Prologue: Chapter 6
May. 7th, 2011 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
embolaliaTitle: Prologue (chapter 6)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Kara/Zak and Kara/Lee
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Daybreak flashbacks, extended edition. Kara meets Carolanne.
Chapter 6
Kara and Lee stare at Zak.
"What? I thought you'd want to for sure!" he adds. As he stands crestfallen in the middle of the quad outside the mess hall, Zak looks almost child-like.
Kara shrugs, shaking off her initial reaction. "Don't you want to hang out with your brother while he's here? Flying is hardly a way of really spending time together."
Zak frowns at her, puzzled. "My flight test is in five days, so the more practice I can get in, the better. Plus, it's basically his favorite thing. And yours, too, don't you want to go?"
She forces a smile. "Sure, if you want to, babe!" She refuses to look at Lee as her heart sinks. Vipers are the one place Lee will always outshine his brother. And the place she'll always feel closest to him. As their last flight together comes to mind, Kara smiles more genuinely. In spite of everything, she's elated at the idea of really flying with him.
"Let's go, then!" Lee says, clapping Zak on the back. He darts a look at Kara. "You can get us clearance, Starbuck?"
"She can do pretty much anything," Zak assures him.
Kara grins at his confidence. "We'll steal them if we have to," she promises Lee, and strides off, the Adama brothers in tow.
It's only a matter of signing out the birds in the end, and half an hour later Kara and Lee are talking Zak through his basic maneuvers, arguing loudly over the comm about the best sequence of thrusters for a barrel roll.
"Leave me alone!" Zak finally snaps. "I don't need two back-seat pilots to fly in a straight line."
The comm chatter ceases for a moment.
"Sorry," Zak finally mutters. "Atmosphere is still tricky for me. Let's just get above the clouds, okay?"
"Race you to the stars!" Kara challenges. With a flip and a burst of thruster power, she takes off. Lee's after her in a moment. She sees on her Viper's dradis that Zak is still back practicing and grins. He was just trying to get rid of them. She bears down on the controls, shooting out of the atmosphere and stopping short, waiting for Lee.
He catches up a moment later and cruises slowly. Kara pulls right alongside him and cackles when he jerks in surprise at seeing her so close.
"That could be dangerous you know," Lee warns snidely.
"Oh Apollo," she scolds. "Just trust me."
He rolls his eyes at her.
Kara slows to a standstill and looks up at the black of deep space. With the planet behind them they could be anywhere.
"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Lee asks over the short wave.
Kara doesn't ask why he isn't using the comm frequency they share with Zak. "Don't worry, Lee, you're normal," she teases.
He swings his Viper toward her and Kara squeals as he narrowly misses side-swiping her. "Hey!" she protests.
"I mean it," Lee insists. He pauses. "I know you believe, Kara, but I wasn't raised like that. To me that's just mostly nothingness out there."
She's quiet a moment. "There are some frakking amazing things, too, if you look hard enough."
"So what do you do when you find one of them?"
Kara turns in her cockpit and stares into his eyes, through two helmets, two windshields and a dozen feet of vacuum. She can hear her pulse pounding in her ears.
"Caught you!" Zak's voice bursts through the comm as he rises through the clouds to join them.
"You always were a little slower than the rest," Lee tosses off, switching back to their common channel.
Zak laughs, then has to refocus as his Viper starts to drift sideways.
"Watch it!" Lee snaps.
"Pull up!" Kara chimes in.
Zak snorts. "Alright, on that note, let's head back."
Kara mutters something about being right, then lets out a whoop. "Come on, Lee, lets show this nugget how to Dragonfly!"
"You said we couldn't try that-" Zak gets in, and then they're gone.
Kara dives through the clouds, Lee close on her tail as she swerves. They quickly begin the rapid spiral around one another.
"You do look like mating flies," Zak says from somewhere far away.
Lee takes the lead and she follows now, momentum carrying them closer and closer to the ground. She's never trusted anyone else to lead this maneuver, but they're so in sync Kara has no qualms today. In the same instant they pull up, just slowly enough to avoid their harnesses bruising too badly. Kara cheers, giddy, and hears Lee's rough breathing over the comm.
They land and check in their birds, then watch, trying not to flinch, as Zak sets down. Lee darts wary eyes at Kara.
"Is he going to be ready by Friday?"
She suppresses a wince. "I'm sure he'll do fine."
