Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
WILDE
T he tarp that covers the entrance to Ziggy’s mine shaft is open, so I take it as an invitation to walk inside.
“Where’s your shaver?”
He glances over from where he’s brushing his teeth at his sink and taps the set of drawers next to it.
Ziggy’s whole place is one room. His bed is down the furthest end, almost swallowed in the darkness of the tunnel, and a stuffy couch closest to the entrance sits next to his fridge, with a small table holding a boxy old TV in front of them.
Then his bathroom is lined up along the opposite wall.
Sink, makeshift shower, toilet. All plumbed in at some point.
The only thing he’s missing is a kitchen, but Ziggy doesn’t cook anyway.
The building storm outside has thrown his place into shadows.
I retrieve the razor from the drawers next to where he’s standing, ignoring his shrewd gaze in the tiny mirror.
“Thanks. I’ll bring it back tomorrow. ”
He spits out his toothpaste and turns to me. Ziggy can say way too much with absolutely no words, and I know the searching gaze is looking for a clue about why I’m here when scissors have always worked just fine.
“I’m due for a trim. Beard’s getting a bit long.” Unfortunately, I catch a glimpse of myself in his mirror, and I don’t like what I see. It’s not only long, but it’s … impossible to tell that there’s a face under there. My grip tightens around the shaver.
“So …” I wasn’t planning on bringing this up, but I need a subject change. “The brothers want you to work for them.”
He goes unnaturally still, and his lips pull tight.
“Do what you want.”
Ziggy rolls his eyes and crosses over to his couch. He drops onto it, body sagging forward, elbows on knees as he drags his hands through his thick hair.
“Hey … what’s wrong?”
There’s a moment of indecision before he speaks. “Kennedy is … he’s, umm …” The flush that creeps up Ziggy’s neck finishes that sentence for him.
“You’re attracted to him?”
He scowls, but the way his body tenses tells me I’m right and he’s as happy about that as I am about my thing with Hudson.
“At least he’s not an asshole.” I sigh my way through. “Apparently.”
Ziggy’s gaze hesitantly finds mine.
“I’m fucking Hudson.”
The judgment in his eyes echoes everything I’ve been thinking.
“Yes, he’s a dick. I get it.” That said, after yesterday, I don’t know if I completely believe my words.
I have a lot of issues with his confession about dealing drugs—prescription or otherwise— because I have no time for that.
It’s a very hard line I’ve set for this town, and we’ve had two people leave because they wanted to bend those rules.
From everything he said before I got thrown back into the past, he’s stopped that life, but knowing he was so close to going back to it before he came to Wilde’s End has me wary. If things get hard here, will that be his solution?
“I’m conflicted,” I finally admit. “I know what they’re doing here.
I know that their goals go completely against ours, and if they succeed, everything that we’ve built here will disappear.
But I can’t turn off that little voice telling me to go see him.
To draw him out. To fuck him again.” I don’t even know what I’m hoping to get from this conversation.
“I’m just saying that I know what it’s like to be torn.
If helping them with those houses gets you time with Kennedy, well, you won’t get judgment from me. ”
He taps the place over his heart, and I do the same back.
It’s not exactly an I love you, but an I appreciate you. I see you. Thank you. All rolled into one.
“Right.” I look down at the shaver. “Guess I should probably …”
Ziggy stands suddenly, strides toward me, then takes my arm and tugs me back over to his mirror.
It’s only just large enough to make out my whole face in it.
I can’t remember the last time I looked directly into a mirror.
I don’t own one. Checking my reflection isn’t something I think about anymore, and the first thing that hits me is that I don’t recognize myself.
There are lines by my eyes where there didn’t used to be lines, and that’s basically all I can see of my face.
Ziggy opens the second drawer I pulled the shaver from and grabs an attachment that he sets on the end. Then he plugs the thing in .
“You’re going to shave me?”
He nods, slings a towel across my chest, then grabs a pair of scissors. He turns my head back toward the mirror and tugs my beard down with one hand. It reaches past my collarbones and might be the longest it’s ever been.
