Chapter 3
ELIJAH
Jayden left for the hotel as soon as the game ended. I tried to go after him to the locker room, but Connie wanted to talk to me to make sure I’m okay after our conversation earlier.
I’d be better if I could’ve explained the situation to Jayden before the press started questioning him about it during the post-game scrum.
It’s all anyone has talked about. All the press is interested in.
If I’d spoken to Jayden about it, maybe he’d be prepared. Maybe he wouldn’t be angry and hurting. I want to protect him, but Connie is right; my silence is causing him turmoil.
More than that—worst of all—I think I’m losing him because of it.
The entire drive back to the hotel felt longer than before. I’m literally the elephant in the room that everyone wants to talk about but no one wants to address. Every person who has seen those pictures and read the article believes they know me and my secrets. In reality, they know nothing.
It’s all a lie.
Glancing down at my phone, I stare at the photo Finley sent our group chat of her and Christina. Her eyes are slightly glazed, which sets off a wisp of worry through me when I zoom in on the corner of the photo, and Ryker’s face is fuzzy behind her shoulder.
I should’ve asked her about it earlier, but my mind was whirring so fast. The chaos made it impossible to focus on any one thing alone. Except for Jayden.
I’ve been working so hard to be better for him and Fin. Like maybe I could deserve them if I tried to fix myself. Like, if I scratched at the scabs that night left, the wounds would bleed enough to dry and heal. To fade.
But at what point will I have bled enough? Atoned sufficiently?
“Eli,” Dylan calls, catching up to me as I rush from the bus to the elevator. He and Auguste get in behind me, and when we’re away from the prying eyes, he offers me an apologetic smile. “Are you okay?”
I shrug, because if I answer him, I’m certain I’ll fall apart. I’m on the brink of madness and despair. Holding on by a fraying thread.
For a moment, life seemed to be taking a turn, getting better.
How deluded was I?
“If you need anything, we’re here,” Auguste tells me when the doors to the seventh floor open and I head out.
“Thanks.”
It only truly occurs to me what I’m doing when I round the corner and I come to face room 795. My whole being knows what’s behind that door. My body tugs forward, chest pulling like a compass needle swung by a magnet.
But knocking on that door is unlocking Pandora’s box. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I’m certain Jayden isn’t.
It’s cruel and selfish of me to tarnish him with my darkness so that I can hold on to him.
Still, my feet carry me to his door. My hands press to it like maybe it’s enough to save me. Just being this close.
It’s not.
Rapping my knuckles on his door, I wait a moment before I try again. The hush on the other side is a living thing. I can hear him. Feel him. The center of all my noise.
When I knock again, Jayden slaps back at the wood.
“I’m not here,” he slurs.
“Jayden…” Flattening my hands to the door, I press my forehead to it. Anything to be as close to him as I can. “Let me in.”
His sob rips through me. “Go away.”
“Let me just explain. Please…”
“No.” The guttural bark vibrates through the thick wood. “Go away. Get out of here.”
I’m about to reply when the ping of the elevator echoes behind me. Room service rounds the corner with a bottle of rum in her hand. Before she makes it near Jayden’s room, I go talk to her.
“Hi,” I greet the girl. She blinks up, startled, so I ease back a half-step. “My teammate ordered that. He’s upset after our loss, and he’s locked himself in his room…”
“I can’t let you in,” she says quickly, like she’s practiced it. “It’s against hotel policy.”
“Please, I need to make sure he’s okay.”
She lifts her chin, name tag flashing in the light. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s against hotel policy.”
Fuck. “You don’t understand, Ella. He’s upset, and I have to check on him.”
“Is everything okay here?” Connie’s voice carries down the hall. She’s still in her Comets polo and navy slacks, looking all business.
“Yes,” Ella says, glancing at Connie’s lanyard and blanching a touch. “Your player was asking me to let him into someone else’s room, but it’s against—”
“Hotel policy,” Connie finishes, smiling professionally as she lifts the bottle from Ella’s hand with a quiet, “Thank you. You may go now.” Then she crosses to Jayden’s door and knocks.
There’s nothing.
“Morrow, I have your liquor. If you want it, you’re going to have to let me in.”
“Go away,” he grumbles.
“Until I physically see that you are okay, I can’t do that.” She tilts her head at me, measuring. “If you don’t open up, I’m going to have the manager come up here and do it for you. Which means there will be paperwork and I will have to report to Coach Nilsson.”
Silence stretches forever. Then the lock clicks and the door cracks open. A slurry of growled curses escaping through it as it swings wide.
Any pain I felt prior to now pales to the all-body wrench that slits through my veins. Sharper and deeper than any blade I’ve ever used.
I was a fool for wishing my heart would give up. It was stupid to believe that it would keep fighting and keep beating through every storm.
“Voilà,” Jayden holds himself up in the doorway. “You’ve seen me now.”
