been him at one time. Absolutely no one treated Kennedy the way I knew he wanted to. At least, they didn’t act that way and walk away unscathed.
The plane finally came to a stop and I unclenched my fists. When the light above our heads turned off, I pushed Remy out of the way and grabbed my bag from the overhead bin. Yeah, I might have shoved him harder than I should have, but he deserved it. He had a complex and honestly thought no one would use his sisters, because of who he was. He didn’t have a clue.
“Hey.” Danny slapped me on the shoulder. “I gotta use the facilities. Wait for me?” He didn’t wait for a response, though. He just pushed his way through the crowd, practically sprinting to the bathroom.
Remy snorted, but dropped his shit next to the nearest wall, and took a seat to wait.
“She was so pissed that last time we were home, she didn’t even come to see us once.”
I almost missed the look on his face and I would have if I’d been staring at my phone’s screen like I had been a moment before. Instead, I’d been trying not to trip up the walkway with my heavy-ass bag on my shoulder.
He was obviously pissed, but there was more there. I’d known the man since I was five years old and knew all his expressions, every single one. I knew the expression he had when he was beating the snot out of some kid in third grade for putting Casper’s hair in paint. I knew the way he smiled when we graduated from Boot Camp. He was my best friend. I knew every single expression he had and every emotion. His current expression, though, almost stopped me in my tracks. This was the closest I’d ever seen him get to being afraid.
“Kennedy has a lot of shit going on.”
That’s all I got out of him for the next fifteen minutes while we waited for Danny, watching as everyone else cleared out. Once we were alone, I gave in. I was hungry, and I really wanted to get something to eat. Maybe I could find a cheeseburger, with extra fries.
“Are we gonna go?” I glanced over to the bathroom. “Danny can just meet us out there . . . Or better yet, he can call a cab.”
“Hey.” Remy laughed. “It’s not my fault your brother is an idiot and had to shit his brains out. What do you want him to do? Take a cab the entire forty miles back to town?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed my bag. “That’s exactly what I want.”
Remy didn’t even move as he called out after me. “If you go now, you’re gonna end up alone with Kennedy. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she threatened to gut you the next time she sees you.”
His words had the intended effect. Immediately, I turned my ass around and sat down until Danny came out of the bathroom a few minutes later.
“Let’s go already.” Danny lifted his bag onto his shoulder and had the audacity to pretend like we hadn’t just waited for the past 20 minutes in the almost deserted lobby for him to finish blowing out the toilet.
He almost got away with it, too. When we were walking past the bathroom on our way out, another guy practically ran us over in his rush to get away.
“You don’t wanna go in there,” he gasped. If it had been anyone but Danny in the bathroom, I’d have thought he was exaggerating. My brother, he had something seriously wrong with his gut. We used to leave the house when he had to use the bathroom. “Seriously. It smells like something died in there.”
Danny rushed away, and I could see the back of his neck turning red in embarrassment. We didn’t let him go very far, though, before starting in on him.
“Hey,” he defended himself. “At least I didn’t do it on the airplane.”
“Oh gods,” Remy laughed. “He’s got a point there.”
By the time we made it through the airport and down to baggage claim, I’d almost forgotten who was picking us up. I had managed to forget all about Kennedy Townsend and the way she made my heart race while we were gone. Still she never really strayed far from my mind, and as soon as we stepped into the open area, I knew exactly where she was.
Where Kennedy was concerned, I didn’t have eyes or ears for anyone else. It’d been one of