Page 30 of In Ruins
I wait in my room until it’s well past midnight before calling Xander. “I’m ready to leave. Scramble the camera feeds.”
“You’re good to go,” he tells me a moment later.
“Alright. Get home in one piece,” I say into the phone. A few of my guys are outside the hotel. They came here to pick up my mask and take it back home. Can’t trust airport security even if you’re flying private.
Now that I know the cameras are scrambled, I slip out of the hotel unnoticed and head to the airport. A different chartered plane is waiting for me, and I quickly get on it. I don’t have to wait long before taking off, and when we reach cruising altitude, the attendant brings over a glass of cognac and sets it beside me.
“Would you like anything else, sir? Perhaps something to eat?” the flight attendant asks with a flirty smile. It’s an open invitation if I’ve ever seen one, but the thought of touching her makes my skin crawl, and just like that, my mind goes back toher.
“No, this is fine, thanks. I won’t need anything else for the rest of the flight.”
“No problem, sir,” she tells me with a hint of disappointment in her voice.
I’ve been so busy in the past month that I barely let myself think of Aria. But now that I’m heading home, she seems to be the only thing on my mind. Just thinking about her now has mycock perking right the fuck up like I don’t have other shit to deal with.
Now that she’s in my head, I’m suddenly remembering how tight her pussy felt around my cock and how much harder it got when I saw her virgin blood all over it. I let out an involuntary groan that I didn’t realize was loud enough for anyone else to hear.
“You good, boss?” Otto, one of my men, asks.
“All good,” I say, and then turn to the window to cut off any further conversation.My men can be nosy assholes when they want to be.
My mind goes back to her, and I wonder what she’s doing now. Hell, what she’s been up to this past month. This girl has fucked up my equilibrium ever since our one night together. I have no urge to be with anyone else. Just the thought makes me want to puke. I have no idea what to do with that, because this shit has never happened to me before.
I can’t have her again. Hell, I don’t want to get tied down either. I’ll be a confirmed bachelor for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.
I’m still tied up in thoughts of her when the jet finally lands with a thud. It starts to make its way to the hangar, and I let out a slight sigh of relief at the fact that I made it back home in one piece.
I shake myself out of my Aria stupor and will myself to stop thinking about her. She's nothing to me in the long run, and I need to remember that and keep it that way. It was only one night and nothing more. Plus, being with her could start a fucking war because her father is an asshole, and I don’t want to be bothered with the aggravation of that shit. He’ll never win against my family or me, but it would just be fucking annoying to deal with him.
By the time I make it to my parents’ house, I’m tired as fuck, but when I check my watch, I see that it’s almost time for dinner. I slip into the house to take a quick shower before heading down. Otherwise, Ma would have my ass. I hate that I’m not going to my own place, since all I want to do is sleep in my own bed, but my mother would go look for me there.
Anytime I’m gone on a job for any extended period of time, I always have to spend the first night back at home with them so she can fuss over me. Since they both knew I was coming home today, here I am.
As predicted, when I come back down and head to the dining room, Ma is all over me. She grabs my face and kisses my cheeks before looking me over from head to toe like I went off to war.
“Thank God, my baby is back! I’ve missed you,” she says, hugging me. I roll my eyes at her dramatics. “You’ve been gone for far too long.”
“I wasn’t gone that long, Ma,” I say, looking down at her five-foot-nothing self, and she uses that moment to slap me on the back of my head.
“Ow! What was that for? I thought you just said you missed me.”
“Don’t think I don’t know you just rolled your eyes at me! And it doesn’t matter if you’re gone for a minute, a day, or a month, I’ll still miss you. You’re my baby, and you’ll always be my baby,” she says, and I have to refrain from rolling my eyes again.
“Son, I’m glad you’re back,” Dad says as he walks into the room. Mom leaves me as Dad walks over to me and gives me a slap on the back and a kiss to the forehead. He’s hard with everyone except my mom and me. He still kisses me on the head sometimes when he greets me. No one would ever expect him to be this soft with his family since there are so many others who treat their families like shit.
“I’ve got to say it’s good to be home again. I missed your ugly mug,” I say with a laugh as we both head for our seats at the dinner table.
“Please, you wish. Where did you think you got your good looks from?” He smirks, and I just roll my eyes. Dinner is nice with just us, but I can’t wait to head back to my own space in the morning. I love my parents and am thankful for them because I know not everyone in our world has the kind of parents I do, so I stay over to please them whenever I can.
We’re in the middle of dinner, making small talk while eating, when Dad brings Aria up in conversation, and I’m like a kid in a freaking candy store waiting to hear what I can about her. I play it cool while listening, not that he knows bringing her up would mean anything to me at all.
“Guess what I got today,” he says. It’s not dinner in the Andretti household if either one of them doesn't gossip.
“An appointment with a plastic surgeon to make you not look like an ogre for Ma?” I joke.
“Ha ha, no. Your mother loves me just the way I am. I mean, just before you got home, we were?—”
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Are my ears going to bleed? I don’t need to be traumatized over dinner!”
