This is a smaller airport specifically for chartered and private flights, but a few people are still around.Apparently, it’s enough for Cara to jump every time someone bumps into her.
“Fuck, this is going to be bad,” I mutter to myself as I realize I should not have accepted her offer for entirely different reasons now.
She is dragging her bag behind her. Her eyes dart around the airportterminal nervously. She almost looks like a wild animal, and my heart clenches in my chest. I wonder, again, what happened to take that fire she once had.
“We goes on big pwane, Daddy,” Lyra says from my side where she is holding my hand.
I look down at her, those big blue eyes curious and excited, one hand in mine, the otherwrapped tightly around her elephant with her fingers in her mouth.Of course, she fell asleep on the car ride here. It was only half an hour, but that isall she needs to recharge. “Yeah, rugrat. We’re going on the big plane.”
“I wikes the big pwanes,” she tells mefrom around her fingers.
She looks around at everyone,and I know the second she realizes Dane is here.She drops my hand and takes off running to him. I have no idea what it is about my best friend she loves so much,but she does. She loves all the guys, but something about Dane takes precedence in her tiny mind.
He grabs her up as she starts climbing him with a laugh. Maybe he’s just got that fatherly thing going. Hell, the guy helped me in more ways than I can count.
I was a skinny thirteen-year-old little jerk when we met. I was headed for a world of trouble as the anger I felt from my dad dying consumed me.I got caught stealing from a local convenience store,but Dane kept me out of trouble. He paid for the stuff I swipedthen took me home with him to his grandfather’s house. He waseighteenat the time. The age he should’ve been chasing tail, nota thirteen-year-old asshole, but he took me under his wing.
He did the same for Cara in a sense. Twenty-three, barely out of college, but that didn’t stop him from moving heaven and earth to bring her to live with him whenshewas thirteen. The guy just cares. Too much sometimes.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Maddox calls out to all of us as we make our way to the tarmac where the private plane awaits.
We boarded the plane, and a while later, we are in the air on our way to St. Petersburg. Lyra is cradled in my arms as she holds her ears, crying.She’s only flown a handful of times,but this is the first time she’s shown any discomfort. It worries me that she may be catchinga cold. That would be perfect fucking timing, right?
When she cries like this, it breaks my heart. I hate to see my baby inpain. After her first set of vaccinations as a baby, mymom had to start taking her for the others. I couldn’t handle it.It makes me feel helpless and out of control.
Finally, her sobs and tears subside, turning to quietwhimpers as she places her two middle fingers into her mouth. The whimpers get replaced by the soft sounds of her snoring, and Ican finally relax.
“We need to go over the itinerary,” Liam whispers about an hour into the flight.
“So, go over it,” Ryder tells him with a yawn and a wave.
“Maybe we should go over there,” he jerks his head with a roll of his eyes toward the front of the plane, still whispering.
“Why?” Dane questions him, leading Cami to smack him in the head. He looks at her with a grin. “What was that for?”
“For being dumb,” she hisses with a roll of her eyes.
Cara begins giggling. I’ve been forcing myself to keep my attention off of her.Becauseevery time I do, I lose myself in her. In that smile and in those eyes that, despite the demons swirling, are still likeblack diamonds.
I’ll never understand this attraction to her. How, with one glance at her all those years ago, I became obsessed.But obsessed I am.
It’s just physical,though, right? I mean, I don’t really know her. Not anymore. I never really did. I was simply infatuated with her to the point that I noticed she always crinkles her nosewhenshe thinks something is funny but is trying not to laugh. She alwayssmiles with just her lips if she doesn’t like something but doesn’t want to say it. When she’s pissed and about to lose it,she will grab her hair at her neck and start twisting, like she’s ready to throw down.And when she’s fucking flirting with some dipshit, every tooth in her head is exposed while she twirls her hair around her finger.
So fucking sane and healthy for me to watch that closely, right? But that’s what I’ve felt since the second I sawher – unstable, obsessed, and insane.
Josephine is laughing, now as well, at the dumbfounded expressions on the other guys' faces.I drag my attention away from Cara with effort to see Liam scrubbing his hand down his facein frustration. “Remind me again, why I came to work for you dumbasses?”
“We wondered the same thing a few times,” Maddox returns his uniquebrand of smart ass.
“I am surrounded bygoddamn clowns,” he grumbles. “Go over there, so you don’t wake the baby, you morons.”
“How does that solve anything?” Angel quips. “Jake has to come with us.”
It is taking everything in me not to die with laughter at howthey are fucking with Liam and the girls. They are excitedabout this tour and showing it by acting like assholes.It’s a good distraction for me. Until…
“I’ll take Lyra, Jake,” Carasays almost shyly, walking to me. “I’ll stay in the bedroom with her.”
I look up to see those dark eyes staring right atme. My eyes move over her face from her eyes to the lusciously plump lips,and my damn brain short circuits. I feel like a fucking prepubescent punk who’s just discovered girls. I can’t hear anything but the roaring of blood in my ears as itrushes like a tidal wave from my head to – well, my head.
