Chapter 12
FINLEY
The mall is huge and busy, and every couple of steps, I check for Elijah. I was so eager to leave the apartment, but now that I’m outside, I can’t stop looking over my shoulder. Questioning every lingering look, every questionable stare.
I hold on tighter to Christina’s hand as I glance behind us to find Elijah and Jayden following us.
They’re carrying all the bags of clothes Christina helped me shop for.
She’s going crazy with Elijah’s credit card, and I’m not comfortable with that, either.
He’s done so much for me already, and I have no real means of repaying him.
“What’s wrong, Amish?” Christina asks, dragging me into another store while Elijah and Jayden stay outside.
When I look around at the various mannequins, I freeze on the spot.
All the lingerie makes my body flush. This is the kind of underwear my mother would have a heart attack over. I’ll probably go straight to hell by stepping foot in this store.
“Don’t look so scandalized. It’s lace and silk, and—”
“It looks expensive,” is all the reply I can muster when an attendant approaches us.
Christina holds up her finger, asking the woman to give us a moment while she takes me to a different room in the store.
There’s no one in here while she walks me around the candy-colored space. The lingerie looks more subtle, more every day.
“I love you, Fin, and I totally get that you’re not about the luxuries in life.
” Giving me a gentle smile, she pauses in front of me and fixes the collar of Elijah’s sweater that I’m wearing, along with his tightest pair of compression leggings.
“This world you’re in now looks at what you wear.
It looks for any sign that you don’t fit in—”
“I don’t, Tina.”
“Yeah, you do. You just haven’t worked it out yet.
You will, though. Until then, you look the part, and people will leave you alone.
You’ll be too normal for them to care.” A devious laugh vibrates from her as she plucks a pair of scanty panties from the closest rail.
“Besides, I’m pretty certain Elijah will approve of this. ”
“Okay,” I say in lieu of explaining to her that nothing intimate is happening.
When we sit on the couch, there’s always something between us. Even when his arm is around me, it’s not touching me. He rests it on the back of the couch and his hand dangles just so that it hovers over my arm.
“You’ve got that look on your face again.” Christina levels me with a frown. “If this store is really bothering you, we can go elsewhere.”
“No, it’s not the store. It’s… it’s fine.”
“Then, why are you sad, Fin?”
I swallow the burning lump that’s quickly swelling in my throat. “I’m no—”
“Don’t make me tit punch the truth out of you,” she retorts, one hand on her hitched hip, the other fisted in front of her chest at the ready. “What’s bothering you? Tell me.”
“It’s just… sometimes…” It sounds so ridiculous now that I’m trying to think of a way to explain how I’m feeling to her. “Elijah gave me my own room.”
A faint grin tugs at one side of her mouth. “Okay. And?”
“And it feels like he’s always pulling away from me. Like every time we’re close to anything intimate, he… just…” I shrug, incapable of finding the words I’m looking for.
“Sounds to me like he’s giving you space and time to settle,” Christina murmurs, pale blue eyes softening with a tender smile. “He’s being a gentleman because you deserve the chance to adapt to life outside the Moonie bubble before you decide what you want out here.”
“I want him.”
“Yeah, I get that. Trust me, I’ve watched the two of you hold on to each other for years. Thing is, life is about to change for you, and it’s overwhelming in a way that it can change the way you see and feel.”
“Not about him.”
Christina nods. “Eli’s doing the right thing, and one day, you’ll love him more for it.”
“I already love him with everything.” I blink back the sting in my eyes.
“Hang tight, Amish. Stay strong. What is meant to be will be. But in the meantime, doesn’t mean you can’t drive him a little bit crazy. Coax him out of his shell…” A haughty grin stretches across her face.
Holding my hand, she guides me around the room, picking through the rails of mix-and-match panties. I’ve never worn anything like them, and it makes me nervous to think of my body in something so revealing. Every piece she picks out is beautiful, and provocative. Even the everyday marked items.
“You really think Elijah will like them?”
Christina pauses in her perusal of a risqué red lace set. “Do you?”
It takes me a moment of pushing through every lesson I was given on propriety and being wholesome, godly, to admit, “Yes. It’s… umm… s-s-s… stunning.”
Her eyes narrow with a tsk. “You want to say sexy. It’s sexy lingerie to make you feel as beautiful as you are.”
“Yeah. That.” I glance down at the barely-there bra and pantie set she’s holding over herself.
“Say it. Call it what it is. The ground won’t open up and swallow you into hellfire or… whatever. Say it. Say it’s sexy.”
