Chapter 4
JAYDEN
What hell is this?
I cringe while lucidity overtakes me. Even with my eyes closed, everything is spinning, and the throb in my head has a direct line to my stomach through my golf-balled eyes and dry throat. Every ache and pain that I’ve ever felt creeps into my muscles and my bones when I shift in bed.
“Momma of fuck,” I croak into the pillow, turning onto my front.
Bad choice.
My stomach lurches up into my chest. Hot lava boils up my throat, and before I puke all over the bed, I run into the bathroom, tripping over the mat on the floor as I lunge for the toilet.
Nothing has ever felt as good as the moment the vomit erupts out of me. My hands wrap around the cool porcelain as though it’s God itself, and I am worshipping it with every wretch and spew.
“Here.” Elijah’s cool hand swipes away the string of sickness trickling down my chin while he places a cold, wet washcloth on the back of my neck. “I’m going to get you seltzer, okay?”
I nod, gag again, and empty out the dregs in sharp bursts that feel like they’ll turn me inside out.
When it stops, the quiet is a blessing. I sag against the seat, forehead to forearm, eyes on the gray granite tile while the flush carries the evidence away. With a few inhales, my brain starts catching up to itself.
Relief lasts all of five seconds. Memory clicks on, and the ache in my chest opens like a trapdoor.
“Take these.” Eli drops pills in my palm and passes a glass. “Drink this.”
I do as he says, slowly. After giving the partially flattened liquid a moment to settle in my stomach, I attempt to pick myself up off the floor.
When he moves to help, I swat at him in reflex, because if he touches me right now, I’ll fold.
“Jayden…”
“No. I got it, okay?”
He nods and rakes damp hair off his face, frustrated, but giving me space. The lights are dimmer than before; thank God. I brace on the shower glass and take him in. Towel at his hips.
Shoulders broad now, body grown into itself. The kid in those photos looked unfinished. This man looks carved.
Which somehow makes the photos worse. They keep burning behind my eyes, and my teeth grind trying to hold the noise down.
“I just… I need a second to get my bearings,” I grumble.
“Do you want me to go? If you need space, I can…” He thumbs toward the door and starts to leave without waiting.
“Eli…”
He pauses in the doorway, stare holding me. Something raw flickers across his face, and a shard of it slices under my ribs.
I don’t want him gone. I want him to see what he’s doing to me. How it kills me to love him. To still want and need him like oxygen.
Like I have for years. Years spent being the friend he needed while he gave what is mine, what I want to… a nobody.
Words ball at the back of my throat, burning through all my efforts to hold myself together. My tears come thick and fast. An unstoppable deluge that I’m too wrung out to stop.
“I know, JJ,” he croaks. Regret drags at his features when he tells me, “I’m so sorry.”
“You keep saying that.”
His jaw ticks as though he’s struggling to get a hold of his emotions, too. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you have,” I say, the words cracking with the sob that rips from the pit of my stomach.
His hands grip the back of his neck, leaving his torso in open view. I can’t breathe as the conversation we had about punishment and penance bleeds to the forefront of my mind.
All the blood in my body congeals at the sight of the cuts just below his pits and on the inside of his biceps. There’s a fresh cut to the side of his ribs with a scab above it.
How could I not notice this until now?
How did I not know he’s been hurting this bad for so long?
Why does he do it? Why does he punish himself?
“I wish I had told you about Ryker the first time you asked who he was. But I couldn’t…” he says at the same time as I ask, “Why?”
Eli swallows and looks down at his feet. “Those photos are my literal nightmare.”
It’s not the answer I aimed for, but it hits anyway. “Is it really that bad to be who you are?”
“Those photos are not who I am, Jayden,” Eli growls as he turns and disappears into the bedroom.
I freeze, mouth open, because even if the story is garbage, pictures don’t lie. Do they?
“Get washed,” he says, appearing in the doorway while he buttons up his chinos. “I brought all your toiletries and things from your room earlier. Your body wash is already in the shower.”
Color rises high on his cheekbones as he reaches for the bathroom door.
Before he closes it, I ask, “Eli, why am I in your room?”
A half-bitten smile quirks his lips. “How much of last night do you remember?”
The softness in his tone flips my stomach. “Umm… things get blurry after I left the hotel bar.”
“Do you remember Connie going to your room?”
“I had a lot to drink at the bar downstairs before I moved on to the minibar in my room…” I glance down at my naked chest. “Did you undress me?”
“No, you ripped your shirt off and dropped your pants before you got into my bed.” His voice warms at the edges. “Don’t worry, I took the couch.”
“Why?”
“Because you were drunk.” Oh. “You also told me you hate me, so…”
“It’s not true. I don’t hate you.” I step forward; he meets me halfway.
Eli stops inches away, heat rolling off his skin. “I know.”
“So, why—”
His palm cups my cheek, silencing me with a light rake of his thumb along my bottom lip. It’s gentle, and it’s different. Somehow familiar, like muscle memory I didn’t know I had.
“I would never take advantage of you,” he says, frown etched deep.
I nod, even though his remark leaves me perplexed. I’m so confused by what’s happening. It’s like I missed a whole fucking chapter in our story.