By the time Zak joins them, Lee and Kara have stripped off their flight suits and are down to their tanks and shorts.
"How about a shower?" Zak asks he unzips and stretches his neck, glad to be free of the helmet. "The Flight Training Center's just there," he gestures for Lee's benefit.
Kara takes a step backward, straight into Lee. His hand automatically finds the small of her back to steady her, and heat lances through her. "No," she says quickly. Gods, he's still touching her.
"Huh?" Zak stops with one arm out of his suit.
"It's a hot day," she spits out. "We'll only be sweaty and gross again by the time we make it home."
Zak shrugs. "Okay."
Kara turns to leave the landing field and she's right in Lee's space. She meets his eyes for a moment, then brushes past him, trying to remember that she's made her choice.
"Hey, wait up!" Zak calls, dropping his flight suit and grabbing his backpack from where he left it. He darts after Kara and Lee, swinging an arm around each of their shoulders as they head back toward the main quad.
Another cadet waves to them and Zak grins. "Balderdash!" he shouts to the nugget, "Come here."
Kara frowns in question and Zak reaches into his bag, pulling out his camera.
"Get a picture!" he calls to his friend as Balderdash jogs over to them.
The other cadet grins and tosses his pyramid ball to Lee as he takes the camera. "Okay, smile," he mutters.
Zak pulls Kara against him, then waves to Lee on her other side. "Lee, put your arm around us," he urges.
"No," Kara interrupts. "You're mine." She turns into Zak, smiling at him, ignoring Lee's presence as best she can.
"Done," Balderdash announces, holding out the camera to Zak.
"Thanks," he says with a grin.
Kara bites her lips together and darts a glance at Lee as Zak puts the camera away. He's staring at the ground and her heart clenches in her chest. Gods, she wishes she knew what she was doing.
They spend the afternoon apart, all of them resting to recover from the party last night. At five they pile into Kara's truck to head up to Caprica City. Kara has found a dress to wear and Lee tries not to stare as openly as Zak does.
The car ride passes mildly enough; Kara blasts the radio and she and Zak belt out the hit songs Lee's missed since he's been posted away.
When they arrive, though, Kara's different: subdued, ingratiating. She smiles politely and shakes Carolanne Adama's hand, blushes when the woman welcomes her inside. Lee watches her carefully as dinner goes on. His mother finds a dozen ways to criticize Lee and the Fleet, complains and complains about Bill's absence. Lee sees Kara's eyes go wide when Carolanne pours her fourth drink in their presence.
"Would you like me to clear?" Kara asks softly when they've all finished eating. She reaches for the platter of leftover potatoes.
"Don't touch that!" Carolanne snaps. Not loudly, not for her, Lee knows, but enough that Kara flinches in a way that Lee has never seen before. For a moment he waits, expecting Kara to snap back the way Starbuck always does at senior officers in the stories she and Zak tell. That's not what happens.
"Excuse me." Kara darts up from the table and out of the room.
Carolanne looks to Zak, who shrugs.
Lee glares at them both.
"Zak, clear sweetie," Carolanne instructs, and he rises to do so, glancing down the hall after Kara and then shrugging again to Lee.
Lee stands, shaking his head, and follows Kara.
She's not in the bathroom, or in Zak's room. Lee crosses into his own so he can check out the front window that her truck isn't gone. And there she is, turned away from him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
"You okay?" he asks from the doorway.
Kara nods once and he waits for her to turn. When she finally does, her face is composed, but a tremor still pulls at her jaw.
"Not what you were expecting?"
She sighs. "Zak loves her so much," she says hoarsely. "And your dad, too. I thought..." Shame creeps into her voice at her own stupidity. "I thought I'd be part of a real family."
Lee takes two steps toward her. "Zak never saw a lot of it. She's always been a drinker when she's stressed, and with dad away she was stressed a lot. Part of being the oldest-it was always my job to protect him."
"I wish I'd had someone like that," she murmurs, more to herself than to him.
Lee waits for her to meet his eyes. His gaze asks all the questions.
"My dad left," she says quickly. "My mom..." She clutches her hands together, purses her lips tightly against the words. "Believed in discipline," she summarizes, "and I was hardly a well-behaved child."
He's suddenly glad her mother's dead.
Lee reaches out and wraps his arms around her, holds her tightly. "Zak will be good to you," he says softly. "He loves you."
"I know," she whispers, her arms sliding around his waist.