“It’s—” I suck in a deep breath, tracing the flowery lace down her body before I whisper. “—sexy.”
“We’re going to work on that. When we’re done, you’ll be screaming ‘sexy bish’ to the world.”
The store assistant comes back with a silk-lined basket for the underwear Christina has picked out.
We’re moving across the store when I glance back at the exit, catching a glimpse of Elijah and Jayden waiting for us.
They’re deep in conversation. Elijah perched up against the glass railing while Jayden leans into him.
“Why’d you stop?” Christina comes back to my side. “Yeah, I know they’re hot, but we’re on a mission here.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“No buts! Come on,” she asserts, linking her arm with mine and attempting to pull me towards the next section of lingerie.
“Tina!” I hold my ground, keeping my sight trained on Elijah and Jayden.
“Fin…”
“I want him back. I want what we had. For him to touch me. Actually touch me and want me.”
“Eli does want you. Why would he have waited for you all this time?”
“Maybe he wasn’t waiting for me. Maybe… maybe it’s just guilt or duty or…”
“Bullshit.” Christina pushes up onto her tiptoes in front of me, cutting off my view of Elijah and Jayden still in their own bubble.
“Why would he regularly sneak himself into my building for a shitty cup of tea that he could get better elsewhere just so he could talk to me about you? So he would know what you were doing? That you were okay when he couldn’t talk to you? ”
I nod, allowing her to guide me across the store.
“Fin…” Christina takes me into a dim-lit hallway with tall black doors on either side.
When we’re out of hearing range, she tells me, “You can’t just go back to what you had.
That was a different place and different time.
Now you’re here, and this place has possibilities for you.
Options and choices you didn’t have before, so while you still love old Eli, and Eli still loves old you, the two of you have to fall in love with the people that you are now.
And that’s not going to happen overnight. ”
I nod because I can’t speak through the emotion swelling in my throat. I’m afraid if I open my mouth, the truth of her words will undo me.
“Let’s make sure these fit.” Christina holds up the lingerie basket as she takes my hand and makes a bee line for one of the black doors.
“If you want, one of the assistants can measure your boobs, or we can go down the trial-and-error route in the changing room. Whatever you’re comfortable with.
One of the perks of having big tits is that I know my shit. ”
“Trial and error works,” I tell her.
The last thing I want is a stranger seeing the fading bruises on my body. I know I wouldn’t have to explain, but I’d see the curious looks, and it’s not something I can stomach right now.
I don’t know how long we spend in the fitting room. However, I am all shopped out, and ready to go home when we join Elijah and Jayden again with a selection of underwear.
“Alright, boys, I think we are all done,” Christina announces, handing Jayden the bags in her hands while Elijah takes the one I’m holding.
“Did you get everything you need?” He asks, tucking an escaped tendril of my hair behind my ear.
“More than.”
He smiles at my reply, like it’s made him happier than ever. “Good.”
Every second I look into his eyes, I see that he cares for me. I can feel the depth of his love when his hand molds to my back. Strong and warm, and everything that I crave.
I don’t understand where this man goes when it’s only me and him.
“The food court is busy. JJ and I spotted a couple of photogs while you were in the store…”
My stare flits to Jayden. He’s watching us closely.
So intently that my chest squeezes tight at the furrow of his brows and the tender slope of his eyes.
Christina is right, they’re brimming with life and color.
The kind that pulls you in and makes it impossible not to look deeper. To want him to look closer.
“I can make dinner,” he suggests at the same time as Elijah says, “I’ll order takeout.”
“How much take-out has he fed you?” Jayden groans as we walk side by side.
“Not that much. He had his chef meal prep for two.”
“Because you’re not living with me to be a maid.”
“I’ve got to be useful at some point…”
“Well, I’m cooking tonight, so—” Jayden pauses when his hand brushes mine.
The warmth of his touch rushes through me, colliding with the weight of Elijah’s on the small of my back. When I glance at him, he’s watching me with a deep-set frown. Sulky lips pressed together.
“So…?” Christina croons, cutting through the silence.
“That’s that,” Jayden retorts, picking up his pace and walking ahead towards Elijah’s SUV.
Elijah’s hand presses deeper into my back, and when I look up at him, his eyes are narrowed on Jayden’s back.
I’ve never felt so guilty in all my life as when he brings his gaze to me and smiles. It’s small and closed lipped, and my first instinct is to burrow deeper into his side. To chase more of the physical closeness I crave.
Even if I can’t stop myself from stealing another glimpse of his best friend.