Page 4 of Calla's Boys

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I roll my shoulders when we finally find our baggage claim area, then settle in for another ungodly wait.

I like traveling—it’s one of my hobbies—but I never cared for how long it takes to get a fucking bag off a slow-moving carousel.

“They should just let us carry these things in the main cabin,” I grumble as I put my hands on my hips.

“Wouldn’t that make the plane too heavy?” Clyde asks me curiously.

I shake my head. “Baggage goes under the plane. I just think they don’t want to deal with the overcrowding it would probably cause.”

“Hm,” he replies indifferently, and he shrugs.

I watch fondly as he grunts, crosses his arms over his chest, then shuffles closer to Calla.

He never likes it when she pays attention to any of us individually, unless it’s him or he’s included, so the fact that she’s spending so much time talking to Jesse is probably grinding his gears into dust.

A loud, annoying horn starts to blare incessantly, followed by a red light turning in a circular motion, and the damn conveyor belt finally starts moving.

“God, I thought we’d end up sleeping here,” Jesse grumbles as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, one outburst fromyouand they’d put us on the next thing flying back to the States,” I tease with a laugh.

Jesse gives me a withering stare, but his lips twitch, giving away the fact that he’s not exactly pissed off about my crack.

Still, I think that’ll be the only one I manage on this trip, so I won’t end up taped to the bottom of the plane on the way home.

“Doc, come get your shit!” Clyde calls out after ten minutes pass. He tosses my duffle bag on the ground behind him, then turns his attention back to the conveyor belt. I roll my eyes.

He’s the conquering hero—or at least, he likes to think that he is, but the flaw in his little referendum is that he’s not exactly gentle.

With anything.

Words, luggage, Calla.

Nothing is safe from Clyde’s bullshit, but we all fall in line when we have to, because no one wants to upset her to the point of finding another group of men to quell her desires.

“Jesse—”

“Throw it, and I’ll make one out ofyou,” Jesse cuts him off cheerfully as he walks forward and takes his bag from Clyde.

I smirk when I see him shrink a little in fear because God knows that Jesse’s been dying to hurt someone.

I don’t know which part of him that happens to be, though.

The genius or the madman.

As he comes back to stand next to me, I start making small talk to try and keep him preoccupied as Clyde continues to play Skee-Ball with everyone else’s luggage.

Chapter Three

Jesse

This is fucking annoying,I think irritably as we all pile into a shuttle. There are lots of strangers in here, and the only people I do know, I don’t really want to see again until tomorrow.

Almost eight hours on a plane will do that to a person.

I do my best not to take a bite out of Calla’s ass as she saunters by me, settling in a seat against the back of the shuttle, next to one of the stranger’s children.

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