Page 35 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

Ginny

I know that I have zero right to ask for a favor from Zeppelin. We’re not on favor terms. We’re hardly even on speaking terms.

I texted him the first week the club left on their ride, after leaving the doctor’s office with my mom, Bronte, and Ellie.

We had a girls’ day in Seattle, taking some rare time just for us.

I tried to be focused and present during lunch and the thrift shops and antique stores we went to after.

It was pretty much my dream day filled with everything I love to do, but something was missing.

It was like I’d ordered my favorite meal, but the ingredient that makes it so good wasn’t there. Almost , but not quite.

That’s how I’d sum up the last few weeks. A whole lot of almost moments. Every time something was just about right, I’d get a shiver, or that hollow in the pit of my stomach and in my chest would ache strangely.

I kept reasoning that I couldn’t be feeling phantom pain for a limb I never had in the first place.

Zeppelin was the one who wanted into my life. I never asked him to be there.

We slept together once. So what?

There’s nothing that I can’t do without him.

I have plenty of people to fill up my life. I have purpose.

I don’t need a partner. I’ve never needed one. I’m perfectly fine going through my life as a proud, independent, single woman. I can fulfill myself. I can make myself happy. I’m a hard worker. I’m smart and capable. There’s nothing I can’t figure out, including how to raise a child.

But just… shit .

My previous situations worked because they were low key.

There was no risk and no significant investment of myself.

They were mutually beneficial to people who both knew they didn’t want strings and a mess.

I told myself I was perfectly happy, and maybe I was at the time, but looking back on it over these past few weeks, I can see what was missing.

That spark that people are always talking about, writing about, freaking singing about.

I believe in that for some people, like my parents, but I don’t think that you can just fall.

You can’t catch it. You have to work at it.

You have to decide on it and claim it. I’ve always just been friends.

I don’t know how to do more. I’ve had a clear mind about that until Zeppelin.

These past few weeks, I’ve missed him.

I’ve thought about him endlessly.

I’ve offered up every excuse I can, gave myself those cold hard facts, told myself repeatedly that mantra about being strong and independent and clear minded.

It’s not true.

The truth is, whatever happened between us might have been brief, but it was there.

It was real. It’s been building, compounding.

It’s inherently more intimate than any friendship, and that scares me, but I’ve had to take a hard look at that fear and now I can admit that I’m afraid to make the wrong move. I’m afraid to make the right one.

Zeppelin’s been back for two days but we still haven’t seen each other face to face.

The rigid, almost clinical texts we’ve sent sporadically, combined with everything that’s happened and all my deep dive soul searching about it, are good reasons not to contact Zeppelin until I know what I want to say. Until I have a plan.

My mom threw her back out yesterday and thought she’d be better by this morning.

I don’t know why I let her convince me she’d be okay.

I didn’t really believe her. She wasn’t able to do anything today.

Gabe did most of the chores for her and he helped me get everything together for the market tomorrow, but weekends are busy and though he’d like to be able to help me do the market, there’s just no way he can miss an entire day of farming right when it needs to be done most. Everything is seeded, but there’s spraying to do.

I have no choice but to either do it myself alone or call in help.

I could ask Bronte, but she’s so happy that Dom is finally home. She missed him so much. Ellie did too. I don’t want to ask her to take time to drive all the way out here first thing in the morning and then go to the market with me all day, pack up, drive back here, then go back to Hart.

I can’t imagine setting everything up myself. It takes my mom and I hours, and that’s when we’re rushing and working ourselves to near exhaustion. I’ll never be ready on time. It’s not like I can show up early and just get ready. There’s a specific window for arrival and for takedown after.

I’ve been trying to peptalk myself up to this all day.

I left it so long, going back and forth, that now I’m sitting in my kitchen with an oil lamp lit like I’m in the eighteen hundreds, drinking down the last of a cup of mint tea.

It’s unbearably hot because I had to heat up the stove to make dinner.

