Chapter 38
JAYDEN
The apartment is bustling. So full of life and energy that I’m physically buzzing while I help Isla juice the limes for The Sire’s margarita jugs while he fusses over Finley and Eli.
He’s always had a soft spot for Eli from the moment they met.
I think he sees the same wounded shadows in his eyes like I do.
The Sire is empathetic to a fault, and seeing him with Eli makes me hopeful that he might be able to help him compartmentalize all the shit going on. He’s good at making you see perspective without being intrusive.
“Are you fucking her?” Isla asks suddenly, bringing my attention to her in a snap.
I’m certain I’ve heard her wrong, because there’s no way my baby sister just blurted out that question like it’s small talk fodder.
“What was that?”
Isla has the audacity to roll her eyes as she repeats, enunciating each word with more venom than her angelic features should allow. “Are you fucking your best friend’s girlfriend?”
“Are you fucking high or just plain fucking crazy?” I snap at her under my breath, holding her stare with a scowl while I juice the lime in my hand like it’s her brain.
“You wouldn’t be the first person,” Isla shrugs, turning one of the juiced lime halves inside out before she sucks at the leftover pulp. “You’re a good-looking guy, and she’s stunning.”
“We’re friends.”
“It’s what they all say.” She takes the lime that’s in my hand and does a poor job of juicing it while I stare at her, stupefied by her gall.
“They? Who’s they? What the fuck are you on about?”
“People in general. They can’t be trusted. They’re always one choice away from fucking you over.” The tick of her jaw grinds her teeth together as she glances down at the counter, blatantly blinking away tears.
Instantly thawing my anger. Someone hurt her, and I don’t care how much of a brat they are; nobody hurts my sisters.
“Isla, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Not anymore.” When she begins to pull back, I clasp her wrist and tug her into my side.
“Okay. Then what was wrong? Who do I need to fucking kill?” With another roll of her eyes, she yanks herself away from me, flipping the cutting board up with her errant hand.
Before I can pull back, the knife slices through the tip of my finger with a sharp burn. “Fuck!”
“Oh my God, Mom! Momma!” Isla panics instantly at the sight of my blood.
“What the hell have you done?” Kailey runs over.
“Oh my God, Kiki! I cut JJ’s finger off!”
Ridiculously, I have to check that she’s exaggerating because I can’t feel anything past the prickly throb. Everything looks intact, but there is a shit load of blood.
“It’s okay,” Eli pushes between me and her, closing his fist around my fingers so tight that the throb stops while he drags me to the sink as my mothers look on in horror.
“Just a little blood,” Finley says, running the water in a slow stream while Eli inspects my finger under it.
“Do you have cornstarch and baking soda?” He asks, giving me a rare, beaming smile, as though he’s purposefully trying to dazzle me.
Fuck, he’s gorgeous.
In another world, I would kiss him. I wouldn’t care who’s watching or who he is. I would lean over and press my lips to his. I would steal every molecule of breath from his lungs while I savored every divine note of his taste.
I wouldn’t stop, not even when we were both gasping for air with our heartbeats pounding into our ribs and our blood scorching through our veins.
I wouldn’t stop.
“JJ?” His hand grips my face roughly, pulling my focus from his lips to his hooded eyes as he spins me backwards into the kitchen counter with a hand on my waist and then orders sternly, “Sit.”
“So bossy, all of a sudden,” I tease, perching myself on the edge of the counter while he glares at me.
“Behave or I’ll let you bleed out.”
“You love me too much.” I blurt the remark before I catch myself, opting to laugh the aftermath off so the atmosphere doesn’t get weird between us.
Eli rolls his eyes at the face I pull when Finley brings over the cornstarch and baking soda he asked for.
“Do you need to go to the ER?” Momma asks, drinking what’s left of her prickly pear margarita. “Shit, JJ, I can’t drive you.”
“I’m good to go,” Dad tells her from across the room while The Sire and Mom shake their heads at the two of them as they continue preparing dinner.
Nothing phases them. Or maybe it’s that every year, someone ends up having to visit the ER for one reason or another.
Last year, Dad slipped on Mom’s freshly mopped floor and fractured his elbow.
The year before, Momma sliced The Sire’s thumb off, barring one bit of skin that stopped it from getting lost in the gravy.
The year before that, Momma was so sick from the chemo that we had to take her to the ER for dehydration.
We refer to it as the Behnam-Morrow curse. I seriously thought that this year, we would break it. Clearly, I was wrong.
I huff out my disappointment, staring at the washed-out claret running down my hand into the sink. In the back of my mind, the conversation with Isla is still whirring around, along with the silent thrill from Eli touching me in front of everyone.
I can still feel the heat of his hand on my face. The remnants of his gruff grip pulsing beneath my skin. And the unquenchable urge to kiss him. To taste him. To hold him right back.
“Darling,” Momma coos from behind Eli’s bulging bicep as he reaches for the paper towel roll to the side. “You want me to grab my things and run you to the hospital with your dad?”
“It’s just a small cut, nothing to cry about,” Eli tells her, pulling my finger from under the water and gently patting it dry. “The powder mixture will stop the bleeding. A Band-Aid will be fine.”
“My hero,” I croon jokingly.
“If we don’t end up in the ER this year, you’re a saint. A godsend…” Momma hugs him from behind.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t flinch one bit. Instead, he dips my finger into the mixture and swirls it around for a bit before he takes it out and wraps a Band-Aid around it.
