Chapter Seventeen
Zag
I wasn’t sure if the club really did care if she was safe.
Zig obviously didn’t care. He has said he was just here to get Malcom.
“Because they knew that I would want to make sure that you were safe,” I explained.
Tess tipped her head to the side. I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not.
Her long black hair fell over her shoulder, and she squinted slightly. She wasn’t what I had pictured her to look like from the few glimpses I had of her in the basement.
What surprised me was her deep, dark chocolate-colored eyes.
They were captivating.
I had been able to get a sense of her height and body shape from the times I had been close to her but being able to see her in the light fully was a bit of a surprise.
She was soft and curvy in all the right places a man like me loved to worship.
“Who were you j-j-just talk t-t-to?”
I had been hopeful once she saw me that, we would go back to her being comfortable with me. I wasn’t sure that was happening.
Her stutter was very present and had even robbed her of being able to finish her sentence sometimes. I didn’t want her to feel like I was judging her or be so nervous.
“Zig and my dad.” I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to tell her about the conversation between Zig and me.
It hadn’t been a good one. Definitely not at all in her favor.
“Why?”
“Uh, well.” I ran my fingers through my hair and winced.
She folded her arms over her chest and pursed her lips.
“They were just checking in to make sure everything was good.” In a sense, that wasn’t far from the truth. She didn’t need to know at this moment that Zig wasn’t her biggest fan. And it wasn’t like he had a real reason that was directly connected to her as to why he was against me being here. He was against me being here and putting myself in danger. Tess could have been anyone, and Zig wouldn’t have liked her.
“Do you guys normally yell at each other and storm off when you’re just checking in?”
That was a perfect sentence.
“Zig’s a bit of a grouch. I told you that.” That wasn’t a lie at all. He had become more of a grouch in the short time since I had been released from the hospital, but that wasn’t anything Tess needed to know.
I couldn’t tell if she believed anything I was telling her.
I wasn’t even sure I believed it.
“If the c-c-club was watching me, why a-a-are you here?”
I pushed off the counter and opened the fridge. “No beer?”
“You t-think I would have b-b-beer when I made garlic b-b-bread for my dinner?” she laughed.
“I was hopeful,” I chuckled.
“W-w-w-w–.” Her words were stalled.
“What are you feeling when that happens?” I asked softly. I glanced at her over my shoulder, and her eyes were closed, and her jaw was clenched.
“Stop,” she whispered. I could feel her frustration radiating off of her. I didn’t want her to feel that way. Not at all.
Stop what? All I wanted to do was better understand her. I wanted to know what she was feeling so I could better help her to get past her words being robbed from her.
“Stop what?” I closed the fridge and moved closer to her. “I just want to help, Tess. I’m not here to make you uncomfortable or to judge you.”
She opened her eyes and turned her head away from me. “I don’t w-w-want to talk about my s-s-s-s-–.”
“You wanna know what pisses me off about your stutter?”
She shook her head. “Please,” she whispered. I didn’t know if she wanted me to stop or keep going.
“It pisses me off because I know all the people in your life before me obviously made you feel embarrassed and judged you by it.” I reached out and caressed her face. “Those people who made you feel like you shouldn’t even speak.” I wouldn’t stop telling her that I didn’t care about her stutter.
She tipped her head back, and her eyes connected with mine.
“It could take you ten tries to get your thoughts out, Tess, and I’d stand here enraptured until you got it out.” I smiled wide. “I look at it as I get more time with you.”
“Because I’m a blundering idiot.”
I shook my head. “Hardly an idiot, Tess.”
On paper, Tess and I had spent just days together, but it felt so much longer than that. It had taken a bit for us to get comfortable with each other, but the extreme conditions in which Tess and I had been thrown together had helped us.
We didn’t have time for awkward conversation and retreating because of her stutter.
“Can we talk about s-s-something else?”
“The lack of beer in your fridge?” I chuckled. “Now that is pretty tragic, babe. The first thing I did when I moved into a new place was fill the fridge with beer and food.” When I moved out of my parent’s house, it had been into the clubhouse. The fridge was kept stocked by all the ol’ ladies, and the bar was always stocked.
“You’ll have to g-g-go buy some.”
“We’ll have to go buy some,” I corrected her. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Tess.”
She furrowed her brow. “Um, what?”
“Zig and my dad took off. I’m the one keeping an eye on you now,” I explained.
“You don’t n-n-need to do that. No one knows I’m h-h-here.”
“Malcom will come for you once he hears that we didn’t die in that explosion.”
“Maybe.”
I shook my head. “There is no maybe about it. Do you really think Malcom will be okay with you and I being alive when he meant for us to die? He’s a psychopath who is hunting and killing people because of something that happened years ago, Tess.” I tucked her hair behind her ear. “He’s not going to let you and I go.”
“I don’t understand why he t-t-took me at all.”
I didn’t understand it either. She obviously must have gotten on his wrong side when he was her stepbrother or something—the why didn’t really matter as much as me keeping her safe from him.
And myself.
“We’ll have to ask him when he comes knocking on your door, yeah?”
She curled her lip. “I’d rather he just goes away f-f-forever.”
Same.
I glanced at the clock on the stove. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the pizza gets here. You wanna ride on my bike or take your car?”
She tipped her head to the side.
“Beer, Tess. You can’t eat pizza with water.”
“Is that a b-b-b-b-biker rule?”
“If I say yes, will you come with me?”
She rolled her eyes. “The store is just d-d-down the street, Zag. I don’t need to come with you.”
I grabbed her hand and threaded my fingers through hers. “You don’t need to; more like I want you to come along.” She needed to, though. I just didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight. At least not until we caught Malcom.
She looked down at our clasped hands. “We can take my car.”
I smiled wide. “Okay, but I’m driving.”