Page 20 of Zeppelin
I have to look away before I’m flying at half-mast here.
“Sure. We can take a look. Hopefully I can do it justice, but I make no promises. There’s a reason I’m a mechanic and not a carpenter.”
She scoffs. “Christ, Zep. I think you could do anything, really.”
That hangs in the kitchen between us. Her easy confidence and clear affection in her words. The shortened version of my name, spoken with ease and familiarity and something that feels a whole lot more than just friendship.
I cough, the sound clearly fake and half embarrassed. “I’m not going to start up with rocket science anytime soon, but it’s not that bad, learning new shit.”
“Okay. Hold on. I have the drawings upstairs in my room.” She turns away from the kitchen, walking back through the small living room. The stairs are wood, and her footsteps echo up them and then scrape overhead.
I expect a brief reprieve from the heat filling me to the point of drowning, but it never comes. My dick isn’t behaving. My chest isn’t behaving. My brain is muddled from Ginny’scloseness, from her scent, from all her softness and beauty and the way she relaxes around me and lets down her guard as though I’ve somehow earned the right to her trust.
That makes me fully hard in an instant. It’s not just what Ginny looks like. Not her soft curves, her ready smile, her sun bronzed skin, her gorgeous eyes, all that long ashy hair, her almost ethereal beauty. It’s that she’s a good person and earning a spot in her life shouldn’t be easy. A person’s trust is a sacred thing. I don’t feel like I’ve earned it. She hasn’t made me feel as though I need to.
She’s walking back into the kitchen, tugging me from my thoughts. I quickly strip off my leather jacket. It’s too hot for it anyway.
I shove it quickly over my waist hiding the trouser situation while pretending that I’m casual, leaning against a cupboard that looks like it’s from another century. It’s tall and yellow, the paint rubbed away from the wood all over it. That’s probably what Ginny liked best about it. The imperfections made it perfect to her.
I can practically hear Jack laughing at me for trying to act like a gentleman.
When Ginny spreads the drawings out over the round quarter sawn oak table and bends over, her floral skirt tightening around her perfectly round ass, Jack’s tone shifts in my head to a low warning growl.
I want to flip him off, but in reality, I never would have done that. If Ginny was his in any way, she never would have been mine. But Jack isn’t here. That changes something, even if it’s not everything.
She finds the drawing she wants and holds it up. The porch juts off the house in the picture, a straight line with a sturdy roof, a neat set of stairs, and a tidy railing on either side. “I thought something like this would be great. It’s practical.”
She sounds disappointed in her choice, though her face gives nothing away.
“Can I see the others?”
She points to the table. “Sure. They’re all there.”
I have to move closer. Move into her orbit. It sounds stupid, but my skin prickles with awareness. It’s more than my dick being harder than a lead pipe. I press it into the edge of the table, so hard that my breath punches out and my stomach churns.
As soon as Ginny moves in, pressing her shoulder up against mine, I know I need the distraction.
I need to pick a design and get outside, out into the open air that doesn’t smell like flowers and fruit. Away from the soft temptation that is scrambling my brain today.
Not just today.
I’ve missed Ginny. She’s been on my mind, in a haunting sort of way. I couldn’t shut my brain off, and now being so close to her is a new form of torture that I didn’t see coming. I thought I could handle myself. Control myself. That the lines I’d mentally drawn would hold up just fine and we could remain on either side of them.
I was wrong.
“I really like this design,” Ginny reaches for a smaller sheet of paper with an image of a wraparound porch that extends toeither side of the house. It’s still basic, still all straight lines and nothing fancy. “But it’s so much more detailed than this one.” She sets the page down and crosses her arms. “It’s really up to you. You’re the one building this. My dad and brother would love to do it for me, but they just don’t have the time. I told them you would be happy to do it. Normally, my dad and Gabe are hard to win over, but they like you. They’re happy there’s one more person in my life who cares about me and this baby. I…” she glances away, her eyes roving the kitchen. There’s almost nothing that she hasn’t been brave enough to say to my face, so I find myself bracing. “I don’t think they would have done that with Jack. Or that he would have wanted it.”
That echoes between us for a minute. I can feel her uncertainty in it. She doesn’t want to hurt me. “Probably not,” I admit. “Jack had all the family he wanted in me and the club. He wasn’t ready for anything else.” I’m not sure that either of us knew what that even looked like. Some part of us, deep down, might have wanted more, but when you can’t even imagine it, it’s almost a frightening concept. I pick up the drawing of the porch she wants. “I can figure this out. It’s not that much bigger than the other. The roof’s just a bit different and the railing.”
I want to give her what she wants. I want to make something with my own two hands for her. This will take longer to put together, which means I’ll be out here more. I’m not just doing it for that reason, but if I’m honest, I want that too.
I want more of Ginny’s presence. Her words. Her laughter. Her wisdom. Her sweetness.
How the fuck did I not know life could be missing anything until the night I saw her puking outside? I knew right then, in that very moment, that everything was going to be different.
Ginny’s eyes take on a soft glow that makes the green gold specks in the brown depths glow. They’re not dark like mine. Hers are an artist’s mix. “Thank you. I’m going to put something together for dinner in a little bit. I have some cleaning to do until then, and some organizing, but if you need help, let me know—I’m good with the small stuff.”
Nothing she does is small.
