Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)(57)

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Kashawn says, “but isn’t that the night Maverick Bell invited you to his box and offered this trip to us?”

My smile petrifies and I drop my eyes to the iPad in front of me. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Girl, you know so.” Nelly snaps her fingers to get my attention.

“Don’t snap at me.” I look up at her, putting on a stern face, but fighting back a smile.

“Then don’t ignore me,” Nelly parries. “We’re grateful for this trip, but is there something else going on here? Like between you and—”

“Ladies,” Maverick says from the door that I assumed led to the bedroom. “So glad to have you on board. Hope you don’t mind if I bum a ride.”

My mouth drops open for a second, but I snap it closed, hopefully before he notices how thrown I am that he’s on the plane. What did he hear?

“Is it appropriate to say ‘welcome aboard’ when it’s your plane?” Kashawn jokes, bouncing a glance between Maverick and me.

“I was in Miami and hitched a ride.” Maverick walks up the aisle until he comes to my seat. “Hendrix, hi.”

“Hi.” I offer him a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks for this opportunity and for the… um, plane.”

“No problem.” He leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. “It’s not mine. I just use it when I travel.”

“Is that supposed to be your version of frugal?” I laugh. “‘I don’t own the forty-million-dollar plane. I just charter it a few times a month.’”

“We all make sacrifices,” he returns, grinning and apparently unbothered by my jab.

“Speaking of sacrifices,” Kashawn says. “I need to make some right now and work through these briefs before we land in Colorado.”

“Of course.” Maverick gestures expansively around the luxuriously appointed cabin. “Let me or one of the attendants know if you need or want anything.”

“All I want,” Nelly says, pulling out a purple-and-gold sleep mask emblazoned with FUCK OFF, “is a little nap before we land or I won’t be any good. Baby was up all night, and I knew Beth would have her solo today so I held it down.”

“Awww,” I commiserate. “That’s a good mommy. Rest while you can.”

“You be getting that no-kids sleep,” Nelly sighs.

“Honey, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” I joke.

Rolling her eyes, Nelly slips the sleep mask down and slumps into her buttery soft leather seat. “Wake me when we get to the weed.”

“No kids for you?” Maverick asks, his voice lower, softer, and impossibly sexier with the effort of not disturbing Nelly’s sleep and Kashawn’s concentration.

“Nah.” I rest my hands flat on the table in front of me. “I know most people don’t get it, but I’m just not cut out for motherhood.”

He nods his head toward the empty seat beside me. “May I?”

The quiet enclosing us pulls tight, packed with heat as our eyes lock. I force myself to glance away before I get lost in that searching look. I could tell him that I’m working. I could ask him to sit somewhere else so I can focus.

But I won’t.

“You can sit anywhere you want, right?” I ask, tapping on my iPad. “It’s your plane.”

“Technically, it’s not.” He settles into the seat beside me. “So you don’t ever want kids?”

I roll my eyes and force my shoulders back, relaxing into the soft cushion. “Kids aren’t for everyone.”

“I have one and I agree with you,” he says with a laugh. “I’m in the ‘one is enough’ club.”

He sobers, the smile dying on his lips as he slants a glance at me.

“Zere and I could never see eye to eye on that.”

I turn my head to study him, expecting his expression to be a wall, but it’s more of an open door.

“Do you ever regret it?” I ask. “Like do you think it would have been worth it to compromise?”

“I haven’t regretted it one day. My father tells me he would have done anything to be with my mother, so maybe that’s how I know Zere and I weren’t supposed to be. I wouldn’t have been able to walk away. I didn’t feel that way. I have a beautiful daughter I’m proud of and would die for, and that’s it. I didn’t want any more.”

“I respect that. My two closest friends are the best moms, and I get why that’s right for them.” I let my gaze drift to the tarmac just beyond the window. “I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want that. When I was really young, I used to say I wanted kids because that’s what the world tells you. That’s what everyone expects, and you don’t always know how to be different at that age. You just fall in line. You’re still a child yourself when they shove a baby doll in your hands and say pretend you’re the mommy. Even that young they telegraph that this is what you’re supposed to do.”

I run my finger along the cool edge of my iPad and smile dryly.

“But by the time I got to college, I knew I didn’t want that. People always ask why I don’t want kids, like it’s not enough to just know you don’t. I don’t ask anyone to defend their decision to have children. So why should I have to defend my decision not to?”