“All done.” Eli holds my hand up to her for inspection.
“Wait, he’s okay? I didn’t cut his finger off?” Isla comes up beside me to check the damage.
“He might still want your momma to kiss his booboo better, but yeah, he’s all good.” Eli grins at her, putting her at ease.
This is a side of Eli I’ve never been privy to. He’s at ease and seemingly happy. Like he’s always belonged in our family.
It feels so incredible that my face burns from ear to ear.
“Maybe give him a plastic knife for the rest of the day,” Kailey calls from the island where she’s picking at the marshmallows for The Sire’s sweet potato casserole. “You might want to squeeze some fresh lime juice, so you don’t have vampire margaritas.”
“Might be tasty,” The Sire jokes, followed by his favorite Halloween line, “I vant to drink your blud... mwahahaha…”
“Well, crisis averted,” Mom calls, clapping everyone out of the kitchen. “Let’s get this dinner finished so we actually eat today.”
The throb of my injury is a faraway pulse as Eli walks me to the couch via the fridge. Taking out the orange juice carton, he pours a small glass and hands it to me. “You didn’t lose that much blood, but you are looking pale, so you’d better give your blood sugar a hit.”
“Thanks for saving the day… and my finger,” I tell him while Dad and Kailey play the movie they paused with all the commotion.
Holding my gaze, he murmurs, “Thank you for catching me.”
No words form past the emotion swelling in my throat, I nod while we both sink into the couch.
Our knees touch with the natural spread of our thighs, and I can’t help taking a long glimpse over him.
I’ll never get over how perfect he is with his thick thighs, lean hips, and tightly muscled torso.
Eli adjusts his Rolex—the Submariner is his favorite from his collection—bringing my attention to his jacked forearm.
It’s only when I rake my gaze up his pale, golden skin to his rolled sleeve that I notice the darkening crimson stain. “I got blood on your shirt.”
“I got sick on yours.” I know he’s trying to make light of what happened, but it won’t work.
The sight of him collapsing and his panicked, teary gaze will haunt me for as long as I live. There’s nothing Eli can say or do to change that. Ever.
“Vomit washes out,” I tell him, resisting the urge to trace the stain of my blood on his shirt. “That won’t.”
“I’ll send you the bill for a new shirt.” A pressed smile softens the chiseled lines of his face when I flit my eyes to his. “It’s not a big deal, Jayden.”
The fuck it isn’t.
He touched me of his own free will. I didn’t instigate a single second of it—it was all him. His hand on my face.
In front of my family… in front of Finley.
How is he being so nonchalant over it when I’m losing my fucking mind?
“Why are we watching Scent of a Woman again?” Isla groans, coming up behind me on the couch and giving me a hug.
“Because it’s Thanksgiving,” Kailey retorts as Isla rests her head on my shoulder and whispers, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Fido.”
“It was an accident. Blame it on the curse,” I tell her.
Her arms coil tighter. “I’m sorry.”
Leaning further back into the couch, I grip her waist and lift her over the back of the seat next to me. “So, you never told me whose bones I’m breaking.”
“Huh?”
“Who fucked you over, Lala?”
“Nobody,” she shrugs with a tired sigh that says otherwise.
“But seriously… who?”
This girl is as feisty as they come. Too damn spunky for her own good, to the point that she will bottle up all her feelings until she explodes.
While I’m still not pleased with her for bringing down the mood today, or talking about Finley crassly, she’s still the tiny baby girl who got lost in my lanky arms. The little girl who used to sneak into my bed during thunderstorms and bundle herself up into my suitcase whenever I had to travel for a tournament.
So, in spite of her shitty attitude, I’ll always have her back.
“I told you, nobody. They don’t matter because they don’t exist to me anymore.”
“Good, but I’m happy to break his bones if you change your mind.”
We both sit back, and the instant I put my feet up on the table, she puts her legs over mine and snuggles into my side.
“Thanks for the offer, but I got it,” she croons with a rueful chuckle as Finley walks Momma over with a tray of glasses, the jugs of frozen margaritas, and the usual strawberry and orange sunset slushy.
Dad makes quick work of taking the tray and placing it on the table, along with the snacks The Sire and Mom set out for the game.
“Okay, girls, grab a slushy,” Momma instructs Kailey and Isla when the credits of the movie roll. “Everyone else, help yourselves to the good stuff.”
Finley hands each of us a glass while she continues the conversation she and Momma were having about the benefits of Pilates as part of a regular workout routine.
“Alcohol thins your blood,” Eli tells me as he makes space for Finley between us on the couch, “and you’re a bleeder, so you’re better off with the slushy if you don’t want to end up in the ER.”
“It’s a small cut,” I tell him, even though I have no intention of drinking the margaritas. I’m strictly a spiced rum kind of man.
“Small, deep, and bloody.”
“It’s just a little cut and a little blood.”
Eli’s dark stare narrows to slits. “And it was just a headache.”
Huh. This is how we’re playing it?
Shaking my head, I hold my glass out to Finley as she pours Eli some slushy.
“It’s pulped strawberries and orange juice with agave syrup and lots of ice. All natural, and vegan friendly,” she tells him when he studies the drink in his hand dubiously.
When she’s filled my glass, I clink my drink with his. “Touché, Preacher.”