Page 20 of Dangle

Her voice went from flirty to snooty. “Your plane was due for a safety inspection. It should be ready momentarily. You can join the rest of your party in the lounge area. Leave your luggage. The crew will load it when ready. And safe travels.”

I looked at Ewen, then around the lounge. The lounge held two people—Ewen and me. Unless there was another lounge I didn’t know about.

“What did you do?” I asked, and Ewen smirked with a shrug. “You’re a meddling old woman,” I said.

A moment later, the six guys walked into the open-air lounge tucked in the corner of the posh airport FBO terminal. Not sure why they called the space a lounge. What I knew of VIP lounges, they weren’t open to prying eyes, but I guess if you’re in a private FBO terminal, the whole building could be considered a VIP access-only area.

The guys finally caught sight of Ewen and me. Their eyes widened, and their steps slowed subtly, probably only recognizable to people trained to watch people’s body language to gauge threat level. Ewen, being Ewen, stepped forward, hand outstretched. “I’m Ewen. You’re friends of Aiden and Alex, right?”

“Alex?” a guy, whose face and name I couldn’t remember from his poster, asked.

All the guys but the puzzled one shook their heads. Trey answered, though, “Coach Storm. Sasha is short for Alexander.”

“Weird nickname.”

“Overlook him. Sometimes we worry Zane’s taken too many pucks to the head,” Trey said, shaking his head again.

His eyes focused on my face, and I couldn’t say mine weren’t doing the same.

“Hey!” Zane protested, drawing my attention long enough to notice all the other guys’ nods and pointing at Trey or laughing and shoving Zane until he lost his balance.

“Fuckers!” Zane yelled, pushing them back.

I tried not to laugh; I really did, but these guys, this hockey team, weren’t much different from Hayden, Ewen, Priest, Cam, Seth—when we could drag him out with us—and me at their age. They just carried hockey sticks instead of military-grade weaponry.

Not being subtle at all, Ewen moved so that his body segmented Trey and me from the others, and struck up aconversation about hockey, explaining that their head coach was his big brother.

“Coach Grigor is really his brother?” Trey asked, his teeth worrying his lip.

My hand twitched at my side with the urge to put a stop to him abusing his tender skin.

I want to be the only one…

Fuck!

The word flew at me like bright headlamps on a dark night, telling my brain to quit picturing him and all the things I wanted to do to and with him. But right behind the blinding light came a deluge of imagery depicting all the things I could do and with….

Fuck! What the hell is wrong with me?

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Clearing my throat, I nodded, then said, “Yeah.” Fuck. I sounded horrifyingly obvious with the rough, gravelly tone of my voice. Coughing again, hopefully to clear the raspiness away, I continued, “There’s a pretty significant age gap between Will and Ewen and Ewen and Ollie, their younger brother. If I remember correctly, Will was ten when Ollie was born, and Ewen was five.”

He smiled. Burying his hands in his front pockets and hunching his shoulders, he leaned closer before saying, “So evenly spaced?”

I nodded, and my face heated. What the hell? My body acted as if I had just turned fifteen instead of edging closer to forty than I wanted to admit.

“So…”

“Gentlemen?”

We turned comically as a group. A crew member stood before us, dressed impeccably, their arm outstretched toward the plane. “You may board at your leisure.”

“Hell, yeah! Let’s go, boys!” one twin with Trey yelled. He patted the crew member on the shoulder and said, “After you, my good man.”

The crew member chuckled softly and trailed out the door, and the rest of us followed. Trey fell in behind his teammates while Ewen and I brought up the rear, just like we always had with our recon unit.

I walked across the tarmac with my ruck thrown over my back since I refused to hand it over to the crew, preferring to keep it with me. Instead of my military ruck, I carried a new, fancy one that was a garment bag. One that Ewen demanded I move all my belongings into, as he refused to let me on a private plane with the one I carried in the service. I had to admit this one was sweet, and per Ewen, not called a ruck, but he could suck it. Old habits were hard to break. But I appreciated it now that we were traveling with…