Chapter 48
ELIJAH
Unlucky thirteen.
I woke up with a headache today. Not a migraine, but a decent throb that has me forcing myself to relax beside Jayden on the flight from Chicago to Vancouver. The Chicago game was hard—the hardest we’ve had on this away run. Our seventh game in thirteen days, back-to-back with Pittsburgh.
Every hit had my guts in my throat, and Dylan ended up having to be subbed. Jayden picked up my slack like never before. I was glad when it was done and we got out of there.
The instant we boarded the flight straight from the arena, I knew I had to relax, hydrate, and catch up on the photos of Blanca that Fin’s been spamming our chat with. Now that Courtney’s had to go back to New Orleans, Samson’s in the mix, too.
Our girl not being alone is the only thing making being away from home easier.
Our pup has made herself right at home in the photos Fin sent of her sprawled on the couch, all over JJ’s favorite blanket—the one he naps with every time.
Little cutie has also taken to sleeping on my side of the bed with Samson snuggled into her.
Thank God she’s spayed. As enamored as I am with her, I couldn’t deal with puppies swarming our home.
I suck in a breath at the last photo our girl sent of the fading marks JJ and I left on her breasts. She’s in a pair of my boxer shorts, one of Jayden’s T-shirts hitched up the middle of her torso to the plump belly of her tits. While one hand holds up the top, the other is blowing us a kiss.
Eli
3 days, angel
Fin
3 DAYSssss!
Work?
Great. Helped Summer pull moodboard samples together for her nursery.
I met Tina for lunch and walked the pups.
My usual routine. I like it.
But I miss you.
Miss you too.
I watched the game…
Ugh.
Can’t win them all.
You okay?
Yeah. Good.
Want to be more convincing?
I chuckle at her reply, imagining the exasperated roll of her eyes. I reply with a cartoon cat shrugging GIF.
You looked tired.
Not like play wise, your face.
Your eyes were darker than usual.
I’m ready to come home to you and our baby.
Our baby?
The pooch
Our baby is snoring on your pillow.
Did I mention she’s a drooler?
A short video comes through of Blanca with her head on my pillow, and a large drool patch on the hand towel Finley’s covered it with.
The quiet sound of Fin’s giggle has my chest squeezing around my lungs. Missing her is the worst. I ache everywhere, harder than my overworked muscles.
“Is that Fin?” JJ asks, taking a break from his console when Rio gets up to stretch his legs.
“Yeah, she sent me a video of Blanca.” I can’t brighten my tone, no matter how much I try.
“It’s past midnight,” he says, touching his forehead to my temple. “Which means, two more days until we get to see our girls.”
I nod, offering him the best smile I can muster through the wrench of the homesickness that’s pronouncing the throb in my head as I type out my reply.
Better order a new pillow for when we return.
Fin
Already got it along with a dog bed for the bedroom.
Good girl
I love you
Love you more. Big time.
JJ
She’s too cute.
Fin
She, me? She, Bee?
JJ
You’re adorably hot, our baby is cute
Fin
Good save, hotshot
JJ
Shouldn’t you be asleep?
Fin
Shouldn’t you?
JJ
We leave you for a few days and you get a smart mouth…
Fin
I’ve always had a smart mouth.
JJ
Don’t we know it.
Fin
What you gonna do about it, honey?
JJ
Stuff it
Fin
JJ
Gonna have to open wider than that, baby
Fin
JJ
Eli
Sleep?
JJ
Yeah, lucky, better rest up. Get plenty
Night, baby
Sweet dreams, angel
Fin
3 daaaaaaaaaaays…
JJ
2
Fin
You’re in the future.
Still 3 for me
Goodnight, boys…
Fin…
Fin
Eli…
JJ
Love you
I love you
Jayden and I wait a few seconds to make sure no other messages come through, but instead, our wrists vibrate again and again, on repeat. While he scrolls back through the photos she sent earlier, I finish my water and put my noise-reduction earbuds in before reclining my seat a tad.
