Instead, I put my hand up in the stupidest wave. Everyone probably thinks I’m an idiot.
“It’s so lovely to meet you,” an older woman with dark hair says, and I know instantly it’s their mother. “I can’t wait to get to know you better on this trip, but right now I’m going to need everyone who was late for the gate time to park their asses in their seats so we can make our takeoff time,” she says, clearly scolding her sons who are probably late more often than they are on time.
Gavin grabs my hand and plants me in the seat next to him, Ben across from me, and an older gentleman sitting next to him.
Ben looks just as shocked as me, giving Gavin glances of confusion, but Gavin doesn’t give us anything. Per usual, he’s unreadable as fuck and I’d give just about anything to crack his head open and figure out just what’s going on in there.
“Glad to see you made it, somewhat on time,” the older man says with a crinkle of his eye.
Definitely their father.
“Kate, it’s lovely to meet you. Neither of my youngest boys have brought a friend on vacation before. They were kind of built in best friends, same with Lincoln and Aiden, I suppose. So what is it you do?”
“I already told you, she’s a professor, dad,” Ben says.
“Oh well, spoil all the small talk, why don’t you?” his dad jokes and then the two of them start talking about the marina and bar, meanwhile I’m sitting here absolutely fucking shell shocked.
I look over at Gavin and he shakes his head.
“You can’t be that surprised can you?” he asks and I just blink at him as he reaches across my waist and buckles my seat belt.
The captain lets us know that we’re headed to the runway and all I can do is stare at Gavin and wonder if this trip is going to be an even bigger clusterfuck than I realized.
33
BAHAMA DISASTER
On our wayto the plane probably wasn’t the best time to drop that bomb, but I just couldn’t hold it back anymore.
After that morning in the kitchen, I just knew I couldn’t hold back anymore, and I took a risk. She was either going to pull away and tell me that we were just friends, or she was going to get on this plane ride with my family and suffer because we’re so much more than friends.
She got on the plane and I’m feeling smug about it.
We’re in the air, and I can tell she wants to ask me a million questions, but with my dad sitting across from us, she bounces her leg instead. Ben is making the same exact motion across from us and I hold back a smirk.
I unbuckle my seat.
“Where are you going?” Kate asks.
“Bathroom, be right back,” I tell her.
Except when I get to the lav door, Ben’s pushing me inside and locking us in there together.
“What the fuck was that? We didn’t discuss this,” Ben says, running a hand through his hair that’s just slightly longer than mine at the moment.
“She got on the plane, Ben.”
“Okay, and?”
“I told her we weren’t just friends, and she got on the plane. She feels the same way,” I say, and my brother blinks at me.
He rubs the back of his neck, looking at the door and back to me.
“She got on the plane,” he says in awe.
“She got on the fucking plane. She’s probably talking to dad about the parallels of fine art and architecture right now. The fact she agreed to come in the first place. She feels the same about us.”
“Well, you,” Ben says.
