Chapter 9
FINLEY
The shift between Elijah and Jayden is palpable. There’s always been a rip tide to their closeness—moments that come and go in emotional waves, pulling them under until they surface again just enough to escape the drag to safety.
Today, that’s changed.
There’s a constant undertow. It isn’t pulling or dragging—it’s engulfing.
I’ve never been more terrified to survive. For years, I was afraid to drown, and now, I’m petrified I won’t. That Elijah and Jayden will be washed further and further from me, and there will be nothing I can do to hold them. To keep them with me. Mine.
What if they’re meant to be each other’s? Not mine?
My throat closes. The ache fists my chest and beats at the backs of my eyes.
I want to disappear. To be anywhere but in this busy hotel restaurant, trapped under Christina’s spirited diatribe about what to expect now that we’re a thing. A throuple, she calls it.
The team meeting has stretched past an hour. I’m on my second coffee—fourth today. Caffeine vibrates in my veins. I’m shaking from head to toe, thoughts sprinting too fast to argue with. Insecurities I’ve sworn I’d already retired line up for an encore.
“Hello? Hi… Earth to Finley…” Christina’s scrunched face fills my blurry vision. “What’s happening right now? Why do you look like you’re about to burst out crying?”
I shake my head because the words won’t get past the burning lump.
“I’m just talking out of my ass, you know that, right? I mean, yeah, this shit is going to be hard for you guys. The world loves freedom and different… until it doesn’t. That’s just how it goes, Babe. But you and Eli have weathered worse… and now you have Seventy-Four…”
“Why? Why do you call him Seventy-Four? That’s his number, not his name. Jayden. His name is Jayden, and—” I stop when her hand closes over mine.
“Breathe,” she says, slow and clear, fingers curling between mine, grounding me.
“I can’t.”
Her pale eyes soften. “What if you’re right? What if that article is true… and… and… Elijah has always known, and now—”
“Fin.”
“Now he has Jayden and—”
“You have Seventy-Fo—Jayden, too.”
“But what if I’ve been a conduit all this time and now… now they don’t need me. If the truth is out, what’s the point in hiding? What’s the point in—”
“Babe.”
“They won’t need me.”
“Finley.”
“But I need them. I-I-I…”
“Dammit!” Christina yanks me closer, our noses nearly bumping. “Step the fuck away from that ledge, chica.”
“I’m scared, Christina. I don’t want to lose Elijah or Jayden. I can’t.”
“You’re not,” she snaps, her grip biting my hand. “I’ve seen the way they look at you and—”
“I see the way they look at each other. I’ve felt that pull between them from day one.
From the first second I met Jayden, when I saw them together.
” I flinch at my own inhale as her eyes go round.
“Elijah likes to watch him with me. What if it’s not the ‘with me’ part he likes, and I’m just the go-between? ”
My mind spirals to the way Elijah kissed me after Jayden did.
Memories spin like an endless reel while I pick them apart for the worst, so maybe I can brace for the ultimate heartbreak.
Because even now, I love him. I know how he must be hurting and panicking, and I want to comfort him.
To tell him it doesn’t matter who knows he’s into guys—it doesn’t change who he is. Not even if he doesn’t want me.
Will I still love him? Absolutely.
Will he still be my heart? One hundred percent.
Christina laces our fingers, offering a faint smile. “Do you believe that? That Elijah is using you to hide who he is?”
My heart screams no. My head sits on the fence; Switzerland between hope and fear.
“Look, he wouldn’t be the first guy to pull that shit.
That’s the reality, you know?” She adjusts in her seat and one-handedly unlocks her phone, pulling up the article—the photo of Elijah and Ryker.
“There are a shit ton of women in LA who would play house with him for appearances, for the sake of his name and money, and if they got two hotties for the price of one, even better.”
She gives me a bitty, wistful smile. It’s soft, on the verge of pity—except she doesn’t do pity. Thank God. Pity would obliterate me.
Christina turns the phone over. “None of that is fact. The fact is that Elijah went back for you, Finley. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t want you. There’s no way he would kick the hornets’ nest for anything other than love… or a death wish.”
The goofy, cross-eyed face she pulls plucks a laugh straight from my belly. Warmth ripples through, and the fear quiets.
Reality begins to settle with each steady breath.
“Fact is that Jayden is fucking obsessed with you. Dude, if he could’ve swallowed you up earlier, I’d be missing my best friend right now.
Being a conduit doesn’t make you redundant now that their relationship is evolving.
You know? Like, I don’t think you could’ve brought them together if they didn’t trust you and love you. If they didn’t want you.”
“I think I’m losing my mind,” I whisper.
Christina giggles, toasting her coffee to mine. “I think that’s a common side effect of love.”
“Since when do you believe in love?”
She shrugs. “I believe in science, and you and them are a visual lesson in physics.”
“Physics?”
“Yeah, like you’re the earth, and Eli is the moon.
He’s always orbited around you, but now you’ve found the sun…
” She circles her hands. “And now the gravitational attraction of the sun has shifted Eli’s orbit.
