CHAPTER 1
ALEX
Hi,Alex. Welcome to Louisiana!!!!! I don’t know if you’ve landed yet, but do NOT get in the truck with those men claiming they’re there to pick you up!!!!!!!!!!!!
I frown and read the message again.
I don’t recognize the number, and if the message didn’t start with my name, I would assume this text had been sent to the wrong number.
The plane is still taxiing to the gate, so I text my sister, letting her know I’ve landed, and she responds withI’ve sent someone to pick you up.
Okay, good, I’m fine.
But there might be guys in a truck trying to pick me up?
What the hell?
Once at the gate, I stand and grab my carry-on from the overhead bin and join the crowd exiting the plane.
My phone dings again.
I stop and look at the message.
They look like really nice old men, I know, but you can’t trust them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Asshole,” the guy behind me mutters as he has to step around me quickly.
“Sorry,” I mumble and move to the side.
That puts me in the way of more people. I get hit in the calf by a roller bag and hear a muttered, “For fuck’s sake.”
I sigh. It’s my first time, and I already hate flying commercial.
I always fly on chartered flights with my teammates or on private planes with family and friends, and yes, it’s absolutely as nice as everyone who doesn’t fly that way assumes.
But suddenly stopping while walking through an airport was asking to get plowed into. My six-three, two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame saves me from being knocked over. The average person running into me isn’t going to move me. But I definitely take up space and can cause traffic flow issues.
I look around, then dodge a small pack of young women to escape to the edge of the wave of people moving through Concourse C of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
I frown and read the message again. I haven’t seen that many exclamation marks in a text message since…ever.
Another text comes in from the unknown number.Are you off the plane yet? Have you been to baggage claim??????
That’s also a lot of question marks.
And it reminds me I have to go pick up my bags. I’ve never done that.
I showed up at security this morning with my suitcase in tow and had to go back down to check it in, feeling like a dumbass. Now I’m going to have to go get it myself?
I can’t believe my sister bought an entire hockey team, but she wasn’t willing to fly me from Oregon to Louisiana on her husband’s private plane.
I send her another quick message:Who’s picking me up?
I start walking again, following the signs to baggage claim.
I drive my Aston Martin Roadster around Portland and out to the coast, but when Astrid said she’d send someone to take me from New Orleans to Rebel, the little dot along the bayou I’ll call home for the next seven months, I agreed. I don’t need to get lost in Nowhere, Louisiana.
Astrid:His name’s Leo.
