Page 34 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

I roll my eyes, falling back on hard truths to try and make the situation so uncomfortable that we can’t continue talking about it. It’s a strategy that’s worked for me in the past. “At least no one’s treated me like I’m made of fucking glass yet. That’s nice.”

“You can hurt and not be brittle.”

The fire snaps and sends up a shower of sparks into the darkness.

A few of the guys hoot and holler around it.

Tyrant stands up in the middle of the fray.

I’d bet everything I have that it’s five minutes to ten.

He’s going to excuse himself to his tent and go talk with Lark quietly for half an hour before he comes back.

Most of us don’t crawl off into our tents until one or two.

There’s some discreet drinking around the fire late into the night, but nothing rowdy.

Tyrant also doesn’t want us causing a ruckus in the campgrounds.

They might be mostly empty during the week, but he doesn’t want anything that would give our club the kind of reputation that some have. That’s always been important to him.

There’s a real difference between not caring what other people think and caring what he himself thinks, and it’s the latter.

He doesn’t expect anyone to be perfect, but drunk brawls, wrecking someone else’s property, or being too hungover to ride the next day would only have us shaming ourselves.

This ride is about coming together as a club.

It’s about brotherhood. It’s not about getting pissed up and acting like a bunch of fucking assholes.

It’s like being at home. At the clubhouse, we drink and smoke a bunch of weed, but there aren’t any hard drugs allowed.

No disrespecting any women. No beating the shit out of each other.

Being in the club isn’t an excuse to turn into a demon.

It’s about taming them so we can thrive in the dark and maybe one day, venture into the light.

“Who’s that friend you were asking for?” I snark Carver after Tyrant wanders off into the back of the large campsite. We have several adjoining, but with all the tents spread out all over, it seems more like one huge one.

“You know who I’m asking for. You’ve been a part of this club for a long time, from what I understand, but you were never close with anyone but your brother.”

“We were close with everyone equally. We didn’t bother with besties.”

I glance pointedly at Dravin, sitting beside Wizard. Their faces aren’t just illuminated by the fire, but by the phones they’re currently sharing between them. Wizard was convinced to come on this ride—his first in a long time—but he checks those phones almost neurotically.

Carver doesn’t lose his patience, but he does give up on turning into my new BFF.

“Look. Ginny’s my woman’s little sister.

She might be younger than Bronte, but she’s got her own beat she marches to just fine.

That’s not to say she’s wild, but she’s always been perfectly comfortable in her ways.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen her uncertain of herself.

I mean that in the best way. I thought you should know. ”

He rises, walking off to join Dravin because they have a bromance going on.

I don’t mean seriously. I’m just being a douchebag because if I’m not being a dickhead, who am I?

Dravin was there for Carver when he desperately needed someone.

He’s young, but he’s a good man. He endured hell growing up, similar to what I went through.

He’s only talked a little about the abuse, but I’ve heard a few things from Dravin in passing as well.

Carver used to hide out on this run-down piece of land not far from Bronte and Ginny’s parents’ place.

From what I gather, he’d never been the most outgoing of people, but after the accident that left him disfigured, he became even more reclusive.

Dravin helped him get to Hart and see the club’s doctor, who happens to be a plastic surgeon.

He took care of him after, letting Carver stay at his place instead of going back to that rural hellhole.

When Carver wanted to stay in Hart, Dravin helped him and Bronte find a place for their little family.

Honestly? They’re both good guys. I’ll just never not give them shit the same way I do everyone else in this club.

Again, that’s my role, isn’t it?

I don’t feel like getting buzzed tonight. The first night out, I drank more whiskey than I should have. Riding the next day hungover as fuck while pretending not to be, wasn’t my idea of fun.

Even if I had planned on getting hammered and reliving the old times, the mood is decidedly ruined for me after Carver’s comment.

He dropped it so offhanded, but it was anything but.

I rise from the stump, resisting the urge to beat life back into my sore ass. After sitting on a bike all day, parking it on that hard log was a bad choice. Don’t get me started on the fact that they seem to be my forte.

I set off for my tent without a backwards glance for the men behind me.

No one tries to stop me from leaving. They probably all assume I’ll be back.

Lately, I’ve been fine with being on the periphery of things.

Not that I was ever the life of the party, but I was definitely involved when Jack was around.

We’d feed off each other’s energy, matching each other story for story, getting louder and louder and probably more and more obnoxious with each tale.

Like Carver hinted at, the guys want to give me time.

They don’t expect me to be myself anytime soon.

Maybe ever again. They’ll accept any new version of me, even if that me is quiet and likes to sit in the background.

The bikes are all clustered together in a group in the middle campsite, but the tents are scattered between the three we have rented.

I chose a semi-flat spot in the heart of a small cluster of trees.

The tent is tiny, especially with me inside of it.

