Page 23 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

He stuffs a few more bites into his mouth.

He doesn’t look up, but I have the impression that he’s embarrassed about admitting something like that.

I find it sweet. It’s so him . “I don’t know if Jack was sold on the idea, but I worked on him.

I wanted to buy two bikes and ride them all the way from Edmonton down into California and then onto Latin America.

See the world. See how people lived. We didn’t have a proper sense of danger.

Not just because we were young and thought we were invincible, but because of how we’d grown up.

I guess I did have a hunger for learning.

Just not from books. I wanted to experience it.

Taste it. Memorize it. Have it running through my blood.

That was the only high I ever wanted to chase. ”

“How did you end up in Hart?”

He snorts, but it turns into a sharp bark of laughter with real humor in it.

“After all this time, I can laugh at how fate or life or whatever it is out there, decides for us,” he explains.

“Our bikes broke down there. We had to find a shop. It was owned by Satan’s Angels.

Long story short, we got our introduction to the club that way.

We were looking for freedom, but underneath all that, we were looking for a place to call home, I guess.

Hart was as good as anything else. Riding with a club, I figured we’d see our fair share of the world anyway.

We were twenty by then. We’d saved for years for those bikes and to put enough money aside to take years off to ride.

I don’t know that Jack was sold on the idea of the club either, but he could see that I was.

I always had a best friend with me. I was never alone.

Me and Jack, we looked after each other. ”

I watch him carefully. I force myself to eat the last of the toast, but I keep my focus on him as I chew.

He’s losing control. I should tear my eyes away, but it’s hard to look anywhere else.

His husky voice is just the first warning.

I refuse to let him think that emotions are a weakness or that they’re not masculine.

I was taught that it’s okay for anyone and everyone to feel .

To grieve, to laugh, to need to vent, to be crushed, to pick yourself up.

What was Zeppelin ever taught past survival?

“You know what I think?” I fold my hands in front of my plate.

“That you enjoy pushing people’s buttons.

I thought at first that it was just a way to shield yourself.

Shelter in place. Some of it is a protective mechanism, but you’re also naturally good at making people uncomfortable.

” I keep my voice gentle. I’m making a statement, not an accusation, and there’s room for me to be wrong.

I’m worried he’ll take it the wrong way, but he smiles wryly.

“I do push people past what they can usually handle, I’ll admit. I like that you can explain to me why I do it.”

“People might not like being outside of that zone, but that’s where all the real thinking happens. It’s where change comes from. If everyone is too afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, they’ll never do anything and they’ll always be silent.”

He shakes his head, eyes crinkling at the corners. There were no lines there despite the early morning and rude wrenching from bed. I’m not sure that he believes me, but at least he’s giving me that ghost of a smile as he concentrates and processes.

He scoops up the last piece of bacon then refills his mug with the last of the coffee from the press. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can,” I say as I lean forward over the table, the tension is his voice cutting through me. This isn’t going to be something funny. The intensity of his gaze has banished all humor. He’s stripped this truth down and he’s about to give it to be unvarnished.

“When Jack died… when I first heard he was gone, I- it wasn’t just disbelief that took root in me.

It was something worse. Far blacker. A ledge that I wanted to step off of so I could go with him.

He promised that he’d never leave me behind.

He promised . But here I am, without a clue how I’m supposed to just get on with it. ”

His admission doesn’t scare me or even surprise me, except that it’s so inflamed as a wound, and deeper than I was prepared for.

“Honestly, Zep, I think that’s natural. If you were just okay after losing your brother, that would be the most alarming part.

It’s natural to question why we’re here, and when our world gets rocked, what we’re going to do.

You don’t have to heal from loss immediately.

You don’t have to heal ever. The best we can be in this world is kind, and the most we can do is try our best. Life will hurt us, chip away at us, and leave scars.

You don’t have to pretend to be anything you’re not. Not- not with me, you don’t.”

His stare started off blank and controlled, but gradually, he dropped that.

I don’t think it was his choice to. It just happened because he couldn’t keep the shields up any longer.

I don’t want him to have to respond to that.

It wasn’t about getting a response. It was about reassurance.

He probably hasn’t ever told anyone about this.

He chose to open up to me. That trust is monumental.

It rocks me. How is it possible to know someone for such a short amount of time and already feel as though I can come just as I am?

There are people I’ve known since school that I consider friends, as well as my good friends from college. Honestly? I’m not that close with any of them. I wouldn’t trust them with those parts of me.

The only people I’ve truly ever trusted like that are my mom and Bronte.

This might be the most honest conversation I’ve had outside of my family without even realizing that I was doing it.

And that? That’s not true. This was Zeppelin’s honesty.

It wasn’t about my hard truths. I haven’t even begun to process what those are.

I wasn’t aware I had any to sort through.

My most open moment? Last night in the cellar.

This morning in Zeppelin’s arms after he picked me up, bathed me, and wrapped me in a blanket like he’s the one who’s a natural born caregiver.

I want to give him a minute with this, but maybe I need the same thing. “Just hold on,” I tell him before I push back from the table and disappear upstairs.

There’s no urgency, so he doesn’t follow this time.

The floorboards creak under my feet as I go to the nearly empty spare room.

The only thing I do have set up in here are a few bookcases that my dad and Gabe moved from the house.

I packed all my books up and they were nice enough to lug every single box up here for me and unpack them for me.

The floor in here is extra squeaky. When I find what I’m looking for and walk a few paces, the house gives me away with its soft squeals and sighs.

The wooden steps complain far more vociferously as I come back down.

Zeppelin glances with interest at what I have in my hands. I set it down on the table next to my unfinished breakfast. He whistles at the size of it. “Is that a dictionary?”

I can see how he’d think that, given that it’s a vintage edition with a blue leather cover and gold embossing on the front and all along the spine.

“I think you’ll enjoy this. You can relate to so many of the stories.”

I pass it across the table.

Dickens. Collected Works.

“I thought I told you I was illiterate.”

“Yeah, but I know you’re just joking.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever read a full book in my life.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“And this is the first thing you give me? Something that looks as though it would take seven lifetimes to complete?” He tries to sound appalled, but he still runs his fingers over the embossing on the cover almost reverently.

“You know, we might be a club of bikers, but the amount of times I’ve heard Ancient Rome and Greek myths mentioned, Shakespeare, Dickens, and the lot, just proves how abnormal we are. ”

“If you’re still planning on building that porch today, I wouldn’t mind sitting in the shade and reading to you. I’d offer more help than that, but I know you’ll refuse. The entertainment is the least I can do.’

“If you want to do that, sure you can.”

He keeps it light, like I’m imposing on him and he’d be doing me a favor by allowing it and by listening, but I know that’s just his way of teasing me.

It’s my way of being there for him. Of picking him off the floor, of washing him up, of being his safety blanket of warmth and friendship, of holding him when he needs it most. The lines might be blurring, but screw the lines.

We can be here for each other when we need it most. That’s the human thing to do.

And even if it’s more than that, we don’t have to admit it right now.

There’s still time to figure it out.

For today, we can just be two people who keep each other company, who enjoy each other’s presence, and who maybe even need each other.