Chapter 32
JAYDEN
It feels good to be away from Los Angeles. Since we arrived at the cabin two days ago, all the shit has been forgotten. I know it’s temporary, but right now, I’m soaking up the two most important people in my world.
I’m not the only one.
Momma was up early, going through her morning ritual of pilates, meditation, and coffee out on the porch with Finley. They’ve formed a sweet bond, like seasoned teammates turned best friends.
Like me, Eli’s enjoying the peace here. He’s spent a lot of time staring out at the frozen lake stretching to the evergreens behind our family’s vacation home. It’s obvious he’s itching to try it out, the same way I was the first time I came here as a kid.
I was seven, and Momma was heavily pregnant with Kailey. The attention had shifted from making sure I didn’t feel left out to the excitement of meeting the new addition.
From the first time my blades cut this lake, this is where I came to dump the feelings that green-eyed monster stirred.
Like then, The Sire appears from the guest house we use to store sports gear and summer furniture. With our sticks in one arm, he carries two clusters of helmets in his hands, with our skates slung over both shoulders.
“Kiki,” he hollers, hot breath billowing white. “Let’s go!”
I don’t know why I figured she was still asleep after our Die Hard marathon. I know I’d like to still be in my warm bed, wrapped up in Eli and Finley…
They had other ideas.
He was up at the crack of dawn to work out, and Finley was up soon after him for pilates with Momma.
Leaving me to finish my book before Dad delivered the new phone we ordered for Finley, along with a new number registered under my grandma’s name.
Temporary fix until we figure out how her number ended up on fan forums.
Now we’re around the firepit table, keeping warm while we enjoy the crisp air with fresh pastries and steaming coffees in our matching onesies.
Bright red for the girls, with a white reindeer Fair Isle pattern, and navy for the men…
except Isla. Hers is hot pink, like it has been since she became old enough to throw tantrums over wearing any other color.
“Come on, JJ! Come get your ass beat, Momma’s boy.” Kiki’s trash talk is ready as she ambles out in her red onesie, matching beanie, gloves, scarf, skates already laced. She stands at the ice edge like some hockey warrior, eyes narrowed on me.
Oh fuck. Here we go.
I’ve dodged all competitive activities so far.
Clue? Hidden.
Game of Life? Also hidden.
Battleships? Tempted to cut a hole in the lake and sink it.
Monopoly? Might burn it when we’re done here.
If we survive the non-friendly-friendly game.
Truth is, our family runs hot. I don’t want to make the atmosphere awkward for Finley and Eli. I don’t want them to see the crazy side of our family that goes feral over what’s meant to be fun.
I don’t want to scare them away.
Having them here is too good. I love watching them with my family—Finley laughing with Momma and the girls, Eli deep in conversation with Dad, The Sire, and Mom. I find myself just… basking in their warmth.
It’s the most centered I’ve ever been.
“Ba-gah…” Isla clucks beside me, wrapped in a pink blanket to match her onesie. “Chick-chick-chicken…Ba-gah!”
Finley bursts with a giggle. When I shoot her a scowl, she blows me a kiss, throwing me the napkin on her lap like a damsel favoring her knight before a joust.
“Can’t break with tradition, Peanut,” Momma croons, tugging two thermal blankets tighter with a visible shiver.
Meanwhile, Isla continues taunting. “Ba-ba-ba-gah…”
“Do you realize that we’re always on the same team?” I glare at her, and she beams one of her sickly-sweet grins.
“Exactly, so get your ass up, Nano, and let’s go!” Jumping up, she throws her blanket down on her seat before she grabs her Barbie-pink helmet from under it and puts it on. Isla pulls down the full face shield while hopping down the stairs leading to the lake.
Fuck.
Carnage incoming.
“Eli,” Dad calls from the edge, lacing up beside Mom. “Want to make this a fair match, Son?”
Son.
I’m grinning at the endearment when Eli looks at me in question. Dad’s the gatekeeper of the family, the grumpy parent who turns his nose up at all outsiders until they prove themselves in his eyes.
