Page 40 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

Zeppelin

I ’m an asshole.

I drove home with Ginny to her damn run-down house for hours, and I said nothing. I didn’t want to upset her before the appointment, and I still don’t know how to tell her. That makes me a coward. I know it. I’m not proud of it.

I let her cook eggs and toast for dinner. She made me bacon even though she didn’t want any, and a full press of coffee again. It’s delicious. All of it. Even if I have no appetite because all I can think about is how I’m going to shatter her.

As soon as she got the ultrasound photos, she tore one off carefully and gave it to me. It’s tucked safely into my wallet.

Over the coming months, I’m sure that I’ll take it out and study it, over and over. I’ll remember every detail about this day. I’ll recall every detail of Ginny .

“Is everything okay? You look like you’re the one who’s going to be sick.”

“It’s just hot in here next to the stove. Can we go into the living room to talk?”

A shadow immediately falls over her face, but she pushes it away, forcing a shaky smile. Always so damn brave. “Sure. Yeah. Uh- just let me clean up in here.”

I offer to help, but she refuses. She’s still wearing that dress and sweater I got her.

It’s not really that hot in here, even with the damn woodstove, so she hasn’t taken any of it off.

It fits her beautifully, cupping her hips and breasts perfectly.

The fabric whispers over her skin whenever she moves.

The flowers and the color against her bronzed skin, gorgeous eyes, and long sandy hair give her the appearance of a fairy princess.

I sit at one end of the uncomfortable couch, and she takes the other. She shuffles close, so that her knee almost grazes my thigh.

She’s the kind of woman who deserves the world, which is why I want to give her something of me that is more than the man I’ve portrayed and believed I was for a very long time.

I don’t want to be a fuck boy. I don’t want to be a body with no brain and no soul.

Just muscles. All brawn and testosterone.

A raging meat-headed idiot. I thought for sure that we’d have an expiry date in some way, and that hurt the most. I didn’t realize fully, until she asked for time at the market, that maybe I could be more .

Not just for her, but for myself and the baby too.

I want to be the kind of man I always secretly longed to be.

I want to be someone that I can fall in love with and look up to.

I’m worried about what I have to tell her.

I’ll be leaving her alone, but I know she has her family and her friends.

If I asked the guys at the club, they’d keep an eye on her and even help out with her house if that’s what she needed.

They’d do it for me because I’m a patched-in member, and because even though I’ve kept myself separate in many ways, those men are still my club brothers. They’re family .

“When you said you needed time, it changed something in me. It changed my thoughts and rewired my damn brain and now I feel like it’s working overtime, coming back online after I purposely switched it off for so many years.”

She listens intently, eyes huge and lips pursed, trying to understand what it is that I’m saying and where I’m going with it.

“I’ve been listening to some self-help podcasts. I didn’t tell you, but I have.” Shit. I’m sure that I’m ten thousand degrees of red. “Not just on parenting, but on relationships and… life, I guess.”

“Okay,” she breathes. “That’s a good thing. Are you embarrassed?” She doesn’t wait for a response. “You don’t have to be.”

I dip my head down and grab the back of my neck.

“The one thing I wanted to do with Jack was to go to Latin America.” I can’t maintain eye contact with her.

I have to stare at the floor. If that makes me a coward, then I’m a coward.

I’m not afraid to look at her. I’m not afraid that I’m going to shatter her with this.

She’s strong. I know that she’ll understand.

Maybe it’s me that I’m afraid to see reflected back.

“It wasn’t just for the sake of seeing the country.

It was supposed to be a journey that we made together. ”

The room falls silent when I stop talking. I finally look up and find Ginny biting down on her lower lip. She doesn’t know what to say. She leans just a little bit closer, so this time, our legs do touch. I need that silent solidarity.

“I think- I think that I need to do that. I need to see the world and learn about other cultures, and life, and just… myself. I need to learn how to be alone with myself. I need to be okay with things I’ve never been okay with.

I’ve spent my entire life running away from my thoughts that it’s time I faced them.

