Chapter 38
ELIJAH
Jayden wasn’t wrong; his family is rowdy and chaotic. They talk over each other so much that you can’t tell who’s speaking to whom. But in the middle of it all, there’s laughter. So much of it that it becomes perfect.
Any other setting, and I’d have taken Jayden up on his rescue offer. Sure, my head’s a tangled mess with all the noise, but it feels good. I love watching him around his family, and I love how Finley is absolutely entranced by them.
We’ve never had this before.
All the potentially good stuff was reined in in Havenview. Instead, we were constantly watching our backs and keeping our heads down low to go unnoticed. It didn’t work. Our genetics placed us in a spotlight where shame and dishonor were only one blink from damning you.
“Hey, Son, are you sure you don’t want some of Jon’s eggnog?” Jayden’s dad pushes past his uncle and sixteen-year-old cousin with a tray of enamel mugs decorated with glitter, sprinkles, and candy canes. “It’s vegan.”
“Dad, Eli doesn’t drink,” Jayden says, his mouth so full of nougat that it comes out muffled.
“There’s barely any alcohol. The Sire cut it down to a third of the usual—”
“It’s still alcohol,” Jayden tells him, hopping up on the kitchen counter behind me.
He wraps an arm around my chest, resting his chin on my shoulder while his legs hang down either side of me.
I’m hyper aware of the way his uncle watches us. His gaze lingers when it reaches my hip—right where my hand is clasped over Jayden’s thigh.
“You know, he’s never brought anyone home for Christmas before. Of course he exceeds expectations and brings two people,” the man chuckles, hoisting one of the twins over his shoulder like she’s weightless.
They’re like little monkeys hanging off anyone and everything they can.
The girl protests in a long, dramatic whine that sounds just as vicious in Persian as the scowl twisting her mouth. If Isla has attitude, this one’s made it her entire personality.
“Behave, Kayla,” Jayden’s uncle warns, ending whatever argument they were having in Persian.
Her bright blue eyes turn to me. A devious smirk tugs at the corners of her sulky lips with a purposeful bat of her dark lashes.
Oh shit. She’s like a possessed cherub. Everything about her is cute and mallowy, but butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Kayla,” Jayden groans, and when she turns that impish look on him, he answers her in Persian.
My jaw hits the floor.
Fuck… The throaty dialect rakes through me like gravel dipped in honey. The air in my lungs congeals to a hot ball of surprise. Because damn, he sounds so fucking sexy there’s water pooling in my mouth to taste each syllable rolling off his lips.
“Later, okay?” he adds, switching back to English.
Kayla’s face falls. “No. JJ, you promised.”
“Your cousin just told you he’s going to get a game together later with Eli and your brothers,” her dad interjects firmly.
“Fine.” With a huff, she launches herself at my chest. For a second, I freeze—unsure what to do—before she wraps herself around me and shoves Jayden away. “You’re on my team.”
“What?” Jayden flicks her nose.
“We’re going to drop you and Kayden like a sack of—”
“Potatoes,” he cuts in quickly.
“No. We’re dropping you like a big sack of poofy sharts. Crush you into human Fun Dip…”
Brian bursts out laughing. Jayden’s uncle turns a shade of mortified tomato.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “Someone—” He shoots his son a glare, “—has been teaching his sister trash talk one-on-one.”
“Puh-lease.” Kayla rolls her eyes, clambering over me onto the island to snatch a handful of nougat. “That clown has more chance of tripping over his flippers than making a baby cry with his trash talk.”
Slipping off the island, she runs off, pulling a face at Jayden. She’s so intent on sticking it to him that she bumps straight into their grandma as she walks back inside the kitchen with Kailey at her side.
Aside from a quick introduction earlier, I haven’t spoken to her. The chaos swallowed her whole. But when her eyes find mine, she makes a beeline straight for us.
I glance across the kitchen. Finley’s perched at the breakfast bar beside Isla, between Jayden’s moms and his aunt. She looks perfectly at ease—smiling, glowing even. My chest loosens at the sight.
“Noor-eh-man,” Bibi coos, cupping Jayden’s face and rising on tiptoe to kiss him.
I’ve noticed she has an endearment for each of her eleven grandchildren, and every time she crosses paths with one of them, she pauses to show them affection. A smile, a kiss, a hug, or even just a simple touch to their face, a ruffle of their hair.