It’s why I’m grinning like an idiot when Eli stands with that perfect smirk that I want to worship with my lips and fuck with my tongue.
Jesus Christ.
My dick throbs while my eyes roam down the length of his body. Pausing at the heavy bulge accentuated by his compression leggings when he leans forward and makes a show of drinking his cooled green tea in one go.
Huh. The grumpy bastard’s teasing me on purpose.
And I dance to his tune like the lovesick fool I am. “I’m going to beat your ass, Bombshell.”
“Bring it, Sugar Cookie,” he says, setting his cup down and tucking his blanket over Finley’s shoulders with a kiss to her temple.
My insides pop and crackle at the affection between them. Sweet and warm, and why? Why are we out here when we could be playing a whole other different game between my sheets?
While inside for his skates, I trail him. The large fireplace in the double-height living room is lit, warming the cool winter light filtering through the double-stacked windows.
“Stalking your opponent could be seen as intimidation, Morrow,” Eli chuckles from the little walk-in by the front door.
“Not when he’s my boyfriend,” I shoot back as he swings his skates over his shoulder and meanders to me.
“Sweet talk won’t make me go easy on you, Sunshine.” Eli brings his face close to mine.
I cant my lips to his. “I don’t need you to go easy on me. Ever. I can take whatever you give me, Sweetheart.”
A slow gasp drags my breath into his lungs, inflating his chest into mine. When he swallows, my words boomerang through me with a heated pulse. I shift back into the doorjamb, and he follows until we’re filling the doorway.
“We’ll see…” His grin ghosts my lips as he squeezes my hip and then pushes away.
There’s a pep in his step as he saunters towards the back of the house. Before he gets too far, I clutch his arm, halting his smooth strut.
Something flips in my stomach as he twists back into me. He waits. I search for the real reason for the unrest clawing at my gut.
“Jayden,” is all it takes for the words to tear loose.
“Please be careful.”
His face softens as he grips my hips and hauls me into him. His skates press into my shoulder. The sheathed blade cutting into the top of my chest as though I need a reminder of how dangerous our sport can be.
“There’s a lot going on, Eli, and I heard you on the phone with Connie last night…”
Deep, boring eyes narrow on mine. “Then you should’ve heard me telling her that I’m good. I’m focusing on the good shit for once, and trying to let go of the crap I can’t fix… That’s out of my hands. You know?”
I nod. Wishing that his words were enough to ease the weight in my chest. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t—”
“If you want me to sit out and cheer for you instead, I can do that.” His mouth twitches. “You know, if you’re too… ummm… ch-ch-chicken…”
His fingers dig into a new spot on my hips, and I squirm with a full-body guffaw.
“Jayden Joshua Behnam-Morrow, did I just find your tickle spot?” The teasing lilt loosens the knot in my gut.
Another belly laugh shakes out of me, releasing the tension coiled around my bones.
“Stop it!” My laughter is choked by the rough jostle of our bodies. The heated friction sinks through each layer of our clothes as his skates fall behind him, and my hands slink to his hard ass.
“Stop? Stop what?” Eli leans in, tilting his lips to mine. His breath taunts across my mouth while his fingers continue teasing me into a contrary fit of giggles.
Giggles.
I’m a twenty-seven-year-old man, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Not cool.
This was not on my card for today or ever. Impressed or embarrassed, I’m too wrapped in him to give worry more breathing space.
“You want me to stop this?” He asks with a sly lick across the seam of my mouth. At the same time as he tickles me again, my lips part, and he teases the tip of my tongue with his. “Or this?”
Fuck.
I don’t want him to stop. Period.
Before I can answer, he deepens the kiss. Tongue shoving into my mouth, he drinks up all the tension left in my body as I melt into him.
Just when I’m losing myself to the bittersweet green-tea taste of him, he pulls back, palm warm on my cheek while he sucks at his bottom lip.
Our chests rut together in breathless abandon. The hot banter cooling to something content and steady.
“I’m okay, Jayden,” Eli says, his voice tender and certain. “I’ve got it under control. I promise.”
I nod, and he adds, “Trust me, okay?”
