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CHAPTER17
ZEKE
I walkto the pub and mutter to myself the entire way. The broken stare and tears magnified every dark corner of her. I’m missing something, and it’s eating at me. She’s lying, and I can’t figure out why.
I should have just fucking kissed her in the hall, the way she stared at my mouth and clung to my sides, but I couldn’t do it. The moment of pure weakness after Mom ignored her, the tears in the apartment—I couldn’t take advantage of that. But God, did I want to.
I scrub my face and grunt into my palms about what a fucking idiot I am. I get so lost in her, in the way she looks at me. No one has ever looked at me like that. No one has ever noticed me like she does—not unless it’s accompanied by a glare or an eye roll.
The bar is packed, and Del’s working, running around in that organized-chaotic way she does. It’s impressive how good she is at this gig, at keeping things straight in her head. If I work on more than one vehicle at a time, my brain gets so tangled I can’t function. Del manages drinks, multiple orders, and knows when kegs are about to run out, and bottles need to be rotated.
She winks at me and nods to the back of the bar where Xan and Jet are sitting, hovering over their drinks and looking very serious. Typical of them, for sure.
“Beer?” Del asks, and I nod.
I don’t need to tell her what kind. I’m the type of guy who finds something I like, and then I never veer from it—the same cut of jeans, same style t-shirt, same beer, same order. I like comfort. I like familiar.
Xan notices me first and nods as I approach, pulling out a chair and thumping it.
“Hey, man,” Jet says, leaning back in his chair with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Other than when he came by the apartment, I haven’t seen him at all. He’s been at the farm with Cadence. It’s been easy to convince him to stay out of my shit because he’s nose-deep in his own after Cadence took off to almost get herself killed.
They’ve been laying pretty low, and I’ve been encouraging it.
“What?” I say as Del sets my beer down in front of me. I immediately take a long haul off it, letting the fizzy, bitter taste overwhelm my senses.
“How’s life?” Jet snickers and I want to punch him, but he’s twice the size of me and I’m not exactly tiny.
“A fucking mess, which you know. But get it all out there. Just pile it on so we can be done with it, okay?” I take another drink as my brothers laugh at me.
“Babies having babies,” Xan teases, and I glare at him.
He knocked up Briggs when he was seventeen. But I guess she took off, and he thought she didn’t have the baby. So, all this shit I’m going through right now isn’t something he experienced.
“You’re one to talk,” Jet shoots at Xan, who takes a drink of his soda. He’s off the beer, only allowing himself one every now and again. His tendency to turn to alcohol is strong, like Jason’s.
“So, we’re meeting her, right? She actually exists?” Jet sips his Guinness, a man of habit like myself.
“I can’t handle Briggs’s questions anymore. I need to let her loose.” Xan’s eyes widen with playful desperation.
I rub my temples. “Yeah. She’s real, and she knows.”
“So why are you so depressing right now?” Xan continues, and I scoff because, of course, he noticed.
“She demanded we invite Mom,” I say, and both my brothers sit back at the force of all my unspoken words.
“How did that go?” Jet pulls on his beard, but his raised eyebrows and pinched lips tell me he understands how it went.
“She completely ignored Nova. Walked right past her like she didn’t exist.”
“And you handled it well, I’m guessing,” Xan says with thick sarcasm.
I shrug, not wanting to say anymore. I did handle it well. Nova calms me, centres me. She also ripped me a new one for trying to stand up for her. I don’t want to tell them that, though, because they assume the worst in me. I don’t have the energy to argue it.
“So, we’re having a barbecue with Mom, then? Just sort of immerse her in all of it at once,” Jet ventures.
“You mean drown her in our fucked-up family.” The pout in my voice and my crossed arms don’t slip by them for a moment. At least she has the advantage of her family being in Alabama. I really can’t demand to meet them.
