Chapter Thirty
Killian
Once the plane gets in the air, the flight attendant comes around with glasses of champagne for all of us.
Brynn is big-eyed like a baby deer and sneaks me an uncertain glance when the glass is handed to her. I smirk and take a sip of mine, so she takes a sip of hers, too.
The flight attendant finds out what we’d all like for dinner and takes our dinner drink orders, then she disappears to put it all together for us.
Brynn doesn’t know where we’re going yet, and I think she might be too overwhelmed to ask. I expected a few rapid-fire questions and/or objections once she realized this date involved a plane ride, but she hasn’t asked a single question.
She was a little thrown off by Dare, but people have that reaction to him sometimes. I think it depends on how closely they’re paying attention and how much he cares about making a good impression. Some people like him right off because when he wants to be, he can be very charismatic, but he wasn’t making the slightest attempt to charm her, so her initial consumption of him may have been the unsettling part.
The way she avoids his gaze as much as possible solidifies my initial thought. I want to tell her they won’t be with us for the entire trip to set her at ease, but I also don’t want to say that in front of them and insult the guy who is making this lavish date possible.
I’m paying my half, of course, but half of a private jet for the weekend is still a lot of fucking money, and he didn’t even want to go to France.
I don’t know why. Who doesn’t want to go to France? But when I told him where I wanted to go, he had an immediately disdainful reaction and said it wouldn’t be his first pick.
But Brynn was pissed at me and I wanted to do something special for her, so I enticed him with a joking, “Come on, you haven’t done anything to piss Aubrey off lately? Girls love Paris. It’ll get you some brownie points.”
He must have needed some because he was begrudgingly persuaded.
I guess he could have just wanted to do me the favor, too. He is the newest Blue Blood, and while he doesn’t need to prove himself to us more than he already has, I could see the new recruit feeling the need to go the extra mile.
We move over to the table when the flight attendant brings out dinner. She gives Dare and Aubrey their food first, then comes back with ours.
“Thank you,” Brynn says, offering up a smile.
She ordered a grilled chicken and quinoa salad, so I ask her, “You okay with the chicken?”
She nods. “It’s fine.”
Aubrey’s eyes widen in horror. “Is she a vegetarian? You didn’t have to choose from the options she gave us. There are vegan options.”
“No, it’s fine,” Brynn says, waving her off. “I’m only a part-time vegetarian and I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”
Brynn shakes her head, unrolling her silverware. “It looks delicious. I’m excited to eat it,” she assures her.
“Okay,” Aubrey says, but she seems a little reluctant.
Since Aubrey is clearly anxious about being a bad hostess, Brynn quickly saws off a tiny piece of chicken and takes a bite of her dinner. “Mm, delicious,” she says, once she’s finished chewing.
“Yeah?” Aubrey asks. Since she ordered the same thing, she unrolls her own silverware and prepares to take a bite of hers.
“I’ve never eaten dinner on a plane before. How long is this flight?” Brynn asks casually.
“About seven hours,” Aubrey answers.
Brynn nearly chokes. “What?”
Aubrey’s eyes widen at her surprise and her gaze drifts to me questioningly.
“Where are we going?” Brynn demands, looking over at me.
“Paris.”
I thought her eyes couldn’t possibly widen more, but I was wrong. “Paris? Like, Paris, France?”
“That’s the one.”
Her jaw hangs open in clear shock for several seconds, but then I can see all the ramifications of that answer falling into place. “Killian… I can’t go to Paris. I have studying to do. I have classes Monday.” Then, as if just remembering the most important part, she says, “I work all day Sunday. If I don’t show up, they’ll fire me.”
“I already called and let them know you wouldn’t be in Sunday. I brought your schoolbag, and we’ll be back in time for all our classes Monday morning. We’re flying in overnight, spending Saturday in the city and the night at the hotel, then we’ll come back home Sunday.”
“I didn’t pack. I don’t have my passport,” she realizes, growing horrified. “How will I even get into the country?”
“I packed for you, and I brought your passport,” I assure her. “I took care of everything. You don’t have to worry about anything, just enjoy the trip.”
“Wow, when he said he was going to surprise her with Paris, he really meant it, huh?” Aubrey murmurs to Dare, who just smirks.