"You should talk to him about this," Lee adds, his throat aching with the words.
Kara nods against his shoulder.
Lee starts to pull away.
"Can-?" She can't even force the rest of the question out, but clings to him until his arms are tight around her again. As she rests against him, the tension in Kara's body slowly eases.
Lee takes a deep breath and draws in the scent of Kara's hair. Suddenly he can't suppress any longer the memory of this woman writhing with pleasure beneath him. And then she shifts and her lips flutter against his neck and it's too much, and he's got her wrists in his hands, is holding her at arms length even as her mouth falls open in surprise.
"Kara," he says softly, shaking his head. His eyes are dark and stern.
She nods, her gaze dropping as he finally lets her go. "We should go back."
"Yeah."
The door swings open just then, and Zak steps in. "There you are." There's just a hint of tension in his voice and Kara turns, apologetic and sweet.
"Hey! Sorry, I was having a mom moment and Lee talked me down."
"You okay?" Now he's just concerned.
"Yeah." She shakes her head, shrugging. "I'll tell you all about it when we get home, okay?"
"Sure. Come on."
But when he asks her that night, Kara goes cold.
"What upset you?" Zak presses.
She tries to shrug it off. "I just didn't expect...I don't know. I don't know what I expected, Zak. Since my mom died...it caught me off guard remembering what it was like to be around a mom." It's not totally a lie, she tells herself. Somehow telling Zak about her mother is terrifying. How could anyone want her if they knew the truth?
"You miss her?" he presses gently. "What was she like?"
Kara flinches, looks away. "I...I don't want to talk about it right now, Zak."
He's quiet for too long, until she glances back at him.
"Why could you tell Lee and not me?" Zak asks quietly, seriously.
Kara shakes her head quickly. "He was just there, Zak...if it had been you..."
"Okay," he cuts in as she trails off.
She's suddenly nervous. Did he see them hug? Does he sense something?
"Let's go to bed," Zak says tiredly, waving the way toward the bedroom. "It's a bad week to be sleep deprived."
"Sure," Kara answers gratefully. "Don't forget to set the alarm. We have to get Lee back to the airport by 0700."
"Right." His words are clipped again, but when Kara looks at him, Zak smiles, and they curl up in bed without further comment.
She's fought this need for two days but finally they're here. His kisses are flooding her with heat and he's pinning her down, taking what they both need, frakking her frantically, urgently. She falls apart like a Viper shooting through the clouds.
Kara sits up straight in bed, gasping in the darkness, trembling as she blinks away the image of Lee, the sensation of his touch. Somewhere in there she was flying beside him, not in a Viper but actually flying, and it feels so real it takes her a moment to separate it from memory.
"Kara?" Zak murmurs beside her. "What's wrong?"
"Hmm?" She tries to slow her breathing.
"You were yelling about Lee."
Kara feels herself flush. "I was dreaming about us flying this morning. But this time his Viper crashed," she lies quickly.
He laughs. "Don't worry, that'll never happen. Come here." Zak pulls her down, wrapping an arm around her waist, and she lets him. But it takes Kara a long time to fall back asleep.
They pick up Lee without any fuss, and at the airport Kara rounds the truck to unlock the back and get Lee's bag out.
"Guess what?" Zak says jokingly to Lee.
Kara freezes.
"Kara had a nightmare last night that your plane crashed. Don't worry, I told her you're too good a pilot for that." He flashes a grin at both of them, then pulls out his wallet. "Wait for me," he says and goes to pay the parking meter.
As Zak leaves, Lee turns to Kara with raised eyebrows.
"I called out your name," she says, throwing it out defiantly, daring him to make something of it.
Lee just stares at her, and gods help her, she blushes. All the way down to her breasts. And Lee's eyes darken until he has to close them because all either of them can think of is frakking right there against the truck.
Zak returns a moment later. "It's out of order. I'll walk him in if you want to wait here?" he says to Kara.
She nods swiftly. "Sure."
Zak grabs Lee's bag and waits.
"Bye, Lee," Kara says, raising a hand in a wave before he can hug her.
He nods once. "Welcome to the family," he says, his tone a little too harsh, and leaves with his brother.
Kara climbs back into the truck, resting her forehead against the top of the steering wheel. The rest of her life suddenly seems like an awfully long time.
***********
Chapter 7
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Kara/Zak and Kara/Lee
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Daybreak flashbacks, extended edition. Kara meets Carolanne.