” I’m expecting harsh words, a rebuke. I don’t know what.

Maybe have her ask why I can’t do all of this in Hart.

And she’s right, why would I choose now to leave her side to go on some self-discovery journey?

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to.

If I’m going to be any kind of a male role model to the baby, then I need to sort out my shit now, and not after they’re born.

Instead of shouting, Ginny reaches across my lap and takes my hand. She twists her fingers through mine, taking care of me silently the same way I took care of her earlier, at the clinic.

“I need Jack,” I say, my voice gone to gravel.

“He’s not here. He’ll never be here again.

I’m doing this for us, because he never got to follow his dream.

I’m also doing it for me, because I need it.

Because I’m still here, I’m alive, and I want to actually live .

I know you’ll hate me, but I hope that you don’t. I hope you can forgive me.”

She sucks in a breath and hums low in her throat, an injured sound that churns my stomach. “I don’t hate you, Zep. Never.”

All of me heats up at the way she says it.

It floods me with hope, that it might actually be true.

“I can’t just stay and offer you nothing but unrealized potential.

I’m starting to realize I can be more , but I need to get there .

I don’t want to keep you waiting for a man who never materializes.

I need to heal myself before I can help you with anything at all, or be the kind of man a child can look up to. ”

She gapes at me, then swallows loudly. “Have you… uh… been talking to someone?” I know she’s trying to be tactful.

I laugh wryly. “Podcasts again. It’s amazing what’s out there.”

“I think that you might be closer than you know.” All my coiled breath escapes in a long sigh when she squeezes my hand before releasing it.

She runs her palm up and down my leg, by my knee and then back up a few inches.

“You’re smarter and more sensitive than you know.

You have the biggest heart, and you don’t even realize it.

” She blinks rapidly like she’s trying to hold back the tears.

“I’ll be back long before the baby’s born,” I say, needing to reassure her.

Her hand stops, clutching my knee. “I’m not trying to leave you alone.

I would never go if you had no one. I’m not trying to cut you out or cut you off.

I still want to talk, if you want that too.

Just because I’m not here, it doesn’t mean that I can’t be here for you . I swear to you that I’m coming back.”

“I get it, Zep. I’m not mad. I’m not hurt. You’ve explained everything in a very well thought out way.”

I know I’m looking at her like I want her to say no. Like I want her to tell me to stay. I would, if she asked me to.

She knows that would be the worst thing she could ever do.

So, she doesn’t.

She gives me exactly what I need.

Grace. Understanding. Encouragement. Love, in her own way.

“I’m so proud of you for doing this.” She catches me off guard. At the clinic, I thought about how much you’ve changed. How we’ve both changed. How sometimes life ages you years in just a few minutes, and it’s not always for the worst.”

My chest swells, my ribs aching like I’ve wrecked my bike and skidded along the pavement, only to have it end up on top of me, crushing me until I can’t breathe.

“You should send me the links for whatever you’ve been listening to.

” Her tone is full of self-deprecation. I hate that, but she smiles through it.

“It’s okay. I can admit that there’s more than enough room for improvement for me too.

Just because I didn’t have a lot of childhood trauma doesn’t mean that I can’t still grow. ”

“Ginny—”

“No, really. Learning about how to love is never a bad thing. You can always love more. There’s no limit.

” She traces a stain on my jeans with her index finger.

“I have no experience with romantic love. Maybe I didn’t meet the right person, or- or maybe there’s something inside me I didn’t realize needs adjusting or fixing.

I always thought I knew who I was, but I think I might have been partly wrong. ”

“I don’t think you were.” I turn her chin so that she has to look at me. It takes so much bravery for us to sit here and look each other in the eye. “You have to allow for change.”

“Maybe I just didn’t understand.”

“I didn’t understand either.”

“I’m scared,” she admits. “Excited about everything that’s coming, but scared too.”

“Me too.” Why is it the hardest thing of all to admit that?

She closes her eyes, her long lashes fluttering against her cheeks.

I want to kiss them. I want to lean into her, set my head on her chest, and just listen to her breathe.

