his in any way, she never would have been mine. But Jack isn’t here. That changes something, even if it’s not everything.

She finds the drawing she wants and holds it up. The porch juts off the house in the picture, a straight line with a sturdy roof, a neat set of stairs, and a tidy railing on either side. “I thought something like this would be great. It’s practical.”

She sounds disappointed in her choice, though her face gives nothing away.

“Can I see the others?”

She points to the table. “Sure. They’re all there.”

I have to move closer. Move into her orbit. It sounds stupid, but my skin prickles with awareness. It’s more than my dick being harder than a lead pipe. I press it into the edge of the table, so hard that my breath punches out and my stomach churns.

As soon as Ginny moves in, pressing her shoulder up against mine, I know I need the distraction.

I need to pick a design and get outside, out into the open air that doesn’t smell like flowers and fruit. Away from the soft temptation that is scrambling my brain today.

Not just today.

I’ve missed Ginny. She’s been on my mind, in a haunting sort of way.

I couldn’t shut my brain off, and now being so close to her is a new form of torture that I didn’t see coming.

I thought I could handle myself. Control myself.

That the lines I’d mentally drawn would hold up just fine and we could remain on either side of them.

I was wrong.

“I really like this design,” Ginny reaches for a smaller sheet of paper with an image of a wraparound porch that extends to either side of the house.

It’s still basic, still all straight lines and nothing fancy.

“But it’s so much more detailed than this one.

” She sets the page down and crosses her arms. “It’s really up to you.

You’re the one building this. My dad and brother would love to do it for me, but they just don’t have the time.

I told them you would be happy to do it.

Normally, my dad and Gabe are hard to win over, but they like you.

They’re happy there’s one more person in my life who cares about me and this baby.

I…” she glances away, her eyes roving the kitchen.

There’s almost nothing that she hasn’t been brave enough to say to my face, so I find myself bracing.

“I don’t think they would have done that with Jack. Or that he would have wanted it.”

That echoes between us for a minute. I can feel her uncertainty in it.

She doesn’t want to hurt me. “Probably not,” I admit.

“Jack had all the family he wanted in me and the club. He wasn’t ready for anything else.

” I’m not sure that either of us knew what that even looked like.

Some part of us, deep down, might have wanted more, but when you can’t even imagine it, it’s almost a frightening concept.

I pick up the drawing of the porch she wants.

“I can figure this out. It’s not that much bigger than the other.

The roof’s just a bit different and the railing. ”

I want to give her what she wants. I want to make something with my own two hands for her. This will take longer to put together, which means I’ll be out here more. I’m not just doing it for that reason, but if I’m honest, I want that too.

I want more of Ginny’s presence. Her words. Her laughter. Her wisdom. Her sweetness.

How the fuck did I not know life could be missing anything until the night I saw her puking outside? I knew right then, in that very moment, that everything was going to be different.

Ginny’s eyes take on a soft glow that makes the green gold specks in the brown depths glow.

They’re not dark like mine. Hers are an artist’s mix.

“Thank you. I’m going to put something together for dinner in a little bit.

I have some cleaning to do until then, and some organizing, but if you need help, let me know—I’m good with the small stuff. ”

Nothing she does is small.

Or at least, all the small stuff is monumental to me.

I have no idea if she knows it, or if she has any idea how much I appreciate it.

I don’t even fully know. No one likes change.

People want to feel safe in who they are, but it’s becoming clearer to me that the person I was before wasn’t safe.

I thought I was home, but being entrenched in something, in the middle of it, doesn’t make a place home.

It doesn’t make people truly yours if you don’t know yourself and you’re not giving anything back.

Loneliness doesn’t have to come from being alone.

I thought that after Jack died, my life was over in just about every way.

I thought I’d be a shell of nothingness.

Jack leaving my life was a new beginning.

I didn’t want it. I still wish he was here beside me with every fiber of my being.

I don’t want to undo how much I’ve changed or the new way I’ve started to think and to see the world.

The only problem is that I’m starting to want something I can never have.

I can’t let family, trust, friendship, and affection turn into anything more.

I roll up the drawing, then arrange my vest carefully over the back of a chair, stroking the leather with reverence. “Sure. I can let you know if I need anything at all.”

As I walk out of the kitchen to give myself space, to march my ass outside to cool the hell down physically and mentally, I know that’s not true. It can’t be anything at all, and I have to make peace with that.