With a croak in his voice, he reminded her they were still playing. “Stand up. It’s your turn.”
“Dry me and my hair.”
Ginny watched Gavin’s facial expressions as he blow dried her hair.
“Sex Piston may be a bitch from hell, but she did an excellent job of hiding your hair color.” Gavin placed a damp swathe of her hair on his palm to apply the hot air. “You look more like T.A. with this hair color.” Gavin’s eyes met hers in the mirror. The sandy brown hair had streaks of lighter blond within the depths that shone in the lamplight. “Especially with the different eye color. Must have been pain hiding your light under the bushel.”
She had been dreading his reaction to her removing her colored contacts before she came back to the clubhouse. Her blue-green eyes staring back at her from the mirror were darker than Trudy’s. She would never be a raving beauty like Taylor, but she no longer felt as if the woman in mirror was a distorted vision of herself
“Hammer was the one who noticed we looked more alike as we grew older. My hair didn’t grow lighter until I was four or five, while Trudy’s was always light. I won’t miss having to keep up with maintenance, the contacts were a definite pain. Are you surprised? I can get Sex Piston to color it back, but I’d really prefer not to have to wear the contacts.”
“Ginny, I have stopped being surprised by anything you do. Leave it, I don’t give a fuck about your hair or eye color. Anything else, you haven’t told me? That you’re an alien from Mars, had breast reduction, that your teeth are veneers. Kind of would like to know who the real you is or is everything completely fake as shit?”
“Nothing about me that is important is fake.” Ginny met his stoic gaze with a golf-sized lump in her throat, afraid that she had lost the ground she gained in the shower with him.
“Which is why you’re still in my bed and not at the Coleman’s. Like I said, I don’t give a fuck about your hair or your eye color.”
Breathing easier at his matter-of-fact acceptance of her appearance, Ginny made an observation of her own. She had noticed a different air of confidence when he came downstairs, as if there was a weight lifted off his shoulders. Wondering about the changes, as she luxuriated in the care Gavin was giving her.
At the end of the thirty minutes, he laid the blow dryer down on the dresser.
“Put on something warm. We’re going out.” Gavin gave his order as he dressed himself.
Wearing a pair of corduroy pants and a bulky grey sweater, she put on a thick pair of socks and tugged on a pair of boots. Taking a jacket out of his closet, he held it out for her to slide into. Adjusting the sling, Gavin then took out another jacket for himself before taking her hand and leading her to the door. Suki started to stir.
“Stay.”
Leaving the dog in the bedroom, they went down the steps. The living room was still full, and Ginny kept her eyes averted when she saw what many of them were doing.
He slid his arm over her shoulders as they stepped off the porch to go down the steps. Reaching his bike, he took a helmet off Viper’s bike that she had seen Winter wear.
“Put it on.”
She started to argue with him that Moon hadn’t made her, then figured that might not be a wise decision.
Gavin swung his leg over the seat. “Get on.”
As he started the bike with one kick, Ginny grabbed Gavin around the waist and held on tight.
They hadn’t passed the Porters’ land before it kicked in why Gavin had been so angry with her about her riding with Moon. You didn’t share this magic with just anyone. This wasn’t like riding in a car. On a motorcycle, it was you, the high-powered beast you were straddling, and the road. Like a blind person reading a book, you had to feel the road, your body reacting, and the rush of adrenaline you felt at the challenge.
Ginny laid her head on Gavin’s back. She could never ride behind anyone else ever again, any more than she would ever be able to be with another man. Gavin might not love her, but he didn’t want her experiencing this with anyone else. She had given up being hopeful about many things in life, but Gavin loving her wasn’t one.
Chapter Forty-Five
“Where are we going?” Ginny practically bounced in her seat as Gavin shut the door of the Escalade he’d bought at the police auction.
The excitement at doing something was exhilarating. For the last two months, they had been confined to the clubhouse, unless she went to Silas’s house for brief spurts of time or went with Trudy and Dalton to the doctor appointments.