Page 37 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

I lock up her trailer and truck, placing my vest on the backseat to keep it safe. I still feel half naked without it, and paranoid, even if I know it’s going to be fine.

The first few hours are crazy. Just pure chaos.

Ginny handles herself remarkably. She’s efficient, handling money and getting clients paper bags for their purchases.

She tallies things with a speed that makes me dizzy.

I resort to doing the bagging for her so that she can take the money and answer any questions.

After the rush is over, it’s mostly just stragglers. Many booths are mostly empty, including ours, if I can go so far as to call it that. Ours for today.

All the vegetables are gone, and all the baking. The jars of anything pickled are long, long gone. There are a few different kinds of jams and some straggler other preserves, but it’s slim pickings.

Ginny apologizes and encourages people to keep checking in the coming weeks, as they’ll have lots more vegetables ready.

I’m not exactly known for bright ideas, but in the first ten minutes of actually getting to sit in a chair beside Ginny and make sure she’s drinking water and nibbling on a homemade granola bar, something pops into my head.

“Have you ever thought about doing hampers on a by order basis?”

Her nose wrinkles adorably, but not in a shit, that’s such a terrible idea that it literally stinks kind of way. “Like, how so?”

“People in Hart, or even in this place, could order them. You could fill the orders once a week, or once every two weeks. You could use your truck and the trailer, if needed, to deliver. That way, people could get exactly what they wanted, and they could either pick up from the market or have it delivered. In Hart, I could get the club involved with delivery. They could hand out the flyers too, or make a post somewhere.”

“I- I’m not sure. It’s- yeah. Maybe.”

“I just thought, you wouldn’t be entirely dependent on having to do the markets.

” She knows I’m talking about the old woman who nearly tore me a new asshole when I arrived.

She could cancel Ginny if she wanted to, and it sounds like she’s the kind of person who would do just that because she gets her nasty old rocks off on a power trip of that sort.

“And when the baby comes, it might be easier for you and your mom to do that instead of the markets. If she can’t do them by herself, or if you can’t find anyone else to help you.

You could make a website and have your clientele built up by next season. ”

“We do orders for berries and apples. Berries are coming up. Raspberries and saskatoons. The apple trees always have a good crop. We bring some to the markets, but it’s easier doing orders and dropping them off or bringing them and having people come pick up here.”

“I just thought, lots of people in Hart don’t have gardens, and I remember you saying that this place, it’s pretty much the same.

The club would be happy to help you organize it.

You could include baking too, in the off months, and preserves.

Or just one with bread and buns, or cookies.

Whatever you think you could reasonably do. ”

Ginny runs her finger in a circle over the gray plastic table. She won’t meet my eye, which means that she hates the whole concept and has no idea how to tell me, or she feels bad about something. I hate the way her shoulders slump.

“Anyway…” I exhale too loudly. “It’s just a thought. Something you might want to discuss with your family, but you don’t have to. Don’t worry. I’m used to people thinking my ideas are shit.”

Her head snaps up, eyes blazing like she wants to make me apologize for being mean to myself. The way she looks at me… it’s a cramp in my stomach and an immediate hard-on under the table. No one else has ever looked at me that way.

“I should just be working online,” she admits, guilt etched into her face. “I should be teaching English. Why did I get a degree if I’m not even going to use it? Do you know how much money my parents spent sending me to college, paying for an apartment, all my groceries, my car—everything.”

“I can imagine it wasn’t cheap.”

She nods emphatically. “You’d be right.”

“Ginny. I don’t think they’d ever see it as a waste.

You shouldn’t either—and besides that, you’re helping them out right now, it’s not like you’re going off and doing something frivolous with your time.

Anyway, you could do both, if you wanted to.

You’re smart like that. Probably the smartest person I know. ”

She laughs humorlessly. I expect the line about me not having met many people, because she’s self-deprecating and humble like that, but that’s not what comes out.

