Chapter 60
ELIJAH
Finley’s curled into the corner of the sectional; Wuthering Heights open in her lap even though her eyes are closed while she rests her head on Jayden’s shoulder. He’s sprawled beside her, one arm along the back of the cushions, all relaxed posture despite his restless energy.
I’m on her other side with her feet tucked under my thigh, trying to pretend I’m not watching both of them.
But I am.
I can’t help it—the way she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear only for it to slip loose again, the way Jayden’s thumb brushes her knee in absent circles when she leans closer to nuzzle into him.
The three of us together should feel chaotic. Too much.
It doesn’t.
It feels like the first deep breath after years of holding it.
I’ve spent so long living in the shadows of old rules and old sins that the warmth of this room feels dangerous. Like it might be ripped away if I reach for it too hard.
Finley laughs—soft and low at something Jayden says—and the sound hits me square in the chest. Knocks the air right out of my lungs.
I want this.
God help me, I want them.
Jayden grins at her reaction, that easy, crooked smile tugging at his mouth. But when the sound fades, so does the light in his eyes. It’s quick—like a cloud passing over the sun—but I see it. The weight sliding back into his shoulders when he thinks no one’s looking.
“You sure you’re good?” The question leaves me before I can stop it, low enough that Finley glances up too.
Jayden drags a hand over his face like he’s been turning something over in his head. “Yeah. Just… thinking. About us.” His throat works around the words before he turns, pinning me with those whiskey-brown eyes. “About what we said earlier. At the park.”
Finley shifts between us, curiosity flickering across her face. “What did you say?”
I hold Jayden’s gaze for a long beat before I answer. “That maybe we keep doing this.” My voice feels rougher than I mean it to, like it’s clawing its way out. “Figuring it out as we go.”
Jayden nods slowly, eyes cutting to Finley and back to me. “I’m enjoying it. More than I expected to.” His voice dips, the next words coming out like he’s confessing something he’s been sitting on all day. “And maybe I don’t want it to be temporary.”
Finley goes very still between us, the book forgotten in her lap.
The room feels smaller suddenly. Quieter.
Her fingers rest over mine where they’ve been on her thigh this whole time, soft but certain, like she’s anchoring herself before she speaks. “So… what does that mean?”
I exhale slowly, finding her eyes. “It means we stop thinking about what it’s supposed to be. What anyone else would call it.” My thumb brushes along the back of her hand, careful, grounding. “It means it’s ours.”
Jayden leans back against the cushions, watching both of us like he’s memorizing this. “So, we’re agreeing, then.” His mouth tilts, softer than his words. “The three of us. Not something casual. Not something temporary.”
Finley nods. “Something real.”
And it hits me then—how much I want this to last. How much I need it to.
The three of us fall quiet. Not awkward, just… full. Heavy with everything we’re not saying yet.
Her period keeps things slow, but it doesn’t stop the heat threading through every touch. The way Jayden’s fingers trace circles over the back of her hand where it rests on my thigh. The way she leans into both of us like she’s not choosing—because she doesn’t have to.
Finley stands, brushing her palms over her thighs like she’s making an announcement.
“We’re making a nest,” she says softly, already dragging the throw blanket off the back of the couch. “Proper one. Pillows, everything. Floor space only.”
Jayden grins like he’s in on the plan already. Me? I just watch her for a second.
Because that one word—nest—punches straight through my chest.
We used to do this. Back before everything got complicated and tainted…
too loud, we’d drag the ratty old quilt from her grandma’s linen closet out to the barn on her grandparents’ farm.
Stack up hay bales like walls, pile them with every pillow we could sneak out of the house, and hide from the world until it was safe to come back out.
Sometimes we’d exist in silence. Sometimes we’d talk until we fell asleep with the fireflies buzzing behind the slats in the wood.
It was our nest.
A safe place no one ever found us.
Finley doesn’t say anything, but I know she remembers too. The softness in her face tells me before anything else does.
“Jayden, cushions,” she orders now, tossing him the first pillow from the couch. “Eli, more blankets from the hall closet.”
I go, because of course I do.
Bossy mode suits her. It lights up all the dingy nooks and crannies I’ve lived with for too long.
By the time I come back, they’re both on the floor—Finley spreading the big blanket out, Jayden dropping pillows along the edges like he’s done this before.
“Corners up,” she tells him, nudging his knee with hers. “It has to feel like a nest.”
“You’re very demanding for someone who’s not even building it,” Jayden says, smirking as he rolls a second blanket and tucks it along the edges.
“I’m supervising,” she quips. “Big difference.”
I drop the last blanket on the growing pile, stepping back as she fusses with the corners until she’s satisfied.
“Not as tall as the hay bales, but it’s good enough,” she sighs.
