Chapter 23 #2
“Fuck, I’m coming… I’m coming,” he grumbles at the loud buzz of the doorbell and the constant trilling of his phone on the counter. He keeps grumbling all the way to the door. “This better be good. Swear to God if Courtney’s forgotten her fucking keys again, I’ll—”
He stops abruptly at the same time his phone goes silent.
A chill crawls down my spine before he and Finley come into view. She’s pale, and her expression is on the verge of tears.
What the fuck? “What happened?”
I’m on my feet and in front of her before she can answer. Jayden’s arm wraps around her shoulders as I take her face between my hands and lift it to mine.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask—any attempt to restrain my worry goes out the window when she blusters out a watery breath. “Who hurt you?”
Finley shakes her head. She’s sobbing so hard she can’t speak, and if Jayden didn’t have her tucked into his side, I’d be shaking the answers from her right now.
“Fin, you have to talk to me. Now.”
Jayden’s hand cups my face, bringing my eyes to his.
“Relax,” he mouths, kissing the top of her head.
Relax?
She’s falling apart in front of us. How can I relax?
“Fin, Baby, you have to breathe. Catch your breath for me.” Jayden guides her to his stool while I walk backward to mine, refusing to take my eyes off our girl.
He sits her on his lap. The way he engulfs her eases the tension in my limbs a notch—enough to sit back down and wrangle my emotions into check while her sobs subside.
It feels like forever before Finley finally speaks. “Is that the tea you ordered?”
“Mhmm,” Jayden hums, using the sleeve of his Henley to clean her face.
“Smells so good. Does it taste good, too?” she asks me with a sniffle.
“It’s surprisingly nice.”
“See,” Fin murmurs to Jayden. “I told you he’d love it.”
The sound of his chuckle and her faint smile make it easier to relax a tad more.
“Eli said it was nice, Fin.”
“And in Eli speak, ‘nice’ is equal to love,” she retorts. Her hand finds mine on the kitchen island, and her fingers thread with mine. “Right, Love?”
“Right,” I say, waiting for her to finally tell us what had her in tears when she walked in. When she goes silent again, I try to coax it out. “How was your day, Angel?”
Finley instantly chews on her lip. It’s all I need to know that whatever upset her is bad.
“Fin, you have to tell us if something is wrong. If someone hurt you…” Tear-logged eyes flit between Jayden and me as he adds, “Please, Baby.”
“Umm…” She peels herself from Jayden and goes back to the entry hallway to grab her cell from her purse on the sideboard.
After fixing her hair into a messy ponytail and checking her face in the mirror, she returns.
“This morning, when I got to work, I went to the coffee shop. I do it every morning. It’s sort of my routine. ”
“Okay,” Jayden coaxes while I sit straighter, swiveling my seat to face her with him.
“Today, when I was leaving, I bumped into Ryker,” she rushes, the words so fast it takes me a moment to catch up.
“Ryker?” It’s a growl that cuts through Jayden’s, “The fuck was he doing there?”
I’m on my feet, ready to storm out of here and find the asshole. He can fuck with me, but not Finley. She’s out of bounds, and—
“What are you doing?” I snap at Jayden when he pulls me back by the crook of my arm. “Let go.”
“No,” is all he says, tightening his hold as he asks Finley, “What did he want?”
“To-to-to talk to me.”
“And?” Jayden coaxes when she starts pacing in front of us.
“I want to know everything he said. Every last syllable. Got it?” Fin nods. “Did he touch you?”
Finley balks. Her eyes dart to Jayden, and his hand closes around my forearm like a vise.
“Let go of me, JJ,” I warn before yanking myself out of his grasp. “Answer the fucking question, Finley-James. Did Ryker touch you?”
With an audible swallow, she says, “I poured hot coffee on him. Mine and Summer’s.”
Good. Still… “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Uhh… y-yes.” Quickly, she adds, “He didn’t hurt me.”
“So why were you fucking crying?” I snap.