I cranked the windows up, but most of them don’t have screens, and now mosquitoes whine around the top of the ceiling, dropping down to try to take bites out of me every couple minutes, and a few moths congregate around the tall glass chimney of the lamp, bumping against it and batting their wings furiously.

It’s going to be hell to try to sleep tonight.

It’s going to be hell trying to get through tomorrow. A shit show of epic proportions.

Unless…

I close my eyes, chug back the rest of my tea, and reach for my phone.

I’m decided. I’m going to do this. We haven’t been silent with each other, but what we’ve been doing has gone on long enough. I’ll suck up my pride and break first. This isn’t even about pride. Texting Zeppelin is me admitting that I need him.

Not just tomorrow.

Not just for this house, or for friendship, or for the baby.

Before I can overthink it- okay, I’ve already overthought the shit out of it- I pick up my phone and type a text and hit send.

Me: Hey, I know you just got back, and this is a big ask even if you’re not exhausted already.

My mom hurt her back and isn’t going to be able to do the market with me tomorrow.

I can’t ask Bronte or my brother to help, and I was wondering if you could?

I’d really appreciate it. If you can’t, or you’re busy, it’s not a big deal.

I just thought that I’d ask. Thanks. Ginny.

I reread the text a dozen times before I give a disgusted snort and set my phone face down on the battered farmhouse table. Could I have made that any more awkward? The thanks, and my name at the end pretty much sealed that deal.

He might not even read it. He might not even have his phone turned on.

I could tell that when he was on the road, he didn’t, because my texts never read delivered, sometimes for whole days at a time.

If he didn’t read it, that wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

Maybe I don’t want him to. I shouldn’t have texted. Shit. Fuck. Ugh.

My internal meltdown comes to a screeching halt when my phone dings.

I swat a particularly enthusiastic mosquito out of my face and reach for it.

I’m going to have to do something to clear this house out, or I’ll wake up chewed half to death.

My arms are already a mess of bites and my legs are no better, just from sitting here in a t-shirt and cutoff shorts.

Zeppelin: Could I meet you there?

My heart stutter stops and my stomach flips. My hands are suddenly so clammy they’re wet against my phone. My fingers move woodenly over the screen.

Me: Sure.

It takes me a minute, but I drop a pin for the location and include the start and end times.

Zeppelin: Thanks.

A minute passes, then my phone dings again.

Zeppelin: Unless you want me to come there and drive with you? Are you still sick in the morning? I want you to be safe.

It’s not just my heart and my hands. It’s my eyes that get in on the action.

My chest, my throat. Everything constricts and gets waterlogged.

I have to make peace with the fact that I’ve become a crier.

It’s mostly hormones, and I’ve given up getting annoyed about it.

But it’s a little bit extra . He cares. I know that he cares, but seeing him lay it out like that after all these weeks of near silence hits me hard.

Me: I am, but I’ll get up early so I can get it over with before I leave. I’ll be okay. That seems to work.

Zeppelin: Okay. See you tomorrow.

Me: Thank you. I seriously appreciate it.

Me: More than I can say.

Zeppelin: Yeah. No problem.

I wait for a few minutes, but he leaves it at that. Should I leave it too?

I set my phone down and decide to deal with the mosquitoes in the house so that I’m not tempted to do something like text him back.

My brain still pounds it out for the whole forty minutes that it takes me to hunt down, swat, and slap the asshole insects. I cycle through it all, despite my attempted distraction. Everything from apprehension to near elation. I’d like to pick a spot to fall in between, but it’s not happening.

Finally, I head to bed. I’m afraid my thoughts won’t stop racing.

I missed a few mosquitoes, and their whine is so annoying that I know I’m going to have to get up and deal with it or they’ll keep me up all night, but I’m so exhausted that I need just another minute.

It turns into another and another, until, for the first time in weeks, I fall asleep relatively quickly.