“This is… the craziest surprise ever,” Brynn states. “I should have dressed warmer.”
“I packed an extra pair of thermal leggings if you want to borrow them,” Aubrey offers. “They look just like tights, but they’re warmer, like pants. Pair them with a nice coat and they’ll complement your dress perfectly,” she says, glancing at what Brynn’s wearing.
“Really? That would be amazing.”
Aubrey nods. “No problem. Dare likes me in skirts, but he brought me to Boston where it’s like living in a refrigerator, so I’ve had to find wardrobe fixes to keep from freezing to death. I’m working on a cozy scarf collection, too.”
Brynn cracks a smile. “Not from here, I take it?”
Aubrey shakes her head. “We’re from California. Much, much nicer weather.”
“You’re both from California?”
She nods. “Same place. Baymont. It’s on the coast. We went to high school together.”
“Ohh,” Brynn drawls, seeming to put something together. Her gaze jumps to Dare’s mouth and eyes for a second and alarms the fuck out of me, but then she just nods like she’s figured something out. “You’re the girlfriend from high school.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Aubrey says with an uncertain laugh.
Brynn points her fork at her. “I don’t know if you know this, but there’s this one Zeta who’s like… obsessed with your boyfriend.”
Aubrey rolls her eyes. “You must be talking about Vanessa.”
Brynn nods. “That’s the one.”
Aubrey nods, already aware of the girl’s hopeless crush. “She’s the worst. I cannot stand that girl.”
“I can see why,” Brynn says.
“Sloane invited me to join the Zetas even though I didn’t rush, and that girl is half the reason I said no. I’ve already dealt with one pyscho obsessed with him, I do not need a reprise.”
“So it’s a common occurrence?” Brynn asks lightly.
“His ex is a nutjob. Like… you don’t understand when I say that. You think she’s a little crazy or I’m just biased. No. She’s all the crazy, and if she went to school here, she would definitely be a Zeta, so I just… I can’t.”
“Sloane didn’t ask me to join, but she told everyone I was the newest Zeta tonight, so I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Maybe she just said it because all the other girls in the auction were Zetas.”
Aubrey’s eyebrows rise. “You did the date auction? Isn’t that for single girls?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that,” Brynn says flatly. “I kind of got tricked into the whole thing. They invited me over to help set up for the fundraiser, but then suddenly I was in some date auction, and then they told me they weren’t real dates, but then Ryan said they were.”
“Ryan’s nice,” Aubrey says. “I’d believe him over a Zeta.”
“Not all the Zetas are bad,” Brynn says, sounding a tad protective. “I met this girl named Addison who was pretty awesome. She made me cookies,” she adds, picking up the little bowl Addison brought us as we were leaving. “There are only two, but we can break them in half and share them if you guys like oatmeal raisin.”
“Speaking of Addison and the Zeta auction,” I say, shifting so I can pull out the fundraiser program I snatched on my way in tonight. “I have questions.”
Brynn looks down at the book curiously as I open it to the page she was featured on. The girls are listed as they would appear, so Brynn is the second girl on the top row and her new friend Addison is several rows down. Since it’s an advertisement for a meat market, every girl has a border around her picture to let bidders know what she’s open to. Most are blue all the way around, but Addison and Brynn are both surrounded by a pink and blue border.
“What’s this?” I ask her.
“Oh. That means we’ll go home with a girl or a guy,” she explains. Then, realizing how it sounds, she looks at Dare and Aubrey. “I didn’t know that. I was not actually open to going home with anyone. Sloane told me it wasn’t romantic in nature, and I thought the point was just raising money, so I told her I was fine with bids from anyone who wanted to donate.”
Dare glimpses the list, then he says, “Your friend Addison get tricked, too?”
“No. She likes girls.”
His eyebrows rise and his gaze shifts to me. “Beware of bi girls who bring your girlfriend baked goods.”
“Dare!” Eyes wide and horrified, Aubrey smacks him in the stomach. Then, to Brynn, she says quickly, “He’s not a bigot, I promise. It’s totally fine if either of you are… into girls.”
Brynn smiles faintly. “I’m not. Sometimes I wish I were, but…”
Aubrey smiles and bites her lip like she understands, but she doesn’t dare respond to that one.