“A smart person wouldn’t have hurt you.” My jaw practically bangs open.

I know I’m doing cartoon style gaping at her, but I can’t stop.

Her hand moves under the table. We’re sitting side by side on two folding chairs.

Five minutes in, my ass went numb, but there was no way I was standing up.

I like sitting beside Ginny.

Like her scent, her nearness, her sugary sweetness, her beauty, her laughter, her everything . After so many days of not seeing her, I couldn’t bring myself to be further away, even if it was just an extra few feet of distance.

Her pinkie finger skims over the back of my hand.

“I’m sorry, Zeppelin. I have experience with men, but no experience with any sort of relationship.

I didn’t know what we were doing. I didn’t know what I wanted.

I spoke without thinking, because sometimes I can be insensitive and tone deaf and all around dumb.

I don’t know what’s happening between us, but I know I want you in my life.

Definitely in the baby’s life. That’s never going to change.

I just… need time, I think. To figure things out.

Maybe we should just be careful in the future, to make sure we know what we both want?

We can talk it out together. I don’t like hurting you.

I don’t like knowing that I did. I don’t like how that hurts me. ”

It’s not the response I wanted, but I know it’s the one we need.

I knew that we’d have to take a step back.

How could we take one forward? I don’t believe in the right people at the wrong time.

I don’t even believe in the wrong people at the wrong time.

I don’t know that I believe in any people at any time.

Ginny’s never done relationships, and I’ve never had anything more than a one night stand. She’s way ahead of me in every way. I need to catch up. I need to decide what I truly want as well. After Jack, I’m coming around to the idea that I have no fucking idea.

I just know that this is what I’ve been missing.

Ginny.

“I’m sorry too,” I breathe. I scrub my other hand down my face, running it over my beard.

“I didn’t mean to react that way. I don’t know why I did, but then it was done, and I didn’t know what to say.

I’m having… trouble. With everything. I’m lonely, I’m suffocating, I’m drowning, and then the next minute, it’s all too close, and too much.

But that’s a me problem. It has nothing to do with you. ”

“I confused you though, and I said something that I never should have. I won’t banish you from my life, Zep.

Not ever.” Her eyes are so big, so wet, so luminous and huge.

“I do have feelings for you, but I don’t know what they are.

I don’t know if they’re friendly or romantic, or what.

I need time to figure that out. I- I think you might too.

I’m not trying to speak for you, but you’ve been through a lot of change.

We both have. I just want to get to some kind of point where things have flatlined into a semblance of normalcy so we can honestly look at ourselves and know what’s going on.

Truly. Not just what we think we might be feeling,” she pauses.

The silence is so loaded, it’s like there’s not a whole market going on around us.

“Does that make sense?” I want to nod, but I’m frozen.

Her finger nudges against mine. “We’ll get it figured out.

I swear.” She locks it in by twisting her finger completely around mine and squeezing. A pinkie promise.

I’ve never done one.

That would have involved having an actual childhood.

I want that for Jack’s baby. For Ginny’s. For mine, in a way. A proper childhood with people who have their shit together.

Which involves me getting mine in order. Somehow.

I squeeze Ginny’s finger right back and give her a tight smile. Nothing has ever taken more strength than that small gesture. It’s a silent pact, at least on my end.

“We’ll figure it out,” I repeat, but my voice isn’t hollow. I’m not just parroting. I don’t think I can deny what I already know to be true, but everything she’s said is wise. I know she one hundred percent meant that apology down to her soul.

This is me accepting it, and everything else that Ginny has to offer right now.

It might not be everything I want, but do I even know what that is?

And what do I have to offer her in return?

She wants to be a whole person. To understand herself.

To know herself. She wants to have something to offer back if what felt right when it was happening for us ever feels right again in the future.

That’s the wisdom part coming into play.

I hope that with time, I can figure out what I have to offer myself, and what I might possibly have to offer her in return.