Such a Rush(38)
Author: Jennifer Echols

I watched Grayson and Alec for their reaction, the wince that passed across both of their faces when someone mentioned their dad. I saw it flit across Grayson’s, even in the flickering colored lights from the bar.

Alec didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward and told Molly, “Grayson and I took care of the banners. We couldn’t get our commercial pilot’s licenses until we turned eighteen last October, so we haven’t been allowed to fly for money until now.”

I pointed out, “You also watched the takeoffs to make sure nothing fell off the planes when they snagged the banners. If Alec and I are already flying, who’s going to do that for you, Grayson?”

Grayson glanced at me with no expression on his face and squeezed his fist into a ball.

“Hire me,” Molly piped up.

“Yeah!” Alec exclaimed at the same time Grayson asked “What?” and I said “No.”

“I can spell,” Molly said. “I can drag these banners around if they’re not hugely heavy, right?”

“You’re hired,” Grayson said.

I glared across the table at Molly, but I couldn’t catch her eye. Not knowing what she was up to made me very nervous. She wandered into her parents’ café to help out only if she happened to wake up early enough and was bored. She could definitely work at the airport instead of the café if she wanted to. But why would she want to? The work would be dusty and hot with a side of gas fumes. I couldn’t imagine what good she thought she could get out of this job, unless she intended to meddle in my business with the boys. And I couldn’t let her do that. My flying career was too important. I couldn’t let her give my secret away to Alec, accidentally or otherwise.

“Wait a minute,” I chimed in. “Grayson, I don’t think this is a good idea. You just met Molly. There are things about this job that she won’t be used to.”

“Like what?” she challenged me.

“Labor,” I said.

“Oh,” she said with a threatening laugh, “I will cut a bitch.”

I kicked her underneath the table, warning her that she was making me look bizarre and unglamorous to Alec. “Not in front of the children.”

“You’re hired,” Grayson told Molly again. “But whatever kind of drama we’ve got going on when we’re on the ground, we’re not doing anything that affects what happens in the sky. There is no crashing at Hall Aviation. That means no hangovers. No drinking.” He slid Molly’s daiquiri toward the middle of the table.

“Hey!” she cried. “It’s spring break! Just one drink?”

“None,” Grayson said firmly.

“But I’m not flying,” she pouted.

“You’re aligning the banners correctly,” he said. “You’re watching the airplanes to make sure nothing falls off. You’re spelling.”

She stuck out her bottom lip and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

He laughed. “You can have one.” He slid the daiquiri back to her.

“Thanks, boss. Want a sip? It’ll loosen you up a little.”

“I’ll pass. Loosening up wasn’t my goal for the night. I don’t get involved with my employees.”

I’d been watching this whole exchange in horror. At first they seemed to be flirting. But I doubted he would have made this comment about his employees so flatly if he’d wanted to make a move on her.

She wasn’t offended. She laughed straight through it. “Why are you the boss of this outfit instead of Alec? Are you older?”

“We’re twins,” Grayson and Alec said at the same time.

“I knew that!” Molly exclaimed. “I totally forgot! You’re nothing alike.”

“Yes, they are,” I said. This wasn’t true, but I was feeling territorial again. Molly got along with the boys so much better than I did, and she didn’t even care about them.

“No, we’re not,” the boys said at the same time. They looked at each other across the table. Grayson smiled, and Alec laughed. I got the feeling they hadn’t laughed together in a while.

“How did you and Leah become ‘friends’?” Grayson asked Molly, making finger quotes.

I grinned at him and spoke up. “I stole her boyfriend.”

“You tried.” She reached across the table and patted my arm soothingly.

“What really happened?” Grayson asked.

I looked to Molly to answer this. She didn’t know what had really happened. I did, but I wasn’t going to tell her. We were friends now, and that was all I wanted. Honesty wasn’t worth the trouble.

“I’d just moved to town two years ago,” she said. “I snagged the hottest guy at school, right? And the next thing I know, all these chicks are telling me that Leah Jones is after him so I had better watch out.”

Alec chuckled. Grayson said dryly, “She’s that kind of girl, is she?”

“Apparently,” Molly said, giving me a brief glare as she always did when she mentioned Ryan. She was still resentful about him. “If I’d been at my old school in Atlanta, I might have let it go and watched how things went. But I was at a new school and I felt like I needed to lay down the law so girls wouldn’t mess with my property.” She moved her finger in the air as she said this in a poor imitation of some kind of gangland gesture, which was even funnier coupled with her blue glittery clubbing eye shadow. “So I confronted her about it.”

“Girl fight!” Alec exclaimed.

I giggled, because Alec was funny. Patrick anticipating the same thing outside my trailer last night hadn’t been funny at all, probably because it had been a lot closer to the truth.

Grayson watched me without laughing. “What did Leah do when you confronted her?” he asked Molly.

“She was funny,” Molly said. “Can you believe that? Everything I tried to serve her, she dished right back to me. I realized that I wanted to be friends with her more than I wanted to go out with that hunk of burning love.”

That’s not what had happened with Ryan. But I let her go on thinking so, since she liked viewing me as a tough girl from the hood. She might not want to be my friend otherwise.

However, I didn’t appreciate the way she characterized the argument, like she’d decided we would be friends, and therefore we were. Like she’d chosen me over Ryan. Like she’d adopted a kitten from the pound. I certainly felt that way when she picked me up and took me to her parents’ café for dinner, but I hated the way it sounded now that these boys were listening.