But he’s still there. Still spinning around you, because the pull between you two is too intrinsic to break, even if the pull from Jayden is too strong to resist. The wonderful thing is that now, you’re able to experience so much more.
You get day and night, and all the seasons. It’s science, Amish. Plain and simple.”
“Science,” I murmur.
“Yup, and I’ve officially used up all my brain cells for the day. Now I can blame all my stupid mistakes on you.” Her eyes light as she looks past me, smirking.
I glance back toward the entrance, where a few of the guys are gathered. The second my gaze finds Matheo, I know what kind of mistakes she means.
He saunters our way, wearing a matching grin… until a coach calls, “Hey, Rio,” and stalls him. He mouths a very clear Fuck! and traipses backward.
Christina feeds on his disappointment. She chuckles, finger-waves, and turns back to me.
“You’re so evil to him.”
Her brow ticks. “I make it a game so he won’t take the fucking to heart.”
“What?”
“You know how I feel about relationships. I don’t believe in love.”
“But you just—”
“Yeah, I made you see sense because you believe it. Same way you believe in God, and I… I’m not sure. Faith, love… they kind of work the same, right? You can’t see them, you can’t physically hold or encapsulate them. But you believe them enough and they become real.”
“You make it sound like a delusion.”
“Delusion is never real. I just mean different people live different realities. In my reality, love fucked up my mom. Faith… well, I don’t see God curing her broken heart and making her whole again, so…”
“Tina—” I stop when a big hand squeezes my shoulder.
Jayden.
I know from the earthy scent, the specific warmth of his touch—how it lightning-rods through me, setting off a thousand fireworks before I even lift my eyes.
“Hi,” he says, smiling as he crouches beside me.
“Hi.”
“That took longer than anticipated.” I look past him for Elijah. “Eli’s just talking to some people.”
“Is he okay? Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine, Baby.”
The endearment is everything I didn’t know I needed. The way his gaze drags over my mouth…
God, I swear I feel the affection from his kisses buzzing on my skin.
I don’t care who’s watching. I throw myself at him.
My face finds the crook of his neck and he catches me, strong arms locking me in.
Finally, something holds me together. Finally, I’m gripping tangible hope that, yes, everything is going to be okay.
We are not falling apart. I am not being left behind.
“I love you,” I blurt, hot and desperate and true.
Jayden goes rigid. I hold tighter, because I am never letting go of him or Elijah. Never.
Not even when he tries to lean back.
“Fin… Lucky…” His fingers find the tie of my ponytail, coaxing my head up until I’m looking at him. “I’m going to need you to say it again.”
“What?” His eyes are huge, pleading. “I love you?”
He nods, breath skating my lips. “Say it again, Baby. Please.”
“I love you, JJ.”
His chest deflates in a long exhale. The tension leaves his shoulders, softening the sharpened lines of his face.
“This is what I mean, Eli. Scenes like this are not going to help—”
“Stop, Lex,” Elijah snaps, a hand dropping to Jayden’s shoulder as he lifts us both to our feet. “I said we’d talk about everything on the jet. Not here.”
Lex mutters a curse. His cold gaze narrows on me, dragging to where Jayden’s arm still anchors my shoulders.
“We can’t have this.”
Elijah shakes his head. “You don’t get to tell them what to do. I don’t care how mad you are or what angle you’re working.”
“Jesus fuck—”
“Okay, I think we should grab your things and go,” another familiar voice says.
He’s taller than Lex, somewhere between him and Elijah, a warmth in his presence that thaws the serious set of his face when his steady eyes land on me.
“Hello, Finley.”
My heart stops a beat before Elijah says, “You remember Taylor. Right, Fin?”
Oh. His billet dad looks different. Older. Like more than he should’ve aged since we met when he took Elijah away from Havenview to Olympia.
I nod at Elijah and lift a hand to Taylor. He’s still intimidating: deep voice with a low boom, ramrod posture, every inch the league scout who found Elijah and pried him out of our closed town.
But the way his hand settles on Elijah’s nape is gentle. A father’s anchor. A physical promise: I’m here. It melts something in my chest that I didn’t know was frozen.
Taylor is everything our parents never were.
“We should get going,” he says to Elijah. “The team is loading the bus. It’s the perfect distraction to get everyone out of the hotel and in the cars.”
“Yeah,” Lex agrees as his stare lands on Christina. “And you are.”
“With them.” Christina’s reply is quick, curt, deadpan enough to lift his brows.
Before Lex can argue, Elijah says, “Christina is our friend.”
“We could do without the entourage.”
“You could do with a Valium or a Xanax.” Christina slings on her backpack, then hands mine to Elijah. “Thought we were leaving?”
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, giving me and Jayden a soft smile.
Okay. Breathe.
Day and night.
Seasons.
Science.
I slide my hand into Jayden’s and touch Elijah’s wrist as we turn to go. They’re mine. I’m theirs. Undertow and all.