Finley’s grandma was sweet, but she wasn’t all that tactile. And my grandmother… I swallow the bitter taste the thought of her brings to my tongue.
“Bibi…” Jayden grumbles as she sets a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the counter. “That’s so bad for you.”
“Don’t start,” she huffs, batting his hand away when he reaches for them. “If you put them in the trash, I’m giving the little ones your secret stash of nougat.”
Her voice is husky with a deep rasp from years of smoking. Even her warm, floral perfume has the lingering scent of tobacco behind the hint of incense.
Jayden’s arm tightens around me as she says, “I’m seventy-five and I haven’t had one single health problem. I’ve smoked for over sixty years, and look at me. I have better lungs than some of you young sporty people. Right, Esgham?” She winks at Jayden’s cousin.
He shrugs. “Bibi, JJ’s not wrong. You should… I don’t know, maybe cut down.”
“What do you think?” Her eyes swing to me, sharp and playful. My blood turns to slush.
My throat locks. Every possible response feels like a trap. She’s sweet, but she radiates that kind of matriarchal authority that says she can and will roast you alive if you misstep.
“Don’t set him up,” JJ warns. “It’s not about what we think, it’s about what the science says. It’s bad for you.”
“Ey Khoda,” she mutters, fluffing thick, jet-black hair that slips from her scarf.
Honestly, she doesn’t look seventy-five. With her makeup and her glossy hair, she could pass for Jayden’s mom’s sister.
“Don’t bring God into it,” Jayden says with a mouth full of nougat.
“Always so cocky…” Her glare softens into a regal pout as she pats my hand—still on Jayden’s thigh. “Yalla, Delroba. I need another cigarette after all this blah-blah-blah.”
I blink, unsure what she expects. Jayden hides a laugh, shaking his head.
“She said, ‘Come on, heart stealer,” he tells me.
“Well?” Bibi cocks a dark brow. “Yalla! Yalla! Hurry… Come on.”
“Oh, no. No, no.” She plants her hands on her hips. “My grandchildren call me Bibi.”
Jayden exhales, half laughing. “She means you should call her Bibi,” he murmurs, slipping off the counter and taking my hand.
“Ziba. Where is she?” Bibi scans the chaos, catching the older twins by their collars mid-wrestle.
Kian and Kairo freeze as she speaks to them in Persian, then bolt off toward the island to relay her message to Finley.
Fin’s eyes crinkle as she rises and excuses herself. The boys tug at her hands, dragging her our way.
“Bibi, what are you doing?” Jayden asks, his voice is low with a hint of warning.
“I am going to enjoy my cigarette and some saffron tea with my grandchildren,” she croons, giving him a playful wink. Stuffing her lighter and cigarettes under her arm, Bibi takes mine and Finley’s hands. “You don’t have to come, JJ.”
“You’re not my favorite grandma anymore,” he retorts, tugging me back into him.
She gives him a look that could flatten mountains and pulls me back to her side.
“Joke,” he mutters with a grin. “I’ll grab the tea.”
“That’s better.” She squeezes my hand as she leads us toward the back door. “He thinks cocky is charming.”
“I don’t believe he’s entirely wrong. He’s charmed the hell out of us.”
“We didn’t stand a chance,” Finley laughs from Bibi’s other side.
The kid-swarm blows past us as I hold the door open, waiting for them to decide whether they’re going in or out, while I watch JJ prepare a glass teapot with loose tea and a pinch of saffron.
He adds a generous amount of honey while stuffing another square of nougat in his mouth. He’s in his own bubble in the midst of all the pandemonium as he fills the pot straight from the boiling water tap. When he’s done, he adds it to a tray his mom lays out for him.
I can’t hear the conversation they’re having as she hands him some matching glass teacups and he swirls a little more honey into each glass, followed by a sprinkle of dried petals, but I know that her words hit hard.
His eyes flash in my direction. I know he’s overwhelmed. My insides are churning with the emotion quivering on his lips.
“Some people say that our lives mirror our hearts,” Bibi murmurs, wrapping her arms around Finley and I. “For once, I think people have it right. My Jayden has a good heart, a big heart, so it’s only fitting that he has so much love in his life.”