Shirt tails loose, belt dangling, eyes glassy.
A beautiful mess. My beautiful mess. I don’t hesitate.
I slide his arm over my shoulders and walk him back into the room.
He twists, bucks; I cinch him closer. The door shuts behind us, and I fold him in, like it’s physically possible for me to fit him inside me. To wrap my skin around his bones.
“I hate you,” he barks into my neck, grinding his fists into my sides.
I vaguely make out Connie leaving the bottle of rum on the table before she leaves.
Cradling Jayden’s head to my shoulder with one hand, I smooth the other down his back. “I’m sorry,” I tell him over and over again while he continues thumping his fists into my sides.
“You lied,” he bites at my shoulder. I let him. If hurting me translates what his words can’t carry, I’ll take it.
I’ll take anything and everything he gives me. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts. If I can just take away this pain I’ve caused him… I don’t care if he takes chunks out of me, as long as he knows that I’m here.
It doesn’t matter how much he hates me, what he says, or what he does; I’m not going anywhere.
“You’re a liar.” He rips free and stumbles into the small table behind him.
The bottle of rum Connie left tumbles to the carpeted floor, scattering the empty bottles from the minibar around it in a sharp clatter.
The quiet that follows is thick, as though the room is holding its breath.
Jayden perches himself on the table, bracing his hands on the edge so that he’s curled in on himself when he looks up at me again.
It hits me now that what I’ve been protecting all this time isn’t him. It’s my scars. As if hiding them could keep him close. As if letting him see the truth would cost me the only safe thing I have.
I picked the wrong fight.
Tears stream down his face. “You said he was nobody.”
Siddling closer, I work my tie loose. Popping the top buttons in an attempt to let air into a room that suddenly feels smaller than my chest. His gaze drops to the opening at my throat like he can’t bear eye contact.
Too bad. He needs to see me while I tell him the truth. Even if it makes him sick of me. Even if it sends him farther away.
Caressing my fingers over his stubbled jaw, I lift his face to mine while I step between his legs. My pulse is hammering so hard, throbbing in my ears and in my throat as I hold his face in my hand, wiping his tear tracks with my thumb.
“Ryker Hallman is nobody.”
Another tear tracks down his cheek with a silent sob. “You let him touch you.”
Shaking my head, I pry his hand from the edge of the table and place it on my chest while I shuffle closer to him. “I like it when you touch me, JJ.”
“You don’t… You don’t mean that.”
When he attempts to take his hand back, I press it deeper into my chest. “I do. I mean it with everything in here.”
“I keep handing you my heart, Eli,” he hiccups, fisting the open collar of my shirt in his trembling hand. “And you keep breaking it. Every fucking time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck, you let him kiss you.” A torrent of sadness washes over his pretty face, taking every last ray of the sunshine he lights up my soul with. “Do I even mean anything to you?”
Both of my hands grip his face as I lean closer, hovering my lips over his. I want him to hear, see, taste, and feel every word I’m about to tell him.
“Jayden Joshua Behnam-Morrow, you are everything to me.”
A sharp gasp racks through him when I press my lips to his cheek, holding them there as I breathe him all the way into my lungs.
“There is no man in this world who compares to you. Who will ever be you. Or own me like you do.” Sweeping my hand through his hair, I straighten so we’re looking at each other. “Those photos are worthless. They’re not worth your time or your heartache or your anger.”
His eyes lower between us with a chuff. “And yet, I’m still jealous. I’m still so fucking mad that the world gets to see you with him that I wish it were me.”
“No,” I say, my thumb fitting under the angle of his jaw as my other hand slides to the warm base of his throat. “No, you do not want to be him because you are too good. You are too perfect. And he is nothing. He means nothing.”
“Everyone thinks you are something.”
“Fuck everyone, JJ. You don’t care about what everyone thinks. Ever.” I tighten just enough to bring his eyes back to mine. “I don’t care if the whole fucking world believes the lies in that story, so long as you know the truth.”
He licks his lips. I step in fully and let the contact ground me. I find his thigh, lace our fingers where his hand clenches.
“I love you.”
His eyes blow wide, mouth parting.
“I won’t remember this tomorrow,” he sobs with regret.
“Probably not.” When he sulks, I bring his hand back to my chest and press it there, where everything feels startlingly full and lighter than it has any right to be. “If you don’t, I’ll remind you.”
“Promise?”
“Sure thing, Sunshine.”
Folding him into my chest, I bury my face in his hair and breathe until his scent burns my lungs.
I know this is the easy part of the fight ahead, but it doesn’t matter how hard it gets; I’m not letting him go.
Jayden is the half of my heart that didn’t exist until he came into my life. The half of my soul that was lost until I found him.
A life without him is incomplete. And I’ve trudged through it long enough to know that half a life isn’t worth living.
It’s not living at all.