Our girl, Kate. Kitty-Kat.
The plane soared smoothly into the great blue sky and yet my stomach wouldn’t settle, slushing queasily. We just took off from New York City and Queens was now a shrinking set of squares and houses outside the window and below us.
Gunner stared moodily out a porthole, a heavy frown settled like the mask of a stranger on his face. Resting on his thigh, one hand clenched into a fist then unclenched in an endless rhythm. He hadn’t said a word since we left Manhattan. Not to me, Hudson, or even the pretty girl who’d escorted us to our cars. Because ever since Kate, he hasn’t noticed those hooches. They don’t stand a chance anymore.
“This fucking blows,” I finally said, because it was true.
Hudson sat at the back of the plane away from both of us, staring into space. His cobalt eyes were faded and he didn’t once put away the bottle of whiskey that he’d picked up at the hotel bar on our way out. Fortunately, it remained capped and un-drunk. Still, it was clutched in his hand like a loaded gun.
Nor did my man buckle his seatbelt. None of us did. Why would we when we didn’t have a stewardess telling us to?
Kate Baxter. Our girl.
She was supposed to be here for us to tell us what to do. To be our flight attendant. To be our assistant. To be our everything.
There was a problem, and it was real. Hudson was the one who’d said how we were screwing over the sweet girl by not letting her live a normal life.
“I don’t know how long we can do this to her. She’s the homemaker sort. I mean, you saw her when we first met,” he had asserted. “We said we were going to let her go. How long until we bite the bullet?”
Fuck that. She should be with us. We shouldn’t just toss her to the curb because she was worth more than that. The three of us could love her. She deserved better than some loser with a receding hairline, bad breath, and a mediocre job.
“Fuck,” I growled again.
“Get over it, man,” Hudson grunted at me. “We decided. We left her. The shit is done.”
But it wasn’t done. Not really.
After we passed out in bed with Kate, I woke up feeling like I was in paradise. Kate’s tits were smashed into my face, the taste of her pussy on my tongue, my balls squeezed tightly from unloading inside and on her so many times. I was drained, but I had a thought. Maybe I was being stupid, but at that moment, I thought that we could make it work. Kate was safe with us. She didn’t have to leave. We could be together and have her stay with the crew, living out her days full-time with Hard Fought.
Then my problem-solving had come to a dead stop. It could never work out that way. Eventually, the eighteen-year-old would grow up and she would realize that being with three men simply is not possible in the long-term.
Disappointment crushed my soul, the air like lead in my lungs. Shit this felt so bad, and the reason was totally clear.
Because I loved her. In fact, all of us did. We didn’t plan on it when falling in love was for suckers. Who wanted to be stuck with one chick for the rest of their lives when you could have a line-up of the best of the best?
Then Kate came in blowing all of my pre-conceived notions out of the water.
With the brunette, life was good. Being onstage wasn’t the most exciting part about our lives when she was around. Our princess couldn’t get enough of our personalities, and it was hot as hell.
She was innocent, yet she knew exactly what we needed.
So why would we let someone like her go?
“We fucked up,” I finally ground out. But opposition was in the works. Hudson jerked his head away from the window, anger simmering right below the surface.
“Shut up. It was the right thing to do,” he growled. But then the repressed rage got the better of him and the man let out a loud, “Shit!” Roaring like a wild animal, he slung his hand back and smashed the bottle of whiskey into the side of the plane. Glass flew everywhere. The strong smell of the spilled liquor rushed through the cabin and seared my nose hairs.
“Fuck, dude! Chill!” I stared the spreading stain on the wall of the plane.
What was with this drama? Fuck it. After all, it’d been his idea to leave Kate. I hadn’t wanted to, and it had been Hudson who’d forced us to hew to the original plan.
After all, Kate was a good girl. She deserved stability. Marriage to an adoring husband. A normal life. We couldn’t give her any of that. Hudson was right, but that didn’t change the fact that it hurt like hell.