Chapter 20
ELIJAH
Ryker Hallman.
Ryker-fucking-Hallman.
I don’t know how he ended up here, in LA, but my gut is begging me to stay away. To do now what I didn’t in the past—run the other fucking way. Except I can’t. My feet are glued to the ground. My vomit is a rock-hard ball in my throat.
The water in my hand is growing warm while I thumb the perspiration misting the glass bottle. Like our coach when we played in the junior league together, Ryker has the kids skating laps around the rink, playing tag, to wind down.
“I would have warned you,” he tells me, breaking the clammy silence as he comes to stand beside me, “but you didn’t stay in touch, so…”
“I didn’t stay in touch?” My body spins with the indignation firing in my gut. “You disappeared.”
“Do you blame me?” When I meet his dark stare, Ryker slinks back, lowering his gaze to the ground. “After—”
“No.” I cut him off before he can say anymore. “Keep your mouth shut, Ryker, and we won’t have a problem.”
Anger fuels my stride as I walk away as fast as I can with the past chasing after me. The ghost that’s haunted me for too long bites at my heels while I rush to my car.
“Sylkes,” Ryker calls after me. “Elijah!”
Fuck.
While I yank my door open, I spin on my heels to find him closer than I expected.
“It was all so fucking toxic and painful and—”
“You gaslighted me.” I cut him off with a sharp bark.
At least he has the decency to flinch back and give me space.
“It wasn’t my intention,” Ryker whispers down at the ground.
“Bullshit!”
“You don’t know—” he takes a slow step forward that I square up to.
I’m not the same kid he conned into believing he was his friend. I’ve gone over what happened that night more times than he’s thought about it since.
“I know.” His eyes flash wide. “I know what you did. You set me up. You gave him your key…”
“It was just a game… everyone was playing.”
I don’t know what causes me to snap—the blasé tone or the superfluous shrug—but before he can say any more, I get in my car and slam the door.
After the start to the season and with all the shit going on, I can’t afford an assault charge right now.
Who will protect Finley if I’m not around?
Jayden. He would protect her and love her, and he would give her everything I can’t.
Even so, I can’t leave her again. Ever.
My hands are clenched around the steering wheel as I breathe through the urge to ruin Ryker. To fucking destroy his happiness…
Meanwhile, Ryker remains glued to the spot with his pinched stare boring through the window.
It’s so goddamn hot in the cab that it takes me several attempts to maneuver out of the corner parking space.
I’m breaking out a sweat by the time I’m hightailing it out of there.
My eyes are firmly stuck to my rearview mirror.
Making sure that Ryker continues shrinking into the distance before I open the windows and allow the cool breeze to bluster through the space.
The sound as tempestuous as the whirlwind inside my head and my chest.
Ryker is still the same asshole now he was back when we played together. When I believed we were friends.
He’s still the same kid that turned my life upside down with his nonchalance and need to fit in. Me on the other hand? I know better. I’ve learned that there’s no such thing as ‘just’ in this world.
A game, as ridiculous as it might be, is not just a game.
There is always a winner and a loser.
There are always consequences.
To every action, there is always a reaction.
That is something I will never forget.
Ever. Again.
Warm air engulfs me when I shut the door behind me. The apartment is quieter than it has been for weeks while I look around the open living space. Everything is where it always is, but it still feels different. It feels properly lived in with the scent of Finley’s baking lingering in the air.
Dropping my gym bag by my bedroom door, I traipse to the door a few feet away on the opposite side of the deep-marine-painted corridor.
As always, I take a deep breath, holding it in for a silent beat while I listen for any sound coming from behind Finley’s door while I work up the courage to face her.
I knock on the door with a gentle rap. Finley won’t admit it, but she’s as jumpy as I am, waiting for The Fellowship to make a move. Since the phone call with Mom, I passed all dealings with them to my lawyer.
Not that those are going anywhere.
They’ve been silent. Until the hotel.
Everything was going so well. The world was opening up, and there was hope on the horizon. So much so that I was forgetting myself.
Then in a blink, it all came crashing down with the reminder that The Fellowship will always be watching us.
Knocking on the door a little harder this time, I lean closer with my ear pressed to the dark wood.
There’s nothing. Not a sound.
A sudden stillness settles around me as I open the door to find her room empty. Everything is as it has always been.
