Page 163 of Knot Their Starlet

“I don’t fly economy.”

“Ohhh, look at Mr. Moneybags over here,” I tease.

He just rolls his eyes.

“Didn’t have a need to fly before Beck blew up. And when he did, we were always flown business class. Now, we can afford it ourselves.”

“That... makes sense.” My failed attempt at humor makes my shoulders deflate ever so slightly. “Looks like I wouldn’t make a good court jester. Do you feel like talking at all about what’s going on in that head of yours, or do you just want company?”

He stares at me, his dark gaze boring into me.

“Or—or if you don’t want company, I can leave,” I say, pushing myself up to my feet.

“Stay.” He reaches out and grips my wrist gently. “Please.”

How can a girl say no to a request like that?

“Okay, I’m staying.”

I settle back in my seat.

“It’s... my dad,” he sighs. “Apparently, he’s got liver issues or something. Bad ones. Like, if he doesn’t get a transplant, he’s fucked, kind of problem.”

“This the guy that...”

“Beat me as a kid? Yeah.”

“Apparently, he’s been telling both my mom and my sister to tell me to come home. I think it got out somehow that we’re coming back home. Probably Beck’s mom talking to mine. Now my dad won’t stop badgering my mom and baby sister about me.”

“That... sounds like a lot of pressure,” I say, reaching out hesitantly and resting it on his rock-hard thigh. It flexes under my touch. “No wonder you’ve been getting more and more stressed the closer we get there.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“I’d say subtle is in the last three adjectives I’d used to describe you,” I say, holding up three fingers like a Boy Scout. “Right next to ugly and scrawny.”

That finally gets his lips to quirk up in something similar to a smile.

“So you think I’m hot, jacked, and obnoxious,” he says, letting out a soft huff of laughter.

“I mean, I wouldn’t say obnoxious.”

The small quirk of his lips turns into a full-blown grin.

“You didn’t protest the hot and jacked part.”

“I’d have to be fucking blind to protest that. I’d also have to be paralyzed, so I couldn’t feel you. That’d be a dead giveaway,” I say, nudging his thigh with my own.

He lets out a bark of laughter.

It has Beck and Leo glancing at us from their conversation. I just offer them a small smile and a thumbs-up.

“They seem surprised you’re laughing,” I whisper conspiratorially.

“Because it is surprising,” he shrugs, his gaze intense as he stares down at me.

“You’re thinking really hard,” I murmur, my words parroting the same words Everett said to me a few minutes before.

“I am.”