Page 20 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

She climbs into the tub and crouches down, hugging her knees to her chest. She’s so small in there. There’s no chance that I’d fit, but the way she curls into herself leaves extra space.

I find a plastic cup in one of the cupboards and dip it into the water, bathing her shoulders and neck, letting the water cascade over her chest. She sighs and tips her head back, closing her eyes so I can rinse her hair.

After she tells me where to find her cosmetic bag upstairs in her bedroom, I bring that down, along with a floral backpack that has her shampoo and other hair products.

I wet her long hair and then kneel down behind the tub and guide her head back so I can shampoo it. It’s a process and a half. I have no idea how she’d manage on her own. I hope that in the future, she showers at her parents’ house as much as possible just to save her the ordeal.

After I wash the shampoo out, I massage conditioner in, lightly kneading her scalp until she whimpers repeatedly, but not in the bad way she was doing before.

“I’ll leave that for a minute. Can I go get you fresh pajamas and a towel?”

She nods, blinking through water starred lashes, wearing a forlorn expression.

She was wrung out already, but the bath is taking even more out of her.

She needs calories. She’s probably dehydrated.

As soon as I get her dry, I’m going to try and get her to eat and drink something, even if it’s only a few sips of water and some crackers.

“They’re in my dresser. Third drawer down. The towels are in the closet in the hallway with the extra blankets.”

“Okay. Don’t try and rinse that out without me.”

“I won’t,” she laughs humorlessly. “I don’t even want to move right now. Sometimes it’s best just to stay absolutely still and breathe through the nausea.”

I squeeze her shoulder in a shitty show of solidarity, hating that I can’t do anything for her.

I’m about as useless as it gets when it comes to making her feel better.

I can do the little things, and I’ll do them the best I can.

Like getting her clean, dry, wrapped in a blanket, and settled somewhere with a mug of mint tea and some crackers.

Upstairs, I get out another fluffy pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, then grab a towel and a worn patchwork quilt from the closet in the hall.

I’ve been going back and forth in my head for weeks now. I know that my being here is basically a contradiction. If Jack were alive, he wouldn’t be doing this right now. If he was alive, I wouldn’t either, because of that pact we made.

Jack would have taken Ginny at her word. If she said she was fine, if she told him she had this, if she said she didn’t need any help—he would have let her be. He wouldn’t have pressed. He wouldn’t have inserted himself into her life.

Did he respect her? I think he did. When he talked about her, it was with obvious affection, but also obvious friendship . It never would have been more than that.

All I wanted to do was fill my brother’s shoes, but this turned into something else.

I’m not just standing in my brother’s place.

I’m my own person with my own thoughts and feelings.

I have space to find who and what that is.

Not that I wanted it. Not that Jack was responsible for smothering me.

I just didn’t do that before, when he was there to occupy that space in my life, in my head, in my chest.

I’m not trying to fill that hole with Ginny.

Maybe, at first, subconsciously I was, but in a very short time, that’s grown and changed.

I’ve changed . I’ve aged two decades in the past two weeks.

I’ve grown up. I thought that holding my brother’s child would be the most precious gift in the world.

I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to create a world and a life for that child to come into, at least on my part, where he or she was entirely safe, where I could give that baby everything they’d ever want or need in every way, on every level.

It’s not just the baby that’s precious. It’s Ginny.

It’s her tears and her feelings, her closeness, her vulnerability, her openness, and her trust. She shared her body in the cellar, but she’s sharing something else with me by letting me see her this way.

Something I suspect she hasn’t given to anyone before, even in small pieces.

Downstairs, I set my armload on the kitchen table, then take up my position behind her again. I help her tilt her head back as I rinse her hair. I notice how tepid the water has gone.

“Do you want me to add more hot water?”

“No. I want to get out.”

I keep rinsing, trying to get the conditioner and the remaining suds from before out of her hair, but there’s a lot of everything. Soap and hair, and very little clean water.

“Are you sure that this is normal? You’re not sick? You don’t have food poisoning?” We ate the same meal last night, but I’m worried about her lack of proper refrigeration.