The living room doesn’t look like the barn but watching her kneel in the middle of all the cushions and piled blankets while the city glows through the windows—yeah, it feels the same.
Safe.
Like maybe I could breathe here.
She sits back on her heels, surveying our work. “Okay. Perfect.”
Jayden sprawls first, all long limbs and easy confidence, tugging her down beside him before reaching to snag the edge of the blanket for me, too.
I sink onto the pillows on her other side. Close enough that her shoulder brushes mine when she settles back, that Jayden’s hand skims mine as he reaches across her for the remote. It’s nothing. Barely there. But my pulse stutters anyway.
And then there’s Finley—warm against my side, hair spilling over my arm where it rests along the back of the cushions, her fingers absently tracing the seam of my jeans like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.
We sit like that for a long moment, the three of us tangled in blankets and everything unsaid, while the city hums quiet outside.
Then she tilts her head toward me.
“Kiss me,” she whispers.
And I do.
Slow. Careful. Exactly like when we teenagers, hiding out in the barn.
Except today, her mouth is soft and certain beneath mine.
Jayden’s hand slides over her hip, trailing higher when she leans against him. When I cup her jaw, his thumb grazes my knuckles. Just that small assurance of his presence settles the niggle of anxiety rumbling in the back of my mind. That constant noise I’ve lived with for years.
The kiss stays gentle, but the heat of our need threads through every touch. Finley’s fingers curling in my shirt, the faint tremor in my chest where Jayden’s shoulder presses into mine, grounding me even as the floor tilts.
By the time she pulls back, cheeks flushed and eyes shining, I’m not sure if my heart’s beating too fast or not at all.
Finly doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Because lying here with both of them, warm and close and unafraid, feels exactly like what we used to build in that shed.
A place that belongs to us.
Finley shifts, pulling the blanket higher as she reclines back into the nest we made, her legs curling to the side. There’s the faintest pink to her cheeks, her hair a honeyed spill across the cushions like this moment is exactly where she belongs. To us.
Jayden’s sprawled beside her, his hand propped under his head as he watches her with that soft, easy smile that always punches through the tightness in my chest. He leans in to kiss her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her mouth until she turns toward him and catches his lips properly.
I can’t look away.
My hand brushes hers where it rests on the blanket between us. It’s nothing at first. Accidental. But then she laces her fingers through mine, and I stop breathing altogether.
I don’t move when Jayden’s knuckles graze mine on her hip. Don’t move when his hand stays there. He glances at me once, quick, like he’s making sure this is okay.
It is.
More than okay.
Finley lets out this soft sound—half sigh, half laugh—and the warmth in my chest spreads wider, deeper, until it settles somewhere I can’t shake loose.
The blanket hides the way Jayden’s hand trails up her thigh. The way she leans into me at the same time, her head rests against my shoulder while he kisses her like she’s breakable and precious all at once.
It’s undoing me, watching them like this. Being a part of it.
My head goes back to the conversation Jayden and I had at the park. About me doing more than watching them. It didn’t seem like a possibility then. As amazing as the notion was, it terrified me… until now.
Watching doesn’t seem enough.
I want more. I need it.
Finley tilts her face toward me suddenly, her eyes searching mine. Her hand tightens around my fingers like she can hear the ache screaming inside my bones as she pulls me closer.
When I kiss her this time, it’s not tentative. It’s careful, yeah, but sure enough that Jayden’s eyes catch on us for a second before he bends his head back to her neck and nips at her skin.
My pulse hammers when she shifts, pulling me and Jayden closer like she doesn’t care that there’s no space left between any of us now.
I feel his arm brush mine when he props himself over her. The heat from his skin bleeds into me, foreign and not unwelcome, until Finley’s hand trails up my chest and keeps me from overthinking the hell out of it.
Her head tilts toward me when I shift back, her eyes heavy-lidded, cheeks flushed as she whispers, “Stay?”
I don’t think she means just for tonight.
I think she means forever. For everything.
Jayden’s gaze flicks to mine over her hair, steady and serious for once, and I know he heard it the same way I did.
So, I nod. Just once.
Her smile curves soft as she curls into his side, her hand finding mine again even as her eyes start to flutter shut.
It hits me harder than I expect, watching her drift like this. Safe. Content. Trusting us to keep the world away while she sleeps.
The blanket is warm, the room quiet except for the rain outside the windows. Jayden’s head tips back against the couch, his fingers still moving absently over her hip.
And me… I can’t stop looking at her.
At them.
At the way the last hour sits in my chest like something cracked open that can’t be put back the way it was before.
I used to think I was too broken for this. Too wrong in all the ways my grandmother said I was.
But right now, with Jayden steady on one side and Finley soft against my shoulder, I don’t feel wrong at all.
I feel… home.