Page 62 of Virago

It was a nice office, well-appointed and homey, a good balance that said Tasha was successful but not snooty about it. One full wall was a gallery of decades’ worth of framed photos chronicling Tasha’s whole life. A lot of those photos served as a history of the Horde. Tasha had been a club daughter long before Gia had been even a thought; her father had been the club’s first SAA.

Gia led Zaxx to the plush, comfy navy sofa under that wall of happy memories. He dropped down at one end and sat there with his hands in his lap, still curled tightly into fists.

Now Gia didn’t know what to do. She felt like a gawker into someone else’s private pain and really wished she’d stayed talking with Len instead of going with Tash and Hermione.

“You want some coffee?” She didn’t know what else to do but play some pathetic version of hostess.

“I don’t drink coffee. I’m on Adderall.” He delivered that information like a robot, speaking to his fists.

“Right. ADHD.” He’d shared that with her at some point during their single night together. “Okay—hold up, I know.”

A memory tickled some grey matter. When she was thirteen, she’d gotten into a scrape with some stupid outsider kids at the Creamy King, Signal Bend’s homespun imitation of Dairy Queen. The year or so after Dad had come back from prison had been really weird in her head, and she’d gotten into more scrapes than usual, looking for targets for a rage that had descended on her like an avalanche. It had been years before she’d understood that the rage had been hanging over her head for all the time her father had been away and only dropped when he was back because that was when she’d stopped holding off the loss of him as hard as she could.

That day at the Creamy King, four high-school boys had been harassing a girl who might have been their age but looked younger. She was heavy, and they were teasing her about the banana split she was sitting at a picnic table trying to eat. Standing alone in line, Gia had watched them taunt the girl, and that rage began to roil. When one picked up the dish and tried to shove it into the girl’s mouth, she’d gone for them. She didn’t remember deciding to; just suddenly she was shoving herself into the fray, fists flying.

She was thirteen and much more confident in her self-defense skills at that time than she had any right to be, but she’d shocked the shit out of those boys. She’d started off holding her own okay, but if the fight had gone on much longer, she’d have been in very bad trouble.

Fortunately, her Uncle Len, also recently freed after a long sentence, had ridden by that scrape in progress. He’d stopped to break it up, and when he saw Gia’s chin bleeding from a particularly bad gash (she still had the scar), he’d taken her here, to the clinic. Tasha had been at a conference, so the other doctor she’d hired was on his own and pretty swamped. Len had brought Gia in here to wait.

And he’d opened a door in one of the cabinets and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels. Len had sworn her to secrecy and then given her her first taste of liquor.

She’d thought it the grossest thing she’d ever tasted, and it had put her off the hard stuff until she got to college. (Which might have been Len’s nefarious plan.) At Mizzou, she’d developed a taste for several varieties of potent libations, but to this day, she was no fan of Mr. Daniels.

Figuring that cabinet was probably still in the same use, Gia opened it and revealed several bottles of booze on a deep shelf: Tito’s tequila, Bombay gin, Macallan scotch, and, of course, Mr. Daniels. The shelf above held old-fashioned and shot glasses.

She’d seen Zaxx do shots of tequila at No Place that night in May, so she pulled the Tito’s out and snagged two old-fashioned glasses as well. Without asking, she poured two fingers in each and brought them to the sofa. When Zaxx took the one she held out to him, she sat at the other end with hers, turning to sit sideways so she could see him and maybe know if he needed anything more.

He held the glass on his thigh and stared at it for a while, not drinking. Gia took a sip from hers and watched him.

He turned to look at the door. Gia had left it partially open, so they could hear anything that happened in the corridor. “What the fuck is happening in there?”

Not knowing if he was venting or actually asking, Gia erred on the side of answering. “Tasha is helping her. She’ll be as gentle and careful as anyone could possibly be, and she’ll go at Zelda’s pace. It’ll probably take some time.”

His head had whipped around when Gia spoke his sister’s name; now he looked at her like he was shocked to see her. “What are you even doing here?”

That snarled question hit Gia with the force of a punch, but she took it without reacting.

It had been obvious almost immediately afterward that their single night had not been the same for him as it had been for Gia. He’d been gaslighting her, pretending to be as wrapped up as she was, leading her to make herself vulnerable, so he could get repeatedly laid. She’d been hurt and angry about that for weeks, going out of her way to avoid him in town and ignore him when he accidentally happened to be in sight.

Gia could hold a grudge with the best of them. If a hurt sank deep enough, she’d nurture it and let it take root, and she was not above taking revenge.

She was still hurt and angry over Zaxx ghosting her—and now she understood that the damage hadn’t eased at all. She remained deeply attracted to him; the memory of how good she’d felt that night was still sharp and right there, and it fucking hurt to know she’d let him in closer than he deserved to be. She’d let her guard down with him, and she never did that.

If she’d been thrust into such unavoidable proximity with him under any other circumstance, she would have made her anger absolutely clear and sought to draw blood of either the physical or psychic variety. Or both.

However, these were the circumstances in which they were in such proximity, and his younger sister was in the room down the hall being treated after a horrible sexual assault. He sat here in emotional tatters over it, already psychically bleeding, and Gia was not such a bitch she would even consider drawing him into a scene about their misbegotten one-night stand.

Or lash out at him for the way he’d just spoken to her. Instead, hurt as she was, she simply answered the question.

“I was out with Tash when Len called. My car is at their place. We were around Rolla when he called, and it would’ve taken an extra hour to get back to their ranch and drop me off, drop the trailer, and get back here. She didn’t want to risk you getting here and not having anyone to help you. So we just came straight here.”

“Oh,” he said to his glass, still as full as she’d poured it. Another beat, and another, and he added, “Thanks.” He finally took a sip of tequila.

“Sure,” Gia said and took another sip of hers.

Quiet took over again, and they sat there, Gia looking at Zaxx, Zaxx staring at his lap, for an eternity. A decorative analog clock sat on the credenza under the window behind Tasha’s desk, and Gia fixated on its sonorous ticking. She had no idea what to do but sit here and make sure Zaxx kept his cool and let Tasha help his sister.

Then her phone buzzed. She shifted to pull it from her pocket.

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