Lovers Not Without Sin | Dutch van der Linde x OC

Chapter 37

The walls held, and even if the pain still prevailed each time Ada watched Dutch ride out of the camp, as with all pain it became more manageable as she got used to the way it made her stomach twist. Truthfully, she'd expected the new relationship to be a quick fling, but after a month and a half, she decided to accept the dire situation and settle for mentally chastising herself whenever her thoughts wandered to him. Which, admittedly, is still more often than she'd like.

Hosea has spent a lot of his time pitying her, thankfully dropping his desire for her to ride the new horse until recently.

"It'll do you good!" he flaps his newspaper, bringing his feet down that'd been resting on the bench.

"Tomorrow," Ada croons, hands held on her hips.

"So you keep saying, but this tomorrow of yours has been a long time coming."

"I will do it, I promise," she shrugs, busying herself with turning up the cuffs on her shirt.

"Either you ride that horse or you have a game of dominoes with me."

"I'm horrible at dominoes," she scoffs.

"I know," he smirks and she rolls her eyes. "You won't get the hang of it if you don't practice."

Ada sits opposite him despite her reluctance, opening out her arms. "You'll get off my back if I play with you?"

"For today, sure," he chuckles and instantly begins setting up the game.

The game carries as it always does, Hosea taking barely any time to think about his moves and still wiping the floor with Ada. She huffs in frustration, resting her chin on her palms while her elbows sit on the table, looking from piece to piece and attempting to calculate the best move to at least show some semblance of ability. Her concentration is broken by Tilly, standing by the table and doing a terrible job of hiding her amusement.

"What?" Ada scoffs.

"Are you counting each time, for each placement?" she snickers.

"How the hell else am I meant to know the best thing to put down?"

She and Hosea burst into laughter and Ada bites her tongue with her smirk, throwing her arms up in frustration. "You're a mean pair of bullies."

"Come now," Hosea calms himself, "keep trying."

Begrudgingly, since it'd take a miracle for her to win at this point, she rests her chin back where it was and carries on attempting to figure out the best move.

"Afternoon Dutch," Bill says as he meanders over to Dutch's tent, where the man is sitting outside reading and enjoying the little break of sunshine through the clouds.

"How are you doing, Bill?" he says, and Ada does her best to block out his voice while she focuses her attention on counting.

"I'm well," he digs his repeater into the ground and leans on it. "You seeing that woman again soon? Or are you bored of this one already?" he chortles.

"Whatever do you mean?" Dutch asks, unamused, and suddenly counting becomes much more difficult for Ada.

"Come on boss, you know you got a tendency to fast get bored of a woman."

Ada's eyebrows raise and drop of their own volition and she adds whatever piece she remembers looking remotely promising.

"Miss O'Shea is a fine woman, and I am not bored of her," he says calmly, but as always, the small crack in his voice gives away his true emotions.

"I didn't mean nothing by it," Bill raises his hands in surrender. "She'd need to be a very special woman for your attention to keep, is all."

Ada looks up at Hosea, who seems torn between pulling her into a hug and breaking Bill's (or Dutch's) jaw. She taps the domino piece held between her fingers on the table to stop either of those things from happening. "Your turn."