Chapter 57 Finley
FINLEY
Elijah’s chef sets down a plate in front of me like it’s the crown jewel of the morning—golden breakfast quiche steaming beside a berry-and-arugula salad dressed in something so tangy-sweet it has my mouth watering before the fork even lands in my hand.
It should lift my spirits. It almost does.
But Mother Nature decided to show up early this morning, and between that and the guys being gone for practice already, I’m sitting here with sore muscles and an empty ache in my chest that throbs louder with every second they’re not here.
I stab a strawberry like it insulted me personally.
“It’s not going to run off your plate,” Scott says lightly, sliding a coffee in front of me, all creamy foam and much needed caffeine.
“Thank you,” I murmur before I take a bite. The sweet-tart berries, the peppery greens, the maple-balsamic dressing—it all sings on my tongue, a thousand times better than it has any right to be.
Like Elijah, Jayden, and me. Three things that shouldn’t make sense together but do. Perfectly.
And yet, under all the sweetness, there’s the bite of something sharper.
Guilt, maybe. Or the ghost of it. That old voice from The Fellowship whispering in the back of my mind about sin and temptation, about how love was supposed to come through The Elders, through God, through rules and arranged marriages—not like this.
I grip my fork tighter.
Scott is halfway through explaining the meal plan he’s loaded into the apartment’s system when the door bursts open and chaos barrels in on four legs.
“Samson!” Auguste barrels in behind him, voice full of apology. “Sorry—he doesn’t know he’s basically a small horse now. Only nine months old. Still thinks he’s a lap dog.”
Elijah snorts, catching Samson’s collar before the dog knocks me clean off the stool. “More like a wrecking ball with fur,” he says, smirking down at the dog.
Auguste laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah, Courtney keeps saying he’ll calm down once he hits a year, but…” He gestures at Samson, who is now trying to climb into my lap with zero shame. “Not holding my breath. She’ll be around for a couple weeks during the holidays, so we’ll all have to hang out.”
Samson barks like this is the best plan anyone’s ever had, tail wagging so hard his whole back end wiggles.
Elijah catches him before he knocks over the empty stool. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him laugh like this.
When he turns his beaming smile on me, I melt.
“Want a roomie while the team’s on the road?” he asks.
I blink. “A roomie?”
“Yeah, if you’re okay with it,” Elijah says, crouching to ruffle the pup’s head.
“Coach sprung the road trip on me last minute. With Jayden and me being away and Christina not being able to take time off work and school to stay with you…” He glances at me, soft around the eyes.
“Figured Samson could stay with you. That way neither of you are alone.”
Samson noses at my hand like he already knows the answer.
“I’d like that,” I murmur, scratching his ears as he leans his full weight against my leg like we’ve been best friends forever. “What about work?”
“You can leave him here, he’s used to being home alone some of the day.”
Auguste grins, leaning on the counter. “He’s a big goof, but he’s a sweetheart.”
“Only if he doesn’t steal Finley’s breakfast,” Elijah coos at the pup.
Too late. Samson’s already licking at my empty plate, tail thumping.
Auguste groans. “Yeah, that too. Sorry. He thinks anything unattended belongs to him.”
I laugh at Samson’s well-timed snort.
“Why don’t you come to the park with us later?” Auguste says, clipping the leash to Samson’s collar. “Let him run some energy off.”
“Sure,” I hedge.
My plan for tonight was to spend as much time with Elijah and Jayden as I can before they leave tomorrow.
Elijah’s arm slides around my waist, tugging me close as Samson drags Auguste toward the door. “We’ll walk with you,” he tells him. “Make sure Fin gets used to him.”
By the time they leave, and Scott follows with promises of only being a phone call away if I have any issues with the recipes, the apartment is too quiet.
“Take a walk with me,” he says.
I turn, frowning. “You just got back from training. You should rest.”
His mouth curves, tired but determined. “I can rest later. Right now, I want to be with you. Please, Fin.”
I want to argue. To tell him his body needs the break more than I need the air. But the way he’s looking at me—with that quiet pleading he doesn’t even know lives in his eyes—undoes me.
“Okay,” I murmur.
His smile is small but real as he tells me to grab a sweater. I end up grabbing one of his hoodies from the laundry room. Even though it’s clean, it still has a hint of his cologne.
As we walk along the promenade, the sea wind cutting through the layers of my clothes, I burrow deeper into it. Breathing in his scent while I cling to his hand.
By the time the sand crunches beneath my shoes, my chest is a hurricane. The last time I was near this much water, my brother shoved me into our pool, and his friends yanked the cover closed. Leaving me to claw at the slick plastic until Elijah dove in after me.
I still hear the slap of his feet on concrete. Still feel his arms hauling me out.
Still remember the way he wrapped me in every towel he could find while everyone else was feasting and praising The Lord.
He’s always been the safe place I run to.
But the farther we walk along the sand, my chest clamps down hard, my heart thundering against my ribs.
