“Your part of the band,” Holland said. “It was the right thing to do. We haven’t celebrated a lot of landmarks together, so why not start with graduation? Someday I’m sure there will be a wedding and babies, so…”
“Well, thank you. Seriously. I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Aaron said. “Mel, why didn’t you walk?”
“I’ve walked already.” He grinned. “High school was enough.”
“We’re going out to dinner,” I said. “How are we doing transportation here? We can call and exchange the sedan for a van.”
“I rented a rideshare when we got here,” Alexei said. “We can divide up. As long as Mel has a front seat. Man would bust his feet through the back running boards andFlinstonesthe whole thing.”
Mel gave him the finger.
“Are you all taking the bus back?” Rand asked.
“That was the plan,” Gertie said.
“Nope,” he said. “We have room, right?”
“For six more? Sure,” Ora said. “I’ll call and let them know to gas up properly.”
“A car?” Drew asked. “That would be nice.”
I shook my head, and Holland and Rand grinned. Holland answered, “Nope. Plane.”
“Excuse me?” Aaron said.
“Didn’t get to that part of the contract, eh?” I slung an arm around our new drummer. “We have a plane. For personal and band use. We usually use it for touring, but we’re all part owners—including you, because Grig was bought out.”
“A…plane?”
Ora made jet noises and flew his hand around. “A plane that you are free to use when not on tour and not conflicting with something else.”
He turned and looked up at me from where I had him tucked against me. “I didn’t read that in the contract, you’re right. I would have flown up here!”
“Let’s eat!” Rand said, heading for the cars.
Aaron grabbed my belt loop and held me back for a moment. He glanced up at me, and—
A shocking bolt of awareness went through me. His eyes were a bright, September sky blue lined with just that touch of liner that made them pop, and he had the smallest dusting of freckles on his cheeks. His skin looked soft and sweet and just faintly blushed at his excitement from the graduation. His styled, auburn hair would’ve been soft if I ran my hands through it. And his lips shimmered with the touch of gloss he was wearing.
Why did all of him appeal to me?
“Did you really fly up? Do you really have a plane?”
Reality slammed back into me and I blinked once, twice. “Oh. Yeah. The band totally shares one. It’s our official band touring vehicle, but we also use it for the hell of it here and there.”
He took a deep breath and let go of my belt loop. “Hell and damnation, this is going to take me a while to get used to. A fucking private plane.”
I let out a hardy laugh, half from amusement and half to hide the sudden weird feelings swirling through me. “Trust me, it took us a while, too. We were using a shitty old tour bus until Ora had a V-8 moment and said we should buy a plane.”
“But we’re not going to Europe on it?”
“Because of Russia. We’re just going passenger.”
“Listen to me. Going to Europe.”
I patted him on the back, tucking the whole weird reaction to the back of my mind. “It’s going to take a hot minute to get used to all of it. But we’ve got two spare days in London, so we’ll go see some historical shit.”
Aaron cracked up laughing. “Historical shit. I like this already.”