I nod again, and his grip on my face tightens as he presses his forehead to mine.
“I’m going to need more than a nod, Sunshine.”
“I trust you. And I love you. So damn much that I am constantly terrified of losing you.”
“You don’t have to be. I want to be here.
To be with you and Fin and—” He pauses, emphasizing his next statement.
“I made you a promise, and I’m doing everything I can to keep it.
That’s why I’m still seeing Connie. Talking to her makes room for more of you and Fin.
” A soft smile bows his lips. “Out with the dark and in with the light.”
I chuckle at his remark, only for my quiet laugh to be cut short when he tells me, “It’s not a joke, Jayden. I’ve chased the light all my life, feeling like I didn’t deserve it or that I was damned to never have it. Until you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Jayden, you are the light.”
“Eli…”
“You are everything I was indoctrinated to worship. Eternal sunshine. Took me a while to figure out that one person’s light is not the same as the next’s. That I don’t need to chase what’s already right in front of me.”
Sucking in his long, warm exhale, I hold it in. Letting his air pound through my veins until I’m buzzing.
“Stop fretting over losing me. Okay? I’m working so hard on being here, in the moment with you and Fin.”
His nose nudges mine, and my hands grasp his jaw so that we’re holding each other's faces as I say, “You were mine the second you walked into my life with that sullen, weary look on your face. I was hooked in an endless free-fall. An unmatched longing to know you from the inside out.”
“You know me better than that.”
“Like the back of my hand.”
“Annoyingly,” he retorts with a stomach-flipping grin.
“I’d never felt the urgency to be so close to someone until that day Coach brought us into his office. I guess now I know why.” I’m looking at Eli, he’s looking at me.
Hazel to dark chocolate—the kind you have to go back for.
“I think my heart recognized yours. The same way it recognized Fin’s. You know? Like… like—”
“It was born with a claim,” Eli whispers.
I nod, because that’s what our love feels like—a fundamental claim. An affection that is part of our DNA.
Something we didn’t ask for; we’re simply lucky to be blessed with.
***
“Come on, JJ, pass the damn puck!” Isla yells from the far side of the lake.
The game’s grown heated enough that her helmet’s on the bank with Kailey’s hat, gloves, and scarf.
Slamming her stick on the ice with a vicious growl, she spins to block Kailey with a pushback that earns her a hard shove. As I slap the puck Isla’s way, she and Kailey get into a rowdy spat.
The instant the puck hits a divot and lifts, I race toward my sisters.
I know I won’t get to them in time.
My slapshot is going to get one of them in the face or on the head.
Shit, shit…shit.
I raise my stick and launch myself forward, trying to deflect the puck somehow. Eli lunges forward, too, stick extended. For a beat, I think he’s got the girls when I land with a hard crash.
“Duck!” he yells as he takes them out, and my shot tags him.
Fuck.
“Eli!” His name rips out of me as I drag myself across the ice. Dad and The Sire are there in a flash, hauling him up and checking the girls—the girls he screened from my shot. The shot that hit him.
Fuck.
“Get out of my way,” I bark, yanking a grumbling Isla aside. “Move, Kailey!”
“Jesus, take a chill pill, asshole,” she spits as The Sire pulls her clear.
“Where did it get you?” In a crazed rush, I check Eli over. Both hands hold his face while I inspect every inch of skin on show. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Sweetheart.”
Eli grips my wrists, pressing his face to mine with a wry grin. “That was a great shot,” he chuckles with a crinkle to his nose that’s as infuriating as it is adorable.
Still— “For God’s sake, this is not the time to be spunky.”
“When did you become the religious one?”
I’m sick to my stomach, heart bruising my lungs, and he still gets a laugh threatening my mouth.
“Come on, JJ, give me those dimples I love,” he murmurs, squeezing his grip on my wrists. “Give it to me, Sunshine.”
Give it to me.
My pulse trips and stutters at his words. Loaded with unintended euphemism.
It’s impossible not to give him what he wants.
Laughter bubbles from my gut, rumbling up my chest, and he mixes it with his own deep chortle.
When did he become the disarming one?