Seven Groomsmen from Hell (Love by Numbers 6)

“Hurry up!” Khloe barked. “You’re a football player! Get the lead out.”

She was hard to keep up with. For a thick girl, who classed herself as not being athletic, and compared to me who was a football player, she was leaving me in the dust. I did want to find Luke, but I wasn’t willing to risk injury to do it. I’d just hop a plane and head for Miami and chase him through the airport there. People were all over the place and it felt like they all had rolling bags or kids on leashes; getting through the terminal was like taking on a very difficult obstacle course.

We cleared a crowd of people and time seemed to move in slow motion for a moment. We looked up and saw the gate agent closing the door to the Miami flight. Neither Christian nor Luke was anywhere in sight, and both Khloe and I came to a halt.

“We’re too late,” Khloe said sadly.

I walked up to her and placed my hand on her back. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to get to him before it’s too late.”

“Before it’s too late to do what?” Khloe and I both whipped our heads around and Luke was standing behind us with Christian at his side.

Christian walked up to me and backhanded me across the head. “Ow!” I yelped. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Why is your phone off?” he growled.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw that it was in fact turned off. I must have done it accidentally when I was running through the airport. “Oops,” I said.

“You came back,” Luke said with a smile. Khloe nodded, but then her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to drop from her feet. “Khloe!” Luke got his hands out just in time to catch her as she passed out into his arms.

He carried her to the nearest set of benches and helped her sit down. Once she was sitting on the bench, to all of our relief, her eyes started to open. Christian knelt down in front of her and kissed her knees gently. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I didn’t realize I was that fatigued,” she said. “I haven’t eaten or drank anything since before you guys sent me your video last night.”

“What video?” Luke said.

“I’ll get her some water.” Christian stood up and disappeared into the crowd, while I took my boarding pass and started to fan Khloe’s face.

“What video?” Luke repeated.

“Don’t worry about it 135,” Khloe spat and both of our jaws dropped. She glared at Luke for a minute and then burst out into laughter. “You should see your faces.”

“Not funny,” Luke hissed.

“Oh, lighten up…” I chuckled. “…135.”

Luke pointed his finger in my face. “I was barely accepting of it when she said it, but I’ll kick your ass.”

Christian came back and handed Khloe a bottle of water and she took a big gulp. When she was done, she started to get to her feet, and we all huddled around her like a toddler just learning how to walk. She pushed us away and then began walking towards the exit. When she was about ten feet away, she looked back over her shoulder and flashed us a huge, brilliant smile.

“Well? Let’s go home,” Khloe said.

We didn’t hesitate. Luke rushed up and took her hand into his and we all walked out of the airport and took our first steps into our new life together.

Epilogue

Luke

What I had learned in the near five months since we started dating Khloe was that whatever she asked for, she received in spades. We balanced our relationship well; we each got our individual time with her. Whenever any of us wanted to ‘team up’ for sexy time, we managed to make that work as well, but whenever Khloe made a request of any kind, we turned into behemoths each trying to one up one another getting it for her. It was just before the 4th of July weekend, and Khloe mentioned that she wished that she could get away for the holiday, so we planned a barbecue, argued over whose house it was going to be at, who was going to get to cook for her, who was going to get to bake for her, everything from A to Z. We had to play several games of Cody’s convoluted football tournament from back when we were in Puerto Rico, but in the end, I got to be the host and everyone else filled in with food and treats. The added bonus was that my house had a nice, big pool, so we got to look at Khloe in a bikini.

“Mason, I swear to god.” I was standing at the grill when Khloe’s voice shattered my thoughts. I looked over just in time to see Mason grab Khloe and jump into the pool. David and Christian, who were already in the pool, rushed over and immediately started trying to get her top undone. Khloe started to laugh. “Knock it off! Kent and Anna will be here soon!”