Ziggy sets the scissors against the end, maybe an inch from the bottom. It’s probably around where my choppy job would have started. Still long, still hidden, not enough of a difference for anyone to notice.
I huff, hating that I’m this torn over something so insignificant.
“Shorter.”
Ziggy moves the scissors up.
“Shorter.”
He keeps moving until the scissors are just below my chin. A “there” makes it past my lips before I can talk myself out of it, and Ziggy brings the scissors together. He cuts a rough line across the front, removing all the excess, and I have to look away.
I don’t watch as he works, the bzzz of the shaver filling the air.
We have solar batteries hooked up to the grid here, something that took years to accomplish, but while we have access to electricity, no one in Wilde’s End uses it much.
The point of being off the grid is to live off the grid.
Most of us don’t have TVs. Don’t bother with lights when candles work just as well.
I use my stove when I don’t have the time to start a fire, but that and my fridge are basically it.
We have a lot of freedom out here, and doing things manually, providing for ourselves, is a part of Wilde’s End.
His gentle fingers turn my face from side to side as he works, and once he’s done with the shaver, he moves on to a small razor. Hair falls away from my cheeks, and I tell myself not to look, but I do it anyway .
The difference is huge. He rubs something over my face before gesturing that he’s done. I tug my hair back from my forehead, taking in the person I haven’t seen this much of in years. In tidying up my beard, Ziggy has revealed the majority of my face. The effect makes me feel naked.
I regret it instantly.
He smiles at me, and I glower back.
“It’s very noticeable.”
A laugh slips from him.
The stark difference is a lot to take in, and I’m almost nervous about Hudson seeing me like this. He’ll think I trimmed my beard for him when I didn’t. At all. I was just ready to tidy it up again. I do it every few months, and him being around doesn’t change that.
Even if this is a bit more than a tidy up.
I run my hand over my jawline, marveling at how smooth and short it is. This is going to take some getting used to. I eyeball the messy curls around my head, remembering how Hudson’s fingers slid into them, and I shake my head.
I’m not cutting my fucking hair.
“Thanks.”
He cleans the shaver equipment and tucks it all away.
I cross my arms and watch him work, remembering what Hudson told me about his brothers. “Kennedy’s bi. By the way.”
Ziggy flicks me an unimpressed look.
“Thought you might be interested. Bit of a romantic from what Hudson says.”
The side of Ziggy’s mouth creeps higher. “You two talk?”
For someone I’ve known for years, this might be the deepest conversation we’ve ever had.
Normally, I talk and he listens about crops or fire safety or whatever else the town needs to keep chugging along.
Sometimes it’s rants about Foley. But it’s occurring to me now that all the friendships I have here, that the family we’ve all built together, it’s been based on a need to survive.
Not necessarily because we know and like each other.
That’s not the case for everyone, of course. Rooney has no issues with people. This is on me and my need to keep things surface level.
So I refuse to do that this time, as hard as it might be.
“Sometimes. Not a lot and not about much. Actually, Hudson is the one who usually does all the talking.”
The glint in Ziggy’s eye tells me he’s not surprised by that.
“Maybe I could try harder, but I don’t actually want to like him. I don’t want to be attracted to him at all, but I can’t control that. Being friends with him is something I still have a say in.”
The hooded-eyes look he gives me makes it clear he doubts that.
“I don’t want to be friendly with someone purposely ruining our lives.”
He shrugs, and I know exactly what he’s saying. Sometimes we don’t have a choice. Sometimes things just are. It’s the reason so many of us ended up here.
Ziggy whispers so quietly I have to strain to hear him. “Maybe friendship will make them stop.”
I blink at him, processing the words because that’s not something I ever considered. It’s not something I think I ever would have considered. Why build a friendship when I can try running them out of town instead?
Except that running them out of town didn’t work.
Maybe this is all I have left.
I’m not good at being friends though, and trying it with someone like Hudson, who’s a minefield of bad ideas, makes the whole idea even worse.
But this is Wilde’s End .
This is my home .
I refuse to go down without a fight, but maybe I’ve been using the wrong weapons.
“You going to help them?” I ask him.
After a moment, Ziggy nods.
“Okay then. I’ll give you a ride down there.”