I purse my lips and glare at him. “All you have to do is sit there, Zeke. Literally nothing else is required of you.”
His features all pull in on themselves, forming a deep frown, and his energy shifts and morphs into something dark. I’m not sure what I said, but it most definitely offended him.
The ride becomes fifteen minutes of awkwardness, and this divide between us isn’t going to help with my nerves. I am nervous about meeting his brothers. And their girlfriends.
I’ve been given a general rundown on who they are. I’m glad his sisters won’t be there. Conveniently, Zeke arranged this meeting when all three of his sisters had to work. When I asked him about it, he shrugged and said it’s hard to coordinate nine schedules.
I’m sure he did it on purpose—that he knew it’d be too much for me.
There’s no way I’m going to survive this if he’s mad at me by the time we get there.
“Did I say something?” I ask, my voice shaking at the confrontation. I hate conflict. It boils my skin with discomfort.
“No, why?” Zeke glances at me for a moment.
He looks more polished than usual, in a plaid button-down and jeans. The shirt is rolled up at the sleeves, exposing his forearms, and they make me want to sigh every time I look at them.
“You seem like you’re mad at me.” I play with the hem of my sweater before I hear Mom’s voice in my head, telling me to stop fidgeting.
“I’m not mad,” he says, keeping his eyes forward.
“You seem mad.” I push.
Zeke pulls into a driveway and chews on his lip for a long time. Finally, he turns to me, holding the steering wheel in one hand and laying his other arm across the back of the seat.
“Listen, Nova.” The sternness in his voice is jarring, and I feel like I’m about to be scolded. I lean away from him but keep my gaze locked on his.
He takes a breath and scrunches his eyebrows like he’s confused. “I don’t know what I am most of the time. I’m trying my best to be what you need me to be, but I don’t have a fucking clue.”
He stops again, forcing a full, frustrated breath out of his nose like he’s pissed at the words about to come out of his mouth. “Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing, but you keep saying things like this. That you don’t need me, or I don’t have to do anything. For a guy like me, I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know what to do if you don’t need me to do something. Ugh, that makes no sense.”
His cheeks flare red at his admission, and the tension in my body deflates immediately. There’s this vulnerable honesty in his eyes, and I believe every word of it. His sisters told me as much.Zeke is a doer. Give him a job, and he’s happy.
“I do need you,” I say with force, startling myself at the truth of it. I nod to the big colonial farmhouse that kind of reminds me of Dad’s place in Alabama. “In about thirty seconds, I’m really going to need you.”
He softens in an instant, cupping my cheek, and the warmth of his palm soothes my nerves. I lean into him and close my eyes, taking a calming breath.
“Should we do this?” he asks, back to the Zeke I like best. The one who isn’t hiding from me.
“We should.”
He holds out a finger to me to wait and hops out of the truck, jogging around the front to open my door. I laugh at him.
“Thank you, sir,” I tease, and he bows, holding his hand out to me.
Zeke’s gestures are big and exaggerated, like when he curled into a ball on the floor of Jet’s apartment. He has a talent for lightening up tense situations, and if he’s with me, I can make it through this day.
He keeps hold of my hand, guiding me around the house to an expansive and stunning backyard. It’s more like a meadow, its lush, golden-brown grasses swaying in the light breeze.
“You ready?” he asks, and I nod. He switches his grip on my hand, stretching out his fingers and lacing them with mine. He presses our palms together and smiles. “I got you.”
The way he says it picks at my heart, and Tabby’s words hit me again.
Isn’t it more complicated to pretend we don’t want each other?
I’m starting to think so.
A little girl runs through the grass at full tilt with a baseball glove on her hand. She stops and looks up as a ball thumps into the leather. A giant of a man with a thick torso and full beard hiding most of his face hollers out to her.