This time she holds my stare while offering me her phone. “You haven’t seen it?”
“Seen what?” Jayden snatches the phone.
I don’t know what it is he’s looking at, but Finley’s in tears again and Jayden’s gone completely stiff—frozen as he stares down at her screen. His chest rises and falls harder and faster the longer he stands there, nostrils flaring, muscle bunching tight under his Henley.
“It’s okay, Fin,” he finally says, handing me the phone. “It’s not bad. It’s not—”
“Yes, it is, Jayden. It is because he showed me that photo this morning. On his phone. He kept going on about experimenting, saying that… that…” Glacial blue eyes soften on mine. “He said that you were young and that it’s normal to experiment when you’re kids.”
I’m going to kill that motherfucker.
“Elijah,” Finley murmurs as she comes to stand in front of me and takes my empty hand in hers. “I know he’s a liar. He’s a manipulator.”
I glance down at her phone. A photo of the three of us at the market is on the screen, and below it is another photo of her and Ryker outside her workplace.
They’re close, and from the angle, you can’t see her face—just his hand on her.
Ryker fucking Hallman is touching my girl. His dirty hands are on her.
“What else did he say?” Jayden sounds so cool. So together.
“He—he said he was trying to warn me like he warned you—” clammy fingers knot with mine, so tight I can feel her pulse punctuating mine “—about the bullies.”
Fuck.
I think I’m going to pass out when my stare darts to her face and there’s a glint of pity in her eyes.
“And?” Jayden coaxes again.
“I crushed the coffees to his chest. I told him I hate him, and he said something about, if I think I hate him, I should ask Presley something or another. Summer got there after that, and he left.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” is all I ask—it’s all the words I can get past the ball in my throat.
“Because I was at work, Elijah. Summer was there, and he didn’t hurt me. I sort of forgot about the reporter after I burned him with the coffees, and with everything he said whirring in my head, I forgot.”
“The photos aren’t important, Fin,” Jayden tells her, stroking the back of his fingers across her cheekbone.
She looks between the two of us. “But… but the photo… your hands… you’re touching.”
“People touch all the time, Finley.”
“I know, Jayden.” Trembling fingers zoom into the photo—to the corner of the table where my fingers are covering Jayden’s. “That’s not platonic. It’s not accidental.”
“I don’t fucking care about what it looks like,” I snap, locking the phone and putting it on the counter beside us. “It looks like the truth, and it was going to come out at some point. Right?”
“Right.”
“Lex told us as much,” I say. “What I care about is the fact that he was there. At your place of work. That he was at the restaurant, and at the bar. He’s clearly following you.”
“Stalking,” Jayden corrects. “He’s stalking you, and that has to stop.”
“He’s not going to intimidate you and—” I stop, wrapping an arm around Jayden’s waist when he starts stomping away. “Where are you going?”
This isn’t his fight. I brought Ryker into his and Finley’s life, and I need to fix it.
“I’m going to call my dad,” he retorts. “He’s an attorney who knows how to get restraining orders.”
Oh.
“What about the photo of the three of us?” Fin asks. “That story’s alluding to Ryker being a spurned lover. Some kind of victim. It’s saying we’re together, having an illicit affair and—”
“We are.”
Finley’s face drops. “Elijah Benjamin Sylkes, we are not having an illicit affair.”
“I meant that we are together, Finley.”
“The whole world is going to know now.”
“They were going to know at some point.” Clasping her hands in mine, I bring her into my chest and wrap her up in an embrace. I look at Jayden while he texts furiously on his phone. “Right, JJ?”
His stare flashes to mine, and when I wave him over, he pockets his phone and throws his arms around Finley and me. “The whole world was going to know at some point.”
“So what do we do now?” Finley wriggles between Jayden and me, slotting her body perfectly between ours.
I shrug. Jayden chuffs.
I don’t think either of us knows what we do now, except doing us. Being ourselves. That’s enough. The rest will work itself out one way or another, and I don’t care how—so long as we’re together.