“It feels like really bad food poisoning sometimes, but mornings are the worst. I count this as morning, I guess. We’re just about there.

” She’s right. The sun is already up, coming through the kitchen window like diluted watercolors in butter yellow with a hint of orange below.

“The rest of the time, it’s just a spinning stomach and rocky guts. ”

“You’re going to get dehydrated or lose weight and you’re already thin. Can you get something from the doctor? They must make something that’s safe to take.”

“I- I don’t know. I could ask I guess.”

I keep rinsing, talking over the scoop and splash. “You need to stop working yourself so hard. I’ve never seen someone be sick like that.”

“I don’t think there’s a correlation, but it’s gross, I’m sorry.”

“That’s not the point. I’m worried .”

I stop scooping water and get up to grab the towel. When I turn around to scoop her hair up in it, I find her studying me. She’s the one who’s naked, but I’ve never felt so stripped down.

“Okay, I’ll make an appointment,” she whispers, softening at my wounded confession. “I was going to do that anyway.”

“When do you go for your scans?”

“I’ll ask the doctor. I think they refer you, or maybe you book it yourself.”

“Do you have insurance? If you don’t, I could marry you so that you’re covered.” It’s a dumb thing to say. I don’t want to ask her if she’s seen the doctor yet, or if she’s put it off.

I don’t want to make her feel like she’s not doing enough.

I already suggested that she stop doing all the hard work, and I know that’s not practical.

That’s her job. I never meant to imply that she’d hurt the baby doing it, and I know she knows that.

I just hate seeing her like this and right now, I can’t imagine her putting in a whole day at a market or doing labor intensive work.

“What the hell, Zeppelin!” she snorts, coming back to herself at last. “I have insurance. My dad pays for us all. The farm is set up under a corporation, and he made sure that we’re all good.”

“Okay.” It’s mortifying that I’m so red. My face might as well be getting grilled on that stovetop. “I just wanted to check. Having a baby can be expensive if you didn’t. It was a strictly platonic offer.” Tacking that onto the end only makes me feel like more of an idiot.

Ginny has mercy on me and stands so that I can wrap the towel around her.

She stays that way, dripping into the tub before she steps out onto the wide plank wood floor and lets me help her get dressed.

I wrap the towel around her hair after. It’s so long it will probably take hours to dry and I don’t want it to make her cold.

I unfold the blanket and set it around her shoulders.

She hugs it to herself while she watches me pour tea from the teapot.

The thing keeps it super-hot. I was worried it would be cold right now.

I grab the sleeve of crackers and then carry everything to the living room.

Her couch is uncomfortable, something vintage that is more boards and springs than padding and fabric. The end tables and coffee table are interesting to me. I like their shape. I don’t know what decade they came from, but they’re obviously old.

“Mid-century,” Ginny explains, standing by the couch without sitting.

It’s eerie how she gets into my mind like that. “They’re nice.” I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Nice makes me sound like a dumbass.

I sit down, taking up most of the couch, and guide her into my lap. She comes willingly, curling up against me like a stray kitten who was outside on the terrifying streets, cold, wet, hungry and sick, but is finally warm, dry, fed, and loved.

Err… minus the love.

At least as a feeling, and more as an action.

Ginny takes forever to eat a single cracker, but at least she gets one down. Even that is a small win. She sips the tea, nibbles another cracker, sips some more. “We should probably talk about what happened yesterday.”

I knew we’d have to do this. I just don’t know what I want to say, let alone what I’m supposed to come out with. Does she need reassurances? We talked it out before. Sort of. It’s my nature to fall back on humor as a sort of shield. “What happened? I don’t remember anything happening.”

“Zep. Seriously. I was just- it was just hormones. That’s all.”

“If you want to use me for hormonal purposes again, I wouldn’t mind.”

She finishes the cracker and takes the tiniest swallows of tea. “Would that complicate things? Part of me says yes, but part of me feels like…” She shivers. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m supposed to be feeling it.”