“Yeah. I met Horton, the guy whose window gave me the scars, the same night. He straightened me out, but I stayed gone for years still. It wasn’t until about three or so years ago that Ireallystarted to spend time with them.”
She doesn’t take her eyes from mine. She doesn’t move. She just…doesn’t. We sit there, staring at one another, trying to figure out what the hell this all means.
After an intense ten minutes, she pulls her gaze away and stares at the headrest in front of her. We don’t talk. We don’t move. We sit there. It’s rough, and it’s awkward.
She holds on to my arm. I let her.
“Can we talk?”
I jump at the sound of Rae’s voice.
“Me?” I ask her.
“No. I need to talk to Haley.”
I glance over to her; she’s still staring straight ahead of her.
“Of course,” I say, unbuckling my belt and trading spots with her. As she passes me, I place a hand on her elbow and lean into her. “For what it’s worth, I love her.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she nods. “Hudson’s at the front. I’ll come get you when we’re finished.”
I stand there as she takes a seat, almost afraid to walk away. I don’t know what this is going to escalate to, but I feel like I need to stand here as referee so we don’t end up having to emergency land the plane for sister-on-sister violence.
Haley turns to me and mouths,Go.So, I move my feet toward the front of the plane, find Hudson, and take Rae’s seat next to him.
“You surprised the hell out of her.”
“And you?”
“Tuck and I had a suspicion you were seeing someone. Didn’t expect it to be Haley though.”
“I didn’t either.”
He stuffs the airline magazine he was pretending to read back into the pocket of the seat in front of him. “How long?”
“Long enough.”
“Gaige…” he urges.
I let out an annoyed puff of air and pierce him with angry eyes. “We met over a year ago. She got lit at Clyde’s and I took her home. I stayed the night, and then I stayed another night, then another. We sort of formed this pattern, but I swear, we were just friends then.”
“What happened?”
“Life did. We fell into bed one night and never crawled back out of it.”
“And you’ve been dating ever since?”
I wince, knowing what he’s going to think of how we went about this whole thing. “Not necessarily.”
“What’s the supposed to mean?”
I crane my neck around the seat, peering back down the aisle to ensure Haley and Rae are okay. Listening intently, I don’t hear any screaming or crying, so I turn back to Hudson.
“We stopped talking for about six months. Then when Rae moved out, she broke. I picked her back up. We started the whole FWB thing then.”
“FWB?” he questions, his nose scrunching up in confusion. “F…W…B…” He plays the letters on his tongue, trying to find their meaning.
“Dude, for someone so young, you’re pretty fucking old sometimes.”
