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I was going to become a mute hermit for the rest of my life who lived with her cat and got occasional conjugal visits from Zag.

That was it.

Prison in my own home was the path I was ready to walk down.

“You gotta take a breath, Tess.” Zag ran his hands up and down my arms. “It’s Meg, not the president.”

“Isn’t s-s-s-she m-married to the p-president?”

Zag let out a loud bark of laughter.

What was so funny? I couldn’t form a sentence without stumbling over my own words, and he was standing there laughing.

“She’s married to the prez of the club, but that doesn’t really matter to you.”

“But it matters to y-y-you.” I didn’t want to embarrass Zag in front of this lady who was like the whole head of the club. Well, she was directly connected to the head of the club.

I had hoped to one day meet the people that Zag talked about so fondly, but I had also expected that I would have more than thirty seconds' notice when that would happen.

“I’ll tell them to leave.”

“No,” I shouted, but inside I screamed yes.

“Babe,” Zag drawled. “You can meet them another time,” he reasoned.

Sure, I could, but that next time would be awkward because this time, I was telling them to leave. “Why don’t you hang out with them, and you can tell them I fell down the stairs or something.”

Zag’s brow furrowed. “I’m supposed to tell them you fell down the stairs, and you don’t think they’ll want to make sure you are okay?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m in a coma.” Ha, there was no way they would want to talk to someone who was in a coma.”

Zag reached up and pressed his hand to my forehead.

“What are y-y-you doing?” I knocked his hand away.

“I’m making sure you don’t have a fever or something. Just to clarify this. Your solution to getting Meg and the club to leave is to tell them you fell down the stairs and you have a coma?”

I mean, it was a little bit dramatic, but it would work. If someone told me that I couldn’t see someone because they had a coma, I would accept it without question.

“Let’s just back up for one second, okay?”

We didn’t have any more seconds. Meg and his club had been in the house for five minutes already.

“You don’t want to meet Meg because you’re all tongue-tied and whatnot, right?”

Tongue-tied and stupid was more like it. “Yes.”

“You know how I don’t give a fuck that you stutter?”

That was a little crass, but it was the truth. “Yes.”

“Where do you think I learned to not care about things like that?” He pointed to the door. “The men and women on the other side of that door are the people who taught me not to care about trivial things like a stutter or someone’s appearance.” He laid his hand over my heart. “They taught me to care about what’s on the inside rather than what you can only see with your eyes.”

“Zag,” I whispered.

“Tess.”

“I’m scared.” God, that was hard to confess.

“You can be scared, but I’ll be right next to you the whole time. You move, I’ll move. Stuck to you like glue,” he promised. He swiped a tear off my cheek.

“What if they think we’re crazy for being....” My words trailed off because I wasn’t sure what we were or if he even wanted his family to know we were something.

“Crazy for liking each other? Crazy for knowing what we feel and following it?” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “That’s the one thing Meg would never think you are crazy for, Tess. She gets it.”

I didn’t understand how she would get it. I barely got it. “Is your mom here?” Oh god. If his mom was here, there was no way I would go out there.

Zag shook his head. “She works until five on the weekdays.”

“What does s-s-she do?” As if that matter right now.

“She runs a bookstore. Read Your Ass Off.”

Not what I thought he would say. “Really?”

“Yeah. What did you think I would say?”

I had no idea, but bookstore was not it. “I don’t know. Professional ol’ lady?”

“All my aunts are that. They need jobs that actually pay money. Meg runs the office at the shop, Gwen does hair, uh, I think Cyn might be the professional ol’ lady, though, and then the others have jobs, too.”

I didn’t need to know any of this right now, but it was helping to distract me. And it made them seem more like real people. “I don’t want to go out there and make you look like an idiot, Zag.”

“How would you do that?” he asked.

“Talking.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned in. “You have to trust me, Tess. Not one person is going to care that you have a stutter. I’m pretty sure Snapper has a mole in the shape of Abraham Lincoln on his left butt cheek. He’s still out there, and that is a hell of a lot more embarrassing than a little stutter.”

“No one can s-s-see his Abraham Lincoln,” I insisted. A mole and my stutter were not the same thing.

“Get enough beers in him, and he’ll show it to you without even asking.” Zag shivered. “I swear it’s eyes follow you.”

“Are you two coming, or did we interrupt something?” a man’s voice called.

My eyes bugged out, and I clenched my teeth.

“We’re coming,” Zag shouted.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

“Uh, not sure.” Zag threaded his fingers with mine and tugged me toward the door.

He opened the door before I could protest, and Zag’s dad stood there.

“Hi, dad,” Zag called.

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