Have her fingers running gently through my hair.

I want all the close, tender things that I would have scoffed at before knowing her.

“I don’t know where this is going, and I know it’s the wrong thing to say right now, but I’ll miss you.”

“That’s not the wrong thing to say.”

“I’ll miss you in ways I understand and in ways that I don’t.”

I get that. I truly do. When I lost Jack, my twin, my literal other half, I thought there wouldn’t be life after. There is. In ways I don’t understand and in ways that I’m starting to, on this journey of self-discovery.

I drop my hand to her shoulder and pull her against me. She’s the one who rests her head against my chest, listening to my heart beating. Her hand splays out over my right pec, holding onto me.

“I’m still going to worry about you like crazy,” I tell her.

“I’ll be okay. I promise, I’ll be fine. We can talk. I’ve been selfish, even when I tried not to be. I knew you were still struggling with grief and change. I haven’t been here like I should have been for you.”

My fingers run down her arm, caressing her soft sweater. The one I chose for her. She’s so beautiful in it. I’ll never forget this day. Not a single detail. “Please don’t say that.”

“It’s true though.” She peers up at me through that thick fringe of sandy lashes and I swear my heart stops beating. “You need this and I want to support you. Don’t worry about how long it takes.”

Something moves across her face, a shadow of wreckage. I’m ruining her. I’m ruining me too. Does she feel as torn apart as I do? I know I need to do this, but I also want to be here, with her.

“When you’re back, you should see about getting one of those bikes that has an extra seat. I’d love to go for a ride sometime, after the baby’s born.”

I shake my head before I can stop myself. “You don’t know what that means to a biker.”

“I do,” she protests, her jaw clenching and face tilting up stubbornly.

“My sister explained it to me. She told me that I could never get on the back of Jack’s bike.

Never . Not unless I meant it . But… we belong to each other, don’t we?

” The air punches out of my lungs at her sweet question.

She’s never been so honest with me. In this moment, with that question, she’s bared everything.

“Even if it’s not the typical kind of romantic belonging, you’re mine and I’m yours. We’ll always be connected.”

I know that she’s talking about the baby, but what is that fire in her eyes and the longing her voice?

Why am I so bad at this? Why can’t I understand the way I want her?

Why can’t it be picked apart and turned over and brought up to the light for study?

Maybe it can’t be thrust under a microscope.

Maybe it’s not right to separate all the moving parts of it.

She’s right.

Unequivocally.

We belong to each other.

Jack and I made a pact a long time ago. We promised each other that nothing would ever tear us apart and that included a woman. We decided that we’d never fall for the same person. It turned out that it wasn’t really a problem. We had opposite taste in women.

And then… Ginny Fields.

Who could know her and not love her?

All this time, I’ve been slowly unraveling, but seeing her this way, having her kindness, her spirit, her soul, her trust, her whole being stripped down and in my palms, I’m completely undone.

She’s never called any of this a mistake.

I think I’ve always needed something in her that I can’t even fathom. I don’t know what I want to be, other than… more. More of her. More of this. More of us .

What does that mean? Is this what people call love?

How do you even know when you’ve reached it?

With Jack, it was always there. I never had to question what that blind loyalty and affection was.

Whatever it is I’m feeling right now, it’s foreign, but at the same time, it’s familiar.

It’s right. It hurts. I want to shove it away, but at the same time, I want to grasp it in both hands, hold it close, and protect it with everything I have.

“I can’t not go,” I whisper brokenly.

She turns her face into my chest and plants a kiss right above my heart. It burns through the fabric of my shirt, all the way down into muscle and bone, becoming memory . “I know. Everything will be okay. Everything. I promise.”

We both know that there’s no guarantee and that’s a promise she can’t make, but she doesn’t lift her head from my chest and my heart beats and beats and beats.

Just for a minute, this minute , there’s nothing else in the world.

It’s only us in here, with the guttering light from a few oil lamps casting wild shadows on the wall, a whole silent play of ghosts and memories, and I believe her.