“I promised you I would remind you of what I told you last night, but I can’t do that before I explain those photos to you.
” His fingers trail from my jaw, and the ghost of the touch skims down my spine.
“I need you to have a clear head for that, because I won’t have that conversation with you ever again. ”
He drops his gaze, like contact is suddenly too much. The vulnerability that’s been naked on him since I woke tightens, sharp enough to make me queasy.
“Shower, freshen up, and then we’ll talk. Okay?” He snags his brush and a hair tie and slips out.
The urge to go after him is a physical ache. The dread of what’s coming grows by the second as I force myself to do as he instructed.
Steam fogs the room instantly when I flip the shower on. When I test it with my hand, I pull back with a hiss.
“Fuck.” How does he do it? How can he shower like this?
As soon as the water cools, I make quick work of rinsing myself. Pausing only when I reach for my body wash and realize that the cap is already flipped open.
A smile forces itself onto my lips when I study Eli’s toiletries. His body wash is closed and partly hidden behind his shampoo. It hits me in a dumb, aching way—he used mine.
I finish sudsing my hair and body, giving the soap a few minutes to neutralize the stale smell of liquor that has lingered in my pores while I scrub my face with Eli’s minty face wash and then grab my toothbrush so that I can wrap up quickly.
By the time I towel off, the headache has dulled, and my stomach is staying. The weight on my sternum hasn’t moved an inch.
The room is still dark when I leave the bathroom. Eli’s sitting at the small dining table in the far right corner of the room.
Breathing in the subtle hint of coffee tinging the air, I find my suitcase on the bed, packed exactly how I do it.
I pull on navy chinos and my Comets polo and dress right there.
Eli’s seen me naked enough times that, at this point, it doesn’t matter, and I don’t want to be out of his sight a second longer.
“I know you probably don’t have an appetite, but you didn’t eat after the game, and you’ve been sick…” Eli stands, pulls my chair out. His hands shake as he lifts a cloche and reveals toast. “There’s coffee, too. I asked them to brew it the way you like.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I rasp, sitting.
Eli points out warm milk like we’re defusing a bomb. “There’s orange juice with no pulp, and—”
“Eli.” I catch his hand before he can list the cereal like a menu. “Relax, please.”
He nods, but stays on his feet, gripping the chair back until his knuckles blanch. The fear in his eyes is a blade, and shame sits behind it like a shadow.
It’s how I know what’s coming is bad.
“JJ,” he whispers with a quiver as the whites of his eyes tinge pink. “What I’m about to tell you…”
Eli shakes his head, like the words won’t pass his teeth, and cold moves into my bones.
“Just spit it out.” My voice frays at the lonesome tear that slips down his cheek.
Fuck, I’m not ready for this. The way he’s acting is more like a breakup than clearing up a misunderstanding or explaining a mistake.
My heart is ramming into my ribs so hard that all my breaths are bruised out before they’ve reached my lungs.
“Promise me you won’t look at me differently after this,” he says, leaning on the chair so hard it tips. “Please.”
“Okay.” I don’t know what he’s about to tell me, but I know there’s nothing in this world that could alter the way I see him. The way I love him. Even if it gutted me to the ends of my soul. “I promise.”
“Those photos were taken seven years ago,” he says, reaching for his iPad.
Eli swipes and sets it in front of me. The worst shot—Ryker’s mouth on his—glares up at me.
When I look up, Eli’s disgusted sadness greets me.
“I didn’t know they existed until yesterday. I keep going over that night in my head and trying to remember if the other guys had their phones out, but everything blurs.”
His eyes go distant, and my stomach knots so hard I sit straighter.
“Ryker was my friend, and when we were on the road, we’d room together because none of the other guys wanted to room with the gay kid.” He huffs, anger and grief lined up side by side.
I remember those locker rooms when I came out. The gaps people left. The showers that cleared. Being the kid others avoid takes a toll. I don’t like the man in the photo, but I’m proud of the boy beside him.
To know Eli’s always been this accepting makes me love him more.
“Sit with me,” I tell him, pushing out the chair next to me with my foot.
Shaking his head, he says, “It’s easier to talk if I just stay like this.”
“Why are you so afraid of those photos? What do they really matter?” Although my remark feels hypocritical, it’s still true.
Those photos will be forgotten in a day or two when the next piece of hot gossip breaks.
“Jayden,” he says, pinning me in place with a beseeching look. “When you came out, did you come out to your family or broadcast it to the whole world?”
“Are you coming out?” The question rolls off my tongue too quickly.
Eli’s gaze flashes to mine as he points at the screen in front of me and growls, “That is my deepest, darkest secret right there. That night…”
His voice breaks with a tormented rasp that shudders through me.
I’m breaking for him, and I don’t even know why. There’s just this sinking feeling that keeps burrowing lower and lower, and my dread is growing by the second.
If I weren’t certain that he needs the space to center himself, I’d wrap myself around him and hold him. I’d absorb all his pain if I could.
Fuck, it’s my only wish as tears sluice down his face. A torrential downpour of anguish that slurs his words. “That was the worst night of my life, JJ.”