Oliver and one of the other married guys sit in the row behind. They’re both under six foot, meaning it doesn’t bother them when Jayden reclines his seat, too, so we’re on the same level as he pulls his travel blanket over me when I lean into him.
With my head on his shoulder, I listen to him and Rio go back to playing Fortnite across the aisle from each other. Even with the plugs, I can hear Matheo’s distinct curses in his Brazilian twang, followed by a shove to Jayden’s arm.
“Seriously, quit it,” JJ warns Rio when he gives his shoulder another sharp punch.
I haven’t told him about the headache, but he can sense I’m not right, and that’s got him in protective mode.
A smile curls my lips at that.
“You were meant to cover me, asshole,” Rio grumbles with another shove.
“Dude, I said quit it,” Jayden whisper-yells back before turning his face into my hair with a featherlight kiss. “Sorry, Babe.”
“You’re fine,” I reply, giving his thigh a tender squeeze beneath the fleece blanket.
They keep playing until the mission is done. When his Legion is tucked away, JJ pulls his sleep mask on for the last three hours of our flight.
I don’t fall asleep until all the lights go off and I feel him relax next to me, his hand holding mine, and his sleepy breaths breezing into my hair.
***
Goodbye, Seattle!
I sink deep into my seat, my heart beating a gazillion miles a second. The atmosphere around me teems with anticipation. Every single person, from player to staff, is desperate to take off and get home.
After our shitshow against Chicago, we topped Vancouver—on overtime—and the adrenaline from the excitement and the anticipation of heading home this morning saw us shut out Seattle 2–0.
Thank God we get two days off before we’re back to practice, and then have a decent six-game home run. Meaning we get nine days where we go to sleep with our girl, wake up with our girl, and just be with her.
“Come on, assholes,” Dylan shouts from the front row, silencing all the chitchat. “Sit down, buckle up, and let’s fucking go!”
“Yes, Daddy!” Ansel calls from the back with one of the other guys hooting while the PA system comes to life with The Score’s Going Home, our homecoming anthem.
One of Matheo’s better ideas. He used to play it so loudly in his headphones that half the team heard it, and Coach started playing it aloud. It’s a tradition now.
As always, when it comes on, Matheo sings it at the top of his voice. Unfortunately for our ears, it sounds like a cat is being murdered in time to the beat. Which makes everyone hurry into place so that the music will stop as we take off, and he’ll shut up.
“Thank fuck,” Jayden groans, curling into me.
Last night’s game against Seattle was fucking crazy, and he ended up in a hard fight with one of their fiery wingers. It’s not out of the ordinary for JJ and Ahlgren to butt heads. It would be more unusual if they didn’t, but last night, the tension was high, and the Swede got the better of him.
Doesn’t help that he was distracted because of me. After my headache in Chicago, I made sure to take pain relief before our subsequent games as a precaution—something that rattled him when he saw me pop a couple pills before the Seattle game.
It also didn’t help that a reporter started questioning our ability to play together on the same team when we’re in a relationship in the Vancouver postgame interview. Coach quashed the narrative right away, but it was still there, festering in the background.
“Fin’ll take care of the bruise for you,” I tell him, lifting his face so I can check the stitches on the bridge of his nose.
The cause of the blow-up—Ahlgren sticked him in the face and boom! We both ended up doing time. Me in the bin, with Reinhardt in Jayden’s place for a full five minutes while JJ got stitched up by our medic.
The situation only pronounced the reporter’s narrative, which is now a hot topic in the hockey press.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” I tell him, stroking my thumb lightly across his cheek.
“Then don’t say it,” he groans into my hand. “You have my back, and I have yours. It’s what we’ve always done.”
“I know, JJ, but we haven’t always been… us.”
His gorgeous face falls into a stricken grimace. “Bullshit.”
“Don’t make this into an argument.” He’s been stewing since the damn interview.
“Then don’t say stupid shit.” Jayden tries to pull away from me, but I yank him closer. “I have always fucking loved you…”
“And I you. Always.”