The bed is made perfectly, like it’s still waiting for a guest that never comes while the door that goes through to the closet and bathroom is wide open, revealing nothing but darkness.
Where is she?
“Finley,” I call so loud that the echo follows me all the way to my room.
After I’ve looked inside and come up short, I head back to her room, checking that her few belongings are still in the closet along with her toiletries in the bathroom.
Everything is where it should be.
Except her.
I search the whole damn apartment before I find a small plate with two mini blueberry pies.
Jayden. He loves blueberries. They had a whole conversation about the damn things the other night.
I know exactly where she is. With him. I don't know if I’m relieved or... or... I don’t know... worried about losing her. Losing Jayden—my best friend.
The whir of it is more overwhelming than I can push through as I rush to his door and knock while fishing my phone from my pocket to call him.
There are a few missed calls from him a little over an hour ago which only convolutes the hysteria of feelings clawing at my ribs.
“Where have you been, man?” Jayden answers on the first ring.
“Where are you? Is Fin with you?”
“Relax,” he tells me with a soft groan. “We’re chilling by the pool.”
“The pool?” That’s not possible.
Or is it?
Finley is different with Jayden. Her smile is brighter and her laugh is breathier, like it is being pulled from all the deepest parts of her. So maybe it is.
Anything is possible with Jayden. That’s why we’ve become close; because he makes it easy to co-exist. To forget all the fucking awful shit that’s ever happened. He’s normal and happy and—
“Everything okay?” He asks me cautiously.
No. Yes. I don’t know.
So I settle for, “Yeah. Sure, everything is good. I’m coming up.”
My feet carry me straight to the elevator. Thankfully it’s still on our floor and it takes me all of five seconds to make it up to the rooftop garden.
Every time I come here, I’m blown away by how beautiful it is. And each time, I tell myself that it’s a perfect place to get away from the world outside. Except that the silence makes it impossible not to think too much, too hard.
The view of the city opens up all around me as I take up the steps to the pool area.
Low music greets me from the small speaker on either side of the balustrade before I lay eyes on Finley and Jayden sitting on the sun bed farthest from the water while Auguste is braced on the edge of the pool.
Every time he yells out a random letter, Jayden makes losing buzzer sounds.
“Dude, you might as well give up,” Jayden calls while Finley announces, “You have two more guesses before you’re hung.”
Seeing her like this, with Jayden and Auguste, eases the noose that’s been strangling me since Ryker skated out onto the ice. She looks happy and at ease...
A knot forms in my chest. Guilt that I haven’t given that to her. It should be me making her smile like that. I should be the one brightening up her day.
“Eli,” Auguste calls, bringing my focus to him momentarily, “help a brother out.”
Finley chuckles, all too aware that I suck at Hangman. Numbers have always been my forte. Something we always laughed about as balance between us.
“Okay,” I say, blowing out the pent-up breath that’s left in my lungs.
I’ve always been safe with Jayden and Finley. Although Auguste and I aren’t close, he’s cool.
Jayden likes him.
So there’s nothing for me to worry about here. Nothing that will hurt me.
Perching on the edge of the sun bed, beside Finley, I look over the page she’s scribbling on. Her writing is so neat and easy to read, nothing like my awful scrawl.
“There’s no way you’re going to get it. There’s one guess left,” Jayden tells me with a cocky grin that has my mouth tugging up into a smile.
“We’ll see,” I muse while I take the page in. When I glance up at Finley, she gives me a big smirk. “No vowels…”
There’s nothing like the confidence glowing in her eyes to remind me of why it’s important for me to make sure she’s never dragged back to Havenview.
I can’t lose her again.
“Want a clue?” Finley bats her lashes up at me.
“No, thank you, ma’am.”
“Are you sure?” She sing-songs with a sassy nip to her lip.
Good God, she’s gorgeous.
My mouth is watering as I lean sideways, into her, and my pulse kicks back against the squeeze of my chest when I inhale her sweet scent as deep as I can. Before my intrusive thoughts ruin the moment for me, I press my lips to her cheek.
It feels like the first time I did it. The same longing twists in my bones and warms through me while my hand falls to her smooth thigh.
“I’m sure,” I whisper into her ear with another light peck to her cheek.
The tremor of her shiver rolls through me in a wave of unprecedented contentment. The kind that has every thought and worry fading to nothing. All that’s left is light and sunshine.
Happiness.
That’s what it is. A startling break in the dark clouds that brings the world to life.