Chapter 6
Kara and Lee stare at Zak.
"What? I thought you'd want to for sure!" he adds. As he stands crestfallen in the middle of the quad outside the mess hall, Zak looks almost child-like.
Kara shrugs, shaking off her initial reaction. "Don't you want to hang out with your brother while he's here? Flying is hardly a way of really spending time together."
Zak frowns at her, puzzled. "My flight test is in five days, so the more practice I can get in, the better. Plus, it's basically his favorite thing. And yours, too, don't you want to go?"
She forces a smile. "Sure, if you want to, babe!" She refuses to look at Lee as her heart sinks. Vipers are the one place Lee will always outshine his brother. And the place she'll always feel closest to him. As their last flight together comes to mind, Kara smiles more genuinely. In spite of everything, she's elated at the idea of really flying with him.
"Let's go, then!" Lee says, clapping Zak on the back. He darts a look at Kara. "You can get us clearance, Starbuck?"
"She can do pretty much anything," Zak assures him.
Kara grins at his confidence. "We'll steal them if we have to," she promises Lee, and strides off, the Adama brothers in tow.
It's only a matter of signing out the birds in the end, and half an hour later Kara and Lee are talking Zak through his basic maneuvers, arguing loudly over the comm about the best sequence of thrusters for a barrel roll.
"Leave me alone!" Zak finally snaps. "I don't need two back-seat pilots to fly in a straight line."
The comm chatter ceases for a moment.
"Sorry," Zak finally mutters. "Atmosphere is still tricky for me. Let's just get above the clouds, okay?"
"Race you to the stars!" Kara challenges. With a flip and a burst of thruster power, she takes off. Lee's after her in a moment. She sees on her Viper's dradis that Zak is still back practicing and grins. He was just trying to get rid of them. She bears down on the controls, shooting out of the atmosphere and stopping short, waiting for Lee.
He catches up a moment later and cruises slowly. Kara pulls right alongside him and cackles when he jerks in surprise at seeing her so close.
"That could be dangerous you know," Lee warns snidely.
"Oh Apollo," she scolds. "Just trust me."
He rolls his eyes at her.
Kara slows to a standstill and looks up at the black of deep space. With the planet behind them they could be anywhere.
"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Lee asks over the short wave.
Kara doesn't ask why he isn't using the comm frequency they share with Zak. "Don't worry, Lee, you're normal," she teases.
He swings his Viper toward her and Kara squeals as he narrowly misses side-swiping her. "Hey!" she protests.
"I mean it," Lee insists. He pauses. "I know you believe, Kara, but I wasn't raised like that. To me that's just mostly nothingness out there."
She's quiet a moment. "There are some frakking amazing things, too, if you look hard enough."
"So what do you do when you find one of them?"
Kara turns in her cockpit and stares into his eyes, through two helmets, two windshields and a dozen feet of vacuum. She can hear her pulse pounding in her ears.
"Caught you!" Zak's voice bursts through the comm as he rises through the clouds to join them.
"You always were a little slower than the rest," Lee tosses off, switching back to their common channel.
Zak laughs, then has to refocus as his Viper starts to drift sideways.
"Watch it!" Lee snaps.
"Pull up!" Kara chimes in.
Zak snorts. "Alright, on that note, let's head back."
Kara mutters something about being right, then lets out a whoop. "Come on, Lee, lets show this nugget how to Dragonfly!"
"You said we couldn't try that-" Zak gets in, and then they're gone.
Kara dives through the clouds, Lee close on her tail as she swerves. They quickly begin the rapid spiral around one another.
"You do look like mating flies," Zak says from somewhere far away.
Lee takes the lead and she follows now, momentum carrying them closer and closer to the ground. She's never trusted anyone else to lead this maneuver, but they're so in sync Kara has no qualms today. In the same instant they pull up, just slowly enough to avoid their harnesses bruising too badly. Kara cheers, giddy, and hears Lee's rough breathing over the comm.
They land and check in their birds, then watch, trying not to flinch, as Zak sets down. Lee darts wary eyes at Kara.
"Is he going to be ready by Friday?"
She suppresses a wince. "I'm sure he'll do fine."
By the time Zak joins them, Lee and Kara have stripped off their flight suits and are down to their tanks and shorts.