“So there you go, we’ve always been us.”
“Not officially, to everyone… the world, JJ.”
With an audible swallow, he lowers his gaze to the armrest between us. “The world sucks.”
“Not all of it.” I say, lifting the armrest so there’s nothing between us as I add, “You showed me that. Like you always say, ‘you’re never wrong’…”
His surly stare meets mine, and when I smile, he rolls his eyes. “You can’t use my words against me.”
“I’m not using them against you. I’m reminding you of them.”
A begrudged smile twists his lips. He relaxes beside me, face so close I can feel his breath wisp along my lips as he murmurs, “I’ve ridden this wave before, Eli.
It’s vicious. People are vicious. Cruel and uneducated, always waiting for you to put a foot wrong so they can prove their poisonous diatribe is right. That we’re less than they are… wrong…”
Jayden falls back into his seat with his eyes firmly on the air vents above us. Thick fingers knot with mine in his lap.
“You’re the only man I’ve ever had feelings for. That I’ve wanted or needed. Same with Fin. You’re the only people I’ve ever been physically attracted to.”
This is where he doesn’t know he’s changed my life. He opened me up to so many possibilities—to seeing the world in a spectrum of color I didn’t know existed.
“I used to think there was something wrong with me because I never felt the urge for physical intimacy with anyone. Even before what happened…” He stiffens at my low whisper.
My blood chills at the thoughts that unravel in my head. The memories. The nightmares.
It takes me a moment to breathe through it all so I can go on. “I was already like this before that. Finley was an anomaly. It’s like she got so deep under my skin that she became a vital part of me. I needed every part of her in every possible way. I still do. The same way I need you.”
I glance up from our tangled hands to find him watching me with tear-glossed eyes. Trying to ease the tension coiled around him, I smile. It doesn’t work one bit. That surly pout stays fixed, a brutal grimace that knots my insides.
“Point is, there isn’t anything wrong with me or us. I don’t feel for other men or women what I feel for you and Fin, because they’re not right for me like you and our girl are. Am I making sense? Connie normally makes it make sense…”
Jayden shrugs, shifting his body to turn into me. “I know what’s right for us isn’t going to be right for everyone else. I just wanted to protect you and Fin from the judgmental bullshit. I’ve been there all my life. If not because of my sexuality, then because of my parents and our family.”
“Other people’s opinions are irrelevant, Jayden. That’s their right and wrong, not ours. It’s not our problem.”
“The universal right and wrong is our problem, Eli. It’s mine, yours, Fin’s… and it’ll be our children’s problem…”
“You’re right… Our children will deserve better. So I go back to what I said, we need to be us. The us we’ve always been. Steady and strong.”
“Eli…”
“JJ, change happens when we least expect it, through understated action. It’s how I got here. To now. All the little things you did that made me fall so fucking deep for you… the little things that have altered my perception of myself…”
He rolls his eyes at me. The telltale sign he’s thawing. “Maybe I should talk to Connie.”
“She’s pretty amazing at untangling my crazy thoughts.
” Lifting our joint hands to my mouth, I give his knuckles a playful bite, followed by a lingering kiss when he cozies into me.
“You realize that the primary point of this conversation was me apologizing for fucking up, right? I shouldn’t have jumped into your brawl with Ahlgren. Suppose I wanted to protect you…”
“He’s an asshole,” he grumbles beneath his breath.
“You never told me the beef between the two of you.”
Jayden goes deathly still, hand tightening so hard around mine that I feel the bite of it tingling all the way up the nerves in my arm. “He tried to fuck my sister.”
Oh. Wait. “When? He’s like twenty-nine and married.”
“A while back. Kailey had just turned seventeen and—” Jayden shakes his head in disgust. “I have one fucking rule: no one touches my sisters. No one looks at them. They’re off-limits.”
Now I’m pissed I didn’t hammer the bastard harder. If Kailey were seventeen, Ahlgren would’ve been twenty-five