Page 16 of Deadly North
“What the fuck?” Gigi whispers. She tears her eyes away to look up at me, terror etched into her features.
“Are you hurt?” I ask urgently, scanning her for blood. “Did any glass hit you?”
My question seems to snap her into another emotional state. “No… I’m fine. I have to clean this up.” She swivels on her heel and crosses the kitchen to a small closet. Pulling the door open, she removes a hand broom and a dust pan. Gigi kneels and robotically starts to clean up the glass.
“G, stop. Why don’t you go into the living room. I’ll clean this up.”
“No, I have to.” Her movements start to speed up, growing jerky and almost frenetic. I kneel down beside her and grab her wrists as gently as I can. The contact seems to shake her out of it. She stops moving and looks at me. It feels like she’s not really seeing me.
“Come on,” I say, as gently as I can. “Stop for now. Come with me. This can wait.”
She allows herself to be led to the living room couch. I sit her down, and then after a second, sit next to her.
On impulse, I wrap an arm around her and hug her to me. I expect her to resist. But instead, she sinks into me, burying her head against my chest.
“Sshhh…” I tell her, pulling her closer. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, G.”
“I just don’t understand why this is happening,” she whispers. “You know?”
“I know. But your safe, okay? You’re safe.”
I listen to her hitched breathing as she tries not to cry. Sitting on this couch, with this beautiful but prickly woman, I think back to last night, when I managed to get Tedward to come close to me, against all odds. Somehow, this moment feels similar.
I’ve always had a thing for Gigi. Even though I know that for some reason she’s always hated me. But now, being here in close proximity with her, joined at the hip for God knows how long, I realize my feelings for her are deepening into something more than attraction.
I surprise myself by realizing I don’t want her to hate me.
But I’m almost afraid to ask myself what I want her to feel instead.
8
GIGI
When I’ve pulled myself away from Mack — embarrassed as hell that I’ve cried on his shoulder — he announces he’s going to order a pizza for us. Since he’s spent the entire day out in his truck, I don’t have the heart to tell him no. While he’s ordering, I go into the bathroom and take the hottest shower I can stand to take.
Standing under the steaming water, I can’t get the attack and the broken window out of my mind, no matter how hard I try. As much as I have hated my brother’s heavy-handedness dealing with this whole thing, I’m grateful that Mack is here with me right now.
For my whole life, I have hated feeling like I was ever depending on anyone for anything. I’ve always felt like the charity case — the kid with no mom and a drunk for a dad that everyone was always whispering about and feeling sorry for. I’ve tried as hard as I can to be self-sufficient as an adult. Most of the time, it feels like I’ve succeeded. But this whole episode has thrown me for an emotional loop.
If Mack wasn’t here right now, I’d probably be too scared to sleep in my own home. I hate more than anything that he’s the one I’m leaning on right now. But I can’t deny that I’m grateful for his presence. Say what you will about the Royal Bastards MC, but they have each other’s backs.
By the time I’m out of the shower, the pizza has arrived. It’s pepperoni and mushroom, which Mack knows has been my favorite ever since I was a kid. We eat it straight from the box at my kitchen table, mostly in silence. Tedward jumps up on the table, begging, and Mack offers him a piece of pepperoni, which he disdainfully refuses.
Mack’s ginormous appetite means that when we’re finished eating, there’s no leftover pizza. The box goes straight into the trash. Mack stands up and goes to wash his hands in the sink, and I realize he’s probably about to take his leave and go back out to his truck. The thought of being alone fills me with dread. I take a deep breath, feeling weak and needy. “Hey, do you, uh, want to watch a movie or something?”
Mack turns around, looking surprised. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”
I’m not in the mood for anything deep, so we settle on an action movie neither of us has seen, with an actor we both like. Mack offers to make popcorn. I’m stuffed after all that pizza, but he’s roughly twice my size, so maybe he’s still hungry. He makes it the old-fashioned way, in a pot with oil, and pours melted butter over the top. He comes back into the living room with two large bowls, just like his mom used to make us when we were kids. He hands me mine, our fingers brushing slightly as I take it from him. I jump a little at the unexpected contact.
“This reminds me of being at Choppa and Reenie’s house,” I say, settling the bowl on my lap and scooping a handful into my mouth. It’s deliciously decadent, like going to a movie theater.
Mack gives me a lazy smirk as he sits down on the other end of the couch. “Yeah. Less shag carpeting and wood paneling, but other than that.”
“Oh, god, I remember that. Does it still look like that inside?”
Mack snickers. “Nah. Mom remodeled about ten years ago. Now it’s hardwood floors and gray everything, with those signs that have words on them all over the place. Choppa only agreed to it all because she let him upgrade to an eighty-five-inch flatscreen TV in the living room.”
“Wow,” I marvel. “Imagine watching movies on that thing.” I squint at my aging thirty-two-inch screen TV, a hand-me-down from Connor from years ago.