Page 109 of On The Edge
“No, five more minutes,” she whispers, whining, and I can’t help but smile.
“Come on, Reverb, let me help clean you up–” Reis steps in, but I pull her closer to me.
“And I’ll watch her while she rests. You guys can either sit around us, or we form a little cuddle-huddle.”
“Cuddle-huddle?” Markus snorts at me.
“She’s not some toy to fight over.” Reis tries to talk to me as if I’m being the illogical one here, rolling his eyes.
“Exactly. You can clean her up, and I get to cuddle her.” I shrug, “Compromise.”
While I do want to nap with her in my arms, it is also slightly selfish on my part. With Melody in my arms, I sleep so much better. It’s like my body knows it can just purely rest for the first time in so fucking long. On the days where she’s with one of them, I toss and I turn. I wake up constantly. I really don’t know how I’m functioning.
But then Melody crawls into my bed and Isleep.
I can practically see the vein in Reis' neck popping with anger, but he relents with a pouty nod, and I pass her, half-conscious, to him. Markus follows them into the small bathroom. I hear the softclickof the lock before the light turns on overhead signaling the bathroom is occupied.
Kai moves his head back, looking out the side of the curtain again.
“Why do you keep looking?”
“Because that bitch keeps looking this way with her phone pointed towards the curtain and I don’t fucking like it.”
The blood drains from my face and anger bubbles up.
“No,” I growl. The one word cutting through the room like a steel blade. I stand up, pulling on my clothes and getting my hair in a respectable order.
“Where are you going?” Kai says, still lounging butt-ass naked.
“I’m not taking a singular chance that anything gets out about Melody.”
“What are you going to do? Take her phone?”
“Fuck yeah, I am. Smash that shit on the ground.”
“Dude, she could’ve taken audio and had it uploaded to some account somewhere. Get her phone, bring it here, and we’ll deal with it.”
My eyebrows raise in surprise. That’s a really smart idea. I agree and gesture to myself.
“Do I look normal?”
“As you usually look, just maybe with a little more pep in your step.” Kai smirks, looking out the curtain again. “Go, she’s looking. If you get out there and she has her phone in her hand, she’s fired. We’ll drop her in London and that’s it.”
“Got it,” I say through clenched teeth because I already know how this is going to go. Shaking my head in frustration and trying to get a handle on my anger, I roll my shoulders back. If something happens to Mel because wehadto join the mile-high club, I’m going to beg for her forgiveness for the rest of my days.
It’s our job to protect her. And I’ll do that for the rest of my life. No matter what. No matter the cost.
I step through the heavy curtains, turning around and making sure the room is completely covered. I breathe a sigh of relief when I notice that I can’t hear anything. Not Kai murmuring, or the bathroom, or even the hum of the plane.These heavy, blackout curtains that Reis demanded we put in place so we could actually get some sleep after concerts when flying paid off.
Turning back around quickly, I see the edge of a phone sticking out. Just enough that I can see the camera pointed right at me.
And I see red.
“Kai,” I snap loudly, tapping the curtain so he knows this shit is serious before I storm over to the idiot hiding in the galley. I need her phone, and I need to make sure Mel is safe. We have… at least another four hours in the air to make sure this stewardess knows that she is not to say a fucking thing.And if she chooses not to listen?Then this bitch has it coming.
“Well, look at what we have here,” I say roughly, the rudeness in my tone is intentionally abrupt. I obviously scared her too because she jumps, tossing her phone into the air from fright.
“Sir, hello.” She tries to get herself right, putting her phone in her pocket quickly and straightening her blouse, but the damage is done. At least she looks scared of me, and she’s not thinking that she can try to flirt her way out of this.