I don’t have room to do anything other than slip into my sleeping bag and stuff the uncomfortable travel pillow under my head.

It’s like using a facecloth as a towel, but fuck it.

Nothing a little cracking my neck in the morning can’t fix.

I toe off my boots while lying down, though it takes some work to loosen them up before they pop off.

I inch out of my jeans, careful not to put an elbow or my head through the canvas or bring down the tent around me.

It already feels like a death trap. If it wasn’t for the thin canvas, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t be in this contraption without suffocating, but the night air and the sounds of the woods and the guys by the fire drift in, so I don’t have to talk myself down.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I have it turned off except for a few moments before bed. I didn’t want to be attached to it on this trip. Not that I normally am, but…

Okay. Fuck. Fine.

I didn’t want to keep checking it to see if Ginny had texted, only to be disappointed that she hadn’t.

Shit like that isn’t a great way to start the day. I have enough to feel hollow about before I go to bed as it is. Every single morning, I wake up with the knowledge that life has irrevocably changed. There’s no going back. This just is what it is now without Jack.

Ginny was a bright spot in all of that.

Not a bandage over a wound. I wasn’t using her to make up for anything or to fill the holes that life carved into me.

I honestly have no idea where we’re at.

It’s been almost two weeks since that night at the clubhouse.

I miss her. I want to fix this. Even if I didn’t have the emotional intelligence of a dog turd, I don’t know how I would do that.

I didn’t know if she was ready. If I was.

I didn’t know how to take the mess in my head and untwist it into something usable.

I have no idea what’s going on with me. I thought I should figure that out before I tried to solve whatever it was going on with us , in any sense of that word.

I still don’t know what I’m going to say, but it’s time to do something .

With Carver’s words pretty much sculpted into my damn gray matter, I power my phone on.

The reception is shit out here in the middle of nowhere, and it takes a few minutes for the messages and texts to catch up.

Not that there are many. The guys are all out here, so they have no reason to send me anything, and I don’t have friends outside the club.

Know people? Yes. Friends? I would say that even using that term on my club brothers is pushing it by definition of the word.

How sad is that?

I need to do better.

No idea how, but I want to.

In this tent, lying on my back, staring at the thin blue canvas blocking my view of the stars above, but not the dappled outline of dancing leaves and other errant shadows, listening to the hearty laughter and lowered voices from the campfire mingling with the shrill whine of mosquitoes and other insects outside, I get a burst of something I can’t quite call inspiration.

It’s the nebulous, unfathomable desire to just do more. Be more. Figure out who the hell I even am. Starting now.

I swipe my phone back on, the light so bright that it burns my eyes. I’m about to power it off immediately, but a little red notification over the text icon stops me.

I suck in a breath and open it.

Ginny: I went for my first doctor’s appointment today.

They’re going to book me in for a scan. I’ll let you know the date when they call me.

The doctor gave me some pills for morning sickness, but I took a few and they made me super out of it.

I don’t know who can take them and still function. I’ll figure it out, though.

Her text might be succinct to the point of obligatory, but she’s not obligated.

She didn’t have to send that. She didn’t have to tell me anything at all.

She could have waited until I got back, but instead she gave me this in real time.

There’s nothing fancy about it, or anything but facts, but it still means the world.

I wonder if she was nervous? Was she thinking about Jack when she went in there?

About her life now? About life that she’s growing?

About me? Did she go to Seattle for the appointment?

Did her sister or her mom go with her? Did they go home after, her to that asshole of a house without plumbing and electricity?

Have her dad and brother done work there for her?

Built the porch that I should have been doing?

Replaced those windows I promised I’d also do?

I want to be out here on this ride, but I also want to be where Ginny is.

I can’t say with her. I have no idea how to be the kind of man she’d deserve, especially when she’s made it clear she doesn’t see me that way. Does she? She made it clear that she didn’t, but after what Carver said tonight, I’m not so certain.

Change is inevitable, but change isn’t growth.

I want to grow . Grow into the change and surpass it.

I’m not ashamed of being the kind of man who was gut punched to the point of total shutdown at Ginny’s words that night at the clubhouse, but I want to be the kind of man who gets his head on straight and can actually communicate why it blindsided me and why it hurt like a lethal blow.

I don’t understand much of what’s going on with me right now, but I do know one thing.

I want to be anywhere but here and right here all at once. I want Jack back more than I want to breathe. I undeniably want more from a woman who doesn’t want me the same way.

It feels like I’ve never been more alone in my life, even though I know that I’m technically not.

I power my phone off because I don’t know how to respond.

It’s a problem I’ll save for the morning.

Maybe by then the words will be there in my brain, ready and accessible.

Probably not. If they haven’t come yet, I doubt they’ll appear by magic for me.

Who the fuck knows, though. Stranger things have happened.

Like my whole damn life.