“I’m scared, Elijah.”
“Don’t be,” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around me, steering me toward the shelter of the pier while the waves roll in like something alive and ancient and hungry.
“The water is wild. Look at it.”
“I’ve got you, Fin.” His lips brush my temple. “I’ve always got you.”
He has. Always.
Even when the Fellowship told us love had rules. Even when they called it sin and temptation, when they taught us wanting was dangerous unless it came through the elders and their cold, loveless arrangements.
Even then, Elijah loved me anyway.
Now here he is, holding me steady while the tide creeps closer, while the ghosts of scripture whisper about punishment and shame.
“I can’t breathe,” I choke out.
“You can.” He sinks down into the sand, pulling me with him until I’m tucked in his lap, his chest a wall of warmth at my back. “Close your eyes and just breathe with me, Angel.”
I do.
Slowly. Shakily. My fingers fisting in his sweater while the wind whips my hair and the salt stings my eyes.
Meanwhile, Elijah hums something low against my shoulder, a familiar melody that rumbles through his chest into mine.
Our song. From our secret prom. The night he made me all his. My heart and my body.
His hand strokes circles over my hip, my ribs, my arm. A grounding touch that soothes over all the scars the past has left behind. The scars we share. The guilt and fear, the shame the scriptures cut deep into our bones.
It takes a long time before I can speak.
When I finally do, my voice scrapes out like it’s fighting its way past all the old words still carved into my head.
“I love you, Elijah,” is all I can say before his mouth ghosts over mine. Sucking every word from the bottom of my heart. “I’ve always loved you more than everything. You’re the only home I’ve ever had.”
“I know,” he whispers before his lips roll over mine with deliberate slowness. Savoring.
Seconds tick by where that’s all we do—hold our lips pressed together. Breathe in each other’s air like it’s the only way of surviving.
Then his hand molds to my face, his palm strokes up my jaw so that his fingers curl around the base of my skull. They tangle in the short, stubborn curls I can never brush into my ponytail as his tongue licks over my lips.
I can’t get enough of him or the way his heart is hammering into my back. His tongue dances with mine, delving deeper with every twist and growing greedier with every groan.
“I need you.” Opening my eyes, I lightly grip his chin between my finger and thumb, holding him right where he is. The same way he held me minutes ago, to stop me from running from my fear. Ghosting my lips over his, I whisper, “There will never be a me without you, Elijah.”
His hand twists in the fabric of my hoodie before he breathes, “There’s no me without you either.”
“I need you,” I repeat. “But I need Jayden, too. I don’t even know what that means yet.
Just that… when I see you with him, it doesn’t scare me.
It doesn’t make me jealous.” My voice shakes, but I keep going.
“I think about the Fellowship and all the rules they shoved down our throats. About how they said desire was sin, about how love had to come through them or not at all. And I know now more than ever… they were wrong. Elijah, they were so wrong.”
His breath hitches with the clench of his jaw.
“God is love,” I whisper, staring at the horizon. “So how can any kind of love be wrong?”
Elijah’s hand tightens on mine. When he finally speaks, his voice is thick, like the words cut coming out. “It’s not wrong, Fin.”
“Do you really believe that? Even for you?”
Elijah’s stare falls to the sand, as wet and wild as the ocean. I’ve never loved him more. Never wanted him so desperately.
I swallow hard, taking his face in my hand. “I see the way you look at Jayden,” I whisper, the wind stealing the words as soon as they’re out. “And I see the way Jayden looks at you. And I want you to know… there’s nothing wrong with it. With you. With any of this.”
“Fin…” His voice shakes, like he’s standing on the edge of something he’s never let himself feel.
“No. Don’t say things you don’t mean.” Stroking my thumb along his cheek, I press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “You’re safe with me. There’s no more judgement. No more punishment…”
For a long time, there’s only the wind. The waves. My heartbeat hammering against my ribs when he buries his face in my neck.
Silent tears soaking into my skin as I remind him, “We make the rules now. We decide who we love. How we love. What makes us happy…”
“It’s hard to believe that sometimes,” he croaks into my hair.
“Then let me believe it for you,” I tell him fiercely. “Let me believe in you until you can.”
He swallows hard, eyes shining as they drop to my mouth and then lower, like he’s afraid of what I’ll see in them.
“I see you,” I whisper. “All of you. And I want you to have everything, Elijah. Even the pieces of yourself you’re still figuring out.”
Turning in his hold, I wrap myself around him. Sheltering him the way he has always sheltered me. Even when we were apart, it was him I held on to. He was my rock when everything crumbled around me. Our memories were my hope when my world was dark.
Touching my forehead to his, I wait for him to give me his eyes before I tell him, “I love you, Elijah. We are each other’s hearts. But maybe Jayden… maybe he’s our soul.”
His eyes close, lashes trembling against his cheeks. When he nods, tears sluice down his face.
It feels like the beginning of something bigger than both of us.
Something that might finally set us free.