Page 28 of A Way Out
Cat grasped her shoulders, pushing her to arm’s length and peering into her face. “You have a second chance, mija. Don’t blow it.”
Maria opened her mouth, but Cat was already hurrying across the porch, calling out to the kids to buckle their seat belts.
Her verbal goodbyes weren’t nearly as comforting as her physical ones.
Blinking rapidly and shaking her head, Maria shuffled back to Oz’s side. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Travis and Cash will be here any minute. We’re going to ride to the airport together.”
Maria had chosen this flight because she knew they would be up already. Travis had complained that most musicians, as a rule, did not get up at the butt crack of dawn, but he’d grudgingly agreed to fly out on the earlier flight. Cash had simply shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Parker and Lacey were already in Missouri, having flown out the day before.
Yesterday, Oz had still been protesting her purchase of his ticket. Earlier in the week, she’d joked that she was his sugar mama, which had not gone over well. Yesterday, she suggested, “Look at me as your boss.”
This had earned her no less of a scowl than anything else she’d said to convince the man to let go and focus on his music.
Riley finally grasped their intent as they were loading luggage into the back of Maria’s SUV.
“Leaving?” she asked and then violently shook her head. “No. Want to stay with Izzie.”
Maria tried to placate her but instead reduced the child to tears. Oz stepped in and swept her into his arms, holding her high enough that they were eye to eye.
“We’re going to visit your aunt Holly,” he said, and Riley’s sniffling ceased almost immediately.
“Aunt Holly?”
He nodded solemnly. “And Uncle Sam.”
“Uncle Sam!” Riley called out, clapping, her eyes bright.
“They’re getting married,” Oz continued. Maria’s ovaries considered exploding. She’d never observed a man interacting with her child like this before. Not even Vic.
It was sexy as hell.
“We all get to dress up and watch them get married, then eat a yummy meal,” Oz added. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“And eat cake,” Riley said. Oz laughed.
The crisis was averted by the time Travis and Cash pulled up and parked next to Oz’s old Civic. Well, that crisis, anyway.
The crisis of her lust? That was a whole other story.
Cash waved at everybody while Travis greeted her with what Lacey had earlier in the week referred to as a “bro hug” and pulled a sucker out of nowhere for Riley, who greedily grabbed it and shoved it into her mouth.
How come Maria’s ovaries weren’t exploding now? Why was it only Oz who made her feel all warm and gooey inside?
The men all clapped hands and half hugged, Travis and Cash added their bags to the rest of the luggage, and soon, they were on their way.
For the thirty minutes they were in the vehicle, everything was fine. She’d even go so far as to say normal. It was easy to ignore her fluttering heart, her raging hormones, when the guys talked shop the entire time. An obscene number of details went into trying to break out in the music business, as it turned out.
Maria wasn’t daunted, though. She liked a challenge, and she especially liked a plan, and right now, she had both. Okay, and she liked being in charge.
Not that she technically was at this point; the band was making all the decisions. She simply got final approval because she was paying for everything. But of course she wouldn’t say no to them, not unless there was a valid reason. And since she knew next to nothing about the music industry, she figured their decisions were the right ones.
Security was a breeze. Courtesy of traveling with a small child, she and Oz were able to bypass taking off their shoes and waiting in line. Cash apparently was enrolled in TSA Precheck, so Travis was the only one who had to queue up to get through security. Luckily, the line wasn’t bad and he didn’t have the extra supplies that came with traveling with a small child, so it wasn’t long at all before he caught up to them on the other side of the security checks.
They were flying out of John Wayne Airport, which was Cash’s idea. He assured them this airport was much smaller and easier to maneuver through than LAX.
They found their gate easily enough and now had one and a half hours to kill before boarding. No one spared a glance for Maria and Riley, but Oz and Travis and Cash received plenty of speculative looks. Was it because they looked like rock stars? Were they that recognizable already? Or was it simply because they were all breathtakingly handsome?