"How about a shower?" Zak asks he unzips and stretches his neck, glad to be free of the helmet. "The Flight Training Center's just there," he gestures for Lee's benefit.
Kara takes a step backward, straight into Lee. His hand automatically finds the small of her back to steady her, and heat lances through her. "No," she says quickly. Gods, he's still touching her.
"Huh?" Zak stops with one arm out of his suit.
"It's a hot day," she spits out. "We'll only be sweaty and gross again by the time we make it home."
Zak shrugs. "Okay."
Kara turns to leave the landing field and she's right in Lee's space. She meets his eyes for a moment, then brushes past him, trying to remember that she's made her choice.
"Hey, wait up!" Zak calls, dropping his flight suit and grabbing his backpack from where he left it. He darts after Kara and Lee, swinging an arm around each of their shoulders as they head back toward the main quad.
Another cadet waves to them and Zak grins. "Balderdash!" he shouts to the nugget, "Come here."
Kara frowns in question and Zak reaches into his bag, pulling out his camera.
"Get a picture!" he calls to his friend as Balderdash jogs over to them.
The other cadet grins and tosses his pyramid ball to Lee as he takes the camera. "Okay, smile," he mutters.
Zak pulls Kara against him, then waves to Lee on her other side. "Lee, put your arm around us," he urges.
"No," Kara interrupts. "You're mine." She turns into Zak, smiling at him, ignoring Lee's presence as best she can.
"Done," Balderdash announces, holding out the camera to Zak.
"Thanks," he says with a grin.
Kara bites her lips together and darts a glance at Lee as Zak puts the camera away. He's staring at the ground and her heart clenches in her chest. Gods, she wishes she knew what she was doing.
***
They spend the afternoon apart, all of them resting to recover from the party last night. At five they pile into Kara's truck to head up to Caprica City. Kara has found a dress to wear and Lee tries not to stare as openly as Zak does.
The car ride passes mildly enough; Kara blasts the radio and she and Zak belt out the hit songs Lee's missed since he's been posted away.
When they arrive, though, Kara's different: subdued, ingratiating. She smiles politely and shakes Carolanne Adama's hand, blushes when the woman welcomes her inside. Lee watches her carefully as dinner goes on. His mother finds a dozen ways to criticize Lee and the Fleet, complains and complains about Bill's absence. Lee sees Kara's eyes go wide when Carolanne pours her fourth drink in their presence.
"Would you like me to clear?" Kara asks softly when they've all finished eating. She reaches for the platter of leftover potatoes.
"Don't touch that!" Carolanne snaps. Not loudly, not for her, Lee knows, but enough that Kara flinches in a way that Lee has never seen before. For a moment he waits, expecting Kara to snap back the way Starbuck always does at senior officers in the stories she and Zak tell. That's not what happens.
"Excuse me." Kara darts up from the table and out of the room.
Carolanne looks to Zak, who shrugs.
Lee glares at them both.
"Zak, clear sweetie," Carolanne instructs, and he rises to do so, glancing down the hall after Kara and then shrugging again to Lee.
Lee stands, shaking his head, and follows Kara.
She's not in the bathroom, or in Zak's room. Lee crosses into his own so he can check out the front window that her truck isn't gone. And there she is, turned away from him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
"You okay?" he asks from the doorway.
Kara nods once and he waits for her to turn. When she finally does, her face is composed, but a tremor still pulls at her jaw.
"Not what you were expecting?"
She sighs. "Zak loves her so much," she says hoarsely. "And your dad, too. I thought..." Shame creeps into her voice at her own stupidity. "I thought I'd be part of a real family."
Lee takes two steps toward her. "Zak never saw a lot of it. She's always been a drinker when she's stressed, and with dad away she was stressed a lot. Part of being the oldest-it was always my job to protect him."
"I wish I'd had someone like that," she murmurs, more to herself than to him.
Lee waits for her to meet his eyes. His gaze asks all the questions.
"My dad left," she says quickly. "My mom..." She clutches her hands together, purses her lips tightly against the words. "Believed in discipline," she summarizes, "and I was hardly a well-behaved child."
He's suddenly glad her mother's dead.
Lee reaches out and wraps his arms around her, holds her tightly. "Zak will be good to you," he says softly. "He loves you."
"I know," she whispers, her arms sliding around his waist.
"You should talk to him about this," Lee adds, his throat aching with the words.
Kara nods against his shoulder.
Lee starts to pull away.
