Fuck…why does she have to do this to me? Right here, in front of my teammates. I know Blue and I know her tender heart. I’m sure she has a nice speech all wrapped up pretty for me about how sorry she is and she’ll try to ameliorate my bruised heart. She’s going to try to make me feel better about dumping me and I am not going to give her that power over me. It’s up to me to make myself feel better about things, and when I figure out how to do that, I’m going to jump all over it.
Until then, I decide to be a man about it. “No thanks. I think we’ve said all we need to say to each other.”
I can’t see it but I sense the other three guys looking at me like I’m crazy, but I keep my eyes locked on Blue so I can see the disappointment and sadness welling within. She stares at me for what seems like forever, as if I’ll tell her I’m just joking but then she straightens up.
Turning on her heel, she walks away from me toward the galley and I ignore the soul-sucking ache inside of me.
“You are a total dick,” Bishop mutters and I turn to look at him in surprise.
“What the fuck, dude?” Legend says with his arms thrown out. My gaze cuts to him. “Why would you pass that up?”
“Pass what up?” I growl back at him. “A sweeter letdown than what she gave me before? More pretty words to cover up the hurt? Hear again how she doesn’t need me in her life?”
Legend blinks at me in surprise and shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s why she wanted to talk to you?”
“You don’t?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowing inward.
“I can’t pretend to be in her head, but the expression on her face didn’t look like she was throwing you some pity words.”
“I think she wanted to apologize,” Bishop adds on. “Get back together.”
“Fuck,” I mutter as my eyes slide to the galley but all I can see is part of the cupboards through the entryway.
My head snaps Bishop’s way since he’s the one with real relationship experience. “Should I go talk to her?”
Before he can answer me, a slight crackle comes over the speakers in the plane and then Blue’s voice comes over the system.
“I’m sorry, Erik,” she says and my head snaps back toward the galley so hard, I make myself dizzy. She’s standing there, holding the microphone handset up to her mouth. “I was wrong. About everything. And since you won’t talk to me, I’m going to force you to at least listen. And I hope the pilots forgive this intrusion and don’t ask for me to be fired.”
My mouth drops open as does all the guys’ sitting with me. A quick scan of the area and I see every single person has gone silent and still, all turned watching Blue as she talks over the PA system.
“I was so very wrong to be angry at you for Billy’s fall. It was merely me transferring a whole lot of misplaced guilt onto your shoulders and it was completely unfair.”
My gaze goes back to Blue and I keep it there as she stares right back at me across the plane’s cabin. Over the heads and shoulders of teammates and coaches who are watching her grovel before me in a very public manner.
“I realized something,” she says and I can just make out the slight curve at the corner of her lips indicating a soft smile from behind the handset. “I realized that Billy can’t take precedence over you. If I’m to love a man such as you, then it has to be with the same devotion I have for Billy because you’re equally important to me.”
Jesus…a wave of pure emotions slams me dead center of my chest, and I rise up from my chair. As I wind my way through the cabin toward Blue, she just keeps talking while staring intently at me. “I promise, if you give me another chance, I’ll find the right balance in my life to give you everything you need because you deserve it.”
My arm extends and my hand reaches her before the rest of me, taking the handset away from her and dropping it carelessly where it bobs on its coiled cord. My other hand goes to her neck and it’s my mouth that reaches her next.
It slams into her along with my body finally catching up to the rest of me and I wrap an arm around her lower back. I bend her backward—forcing her to clutch onto my shoulders—to take more of my kiss because I just can’t make it deep enough to soothe my soul.
I vaguely hear a bunch of clapping and whistles from the cabin but all that matters to me is the woman in my arms.