Page 61 of Zeppelin
The dress is heaven against my skin, the fabric so light and airy. The sweater is the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t have a mirror, but even in my current state, I feel like a princess putting the wildly expensive clothes on.
Somehow, Zeppelin picked out my dream outfit for me, and it fits perfectly.
His eyes shine when I step out of the room. I folded up the sheet and towels and I’ll tell the people at the front about them. My wet clothes are in the huge shopping bag.
“Fuck, Ginny,” he literally grunts, breathing sharply between the two words.
He might as well have said that I’m the most beautiful woman on the planet, and I know. There’s no single doubt in my mind now, that what my sister said was correct. Somehow, he’s falling. I have all the feelings. The friendly ones and the ones beyond that. It’s happening. They’re real. I want to tell him, but I’m scared. It’s complicated. The timing still doesn’t feel right.
“Thank you,” I whisper, lowering my eyes to the floor. “For everything, Zep. You’re so good to me.”
His boots shift and shuffle in place. I know that I’ve made him uncomfortable. It was my words, but also my tone. I might as well just have told him everything that’s in my heart.
“Uh- we’ll go to the front. I have paperwork I have to sign for insurance, and I want to see if they have our photos.” Not mine.Ours.
Just like this baby isn’t solely mine.
His choked inhale is watery. If I look at his face, I know I’m going to start crying again, so I don’t. I lead the way for us, thinking about insurance and paperwork and how I’m going to have to pay out of pocket besides. I’m prepared. I have savings. I’ve got this. Having a baby and my whole life changing is terrifying, but at the moment, planning for it and all those logistics, is much easier than sorting out anything else.
Chapter 17
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 ofGinny.
“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, evenwith 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 bemore. 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 thatIcan 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’refamily.
“When you said you needed time, it changed something in me. It changed my thoughts and rewired my damn brain andnow 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 agoodthing. 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.”