"Can-?" She can't even force the rest of the question out, but clings to him until his arms are tight around her again. As she rests against him, the tension in Kara's body slowly eases.
Lee takes a deep breath and draws in the scent of Kara's hair. Suddenly he can't suppress any longer the memory of this woman writhing with pleasure beneath him. And then she shifts and her lips flutter against his neck and it's too much, and he's got her wrists in his hands, is holding her at arms length even as her mouth falls open in surprise.
"Kara," he says softly, shaking his head. His eyes are dark and stern.
She nods, her gaze dropping as he finally lets her go. "We should go back."
"Yeah."
The door swings open just then, and Zak steps in. "There you are." There's just a hint of tension in his voice and Kara turns, apologetic and sweet.
"Hey! Sorry, I was having a mom moment and Lee talked me down."
"You okay?" Now he's just concerned.
"Yeah." She shakes her head, shrugging. "I'll tell you all about it when we get home, okay?"
"Sure. Come on."
***
But when he asks her that night, Kara goes cold.
"What upset you?" Zak presses.
She tries to shrug it off. "I just didn't expect...I don't know. I don't know what I expected, Zak. Since my mom died...it caught me off guard remembering what it was like to be around a mom." It's not totally a lie, she tells herself. Somehow telling Zak about her mother is terrifying. How could anyone want her if they knew the truth?
"You miss her?" he presses gently. "What was she like?"
Kara flinches, looks away. "I...I don't want to talk about it right now, Zak."
He's quiet for too long, until she glances back at him.
"Why could you tell Lee and not me?" Zak asks quietly, seriously.
Kara shakes her head quickly. "He was just there, Zak...if it had been you..."
"Okay," he cuts in as she trails off.
She's suddenly nervous. Did he see them hug? Does he sense something?
"Let's go to bed," Zak says tiredly, waving the way toward the bedroom. "It's a bad week to be sleep deprived."
"Sure," Kara answers gratefully. "Don't forget to set the alarm. We have to get Lee back to the airport by 0700."
"Right." His words are clipped again, but when Kara looks at him, Zak smiles, and they curl up in bed without further comment.
***
She's fought this need for two days but finally they're here. His kisses are flooding her with heat and he's pinning her down, taking what they both need, frakking her frantically, urgently. She falls apart like a Viper shooting through the clouds.
Kara sits up straight in bed, gasping in the darkness, trembling as she blinks away the image of Lee, the sensation of his touch. Somewhere in there she was flying beside him, not in a Viper but actually flying, and it feels so real it takes her a moment to separate it from memory.
"Kara?" Zak murmurs beside her. "What's wrong?"
"Hmm?" She tries to slow her breathing.
"You were yelling about Lee."
Kara feels herself flush. "I was dreaming about us flying this morning. But this time his Viper crashed," she lies quickly.
He laughs. "Don't worry, that'll never happen. Come here." Zak pulls her down, wrapping an arm around her waist, and she lets him. But it takes Kara a long time to fall back asleep.
***
Zak and Kara are quieter than usual as they get up the next morning. She yawns repeatedly as she drives them toward the barracks where Lee's been staying, and Zak reaches over to rub her shoulder. Kara smiles back gratefully.They pick up Lee without any fuss, and at the airport Kara rounds the truck to unlock the back and get Lee's bag out.
"Guess what?" Zak says jokingly to Lee.
Kara freezes.
"Kara had a nightmare last night that your plane crashed. Don't worry, I told her you're too good a pilot for that." He flashes a grin at both of them, then pulls out his wallet. "Wait for me," he says and goes to pay the parking meter.
As Zak leaves, Lee turns to Kara with raised eyebrows.
"I called out your name," she says, throwing it out defiantly, daring him to make something of it.
Lee just stares at her, and gods help her, she blushes. All the way down to her breasts. And Lee's eyes darken until he has to close them because all either of them can think of is frakking right there against the truck.
Zak returns a moment later. "It's out of order. I'll walk him in if you want to wait here?" he says to Kara.
She nods swiftly. "Sure."
Zak grabs Lee's bag and waits.
"Bye, Lee," Kara says, raising a hand in a wave before he can hug her.
He nods once. "Welcome to the family," he says, his tone a little too harsh, and leaves with his brother.
Kara climbs back into the truck, resting her forehead against the top of the steering wheel. The rest of her life suddenly seems like an awfully long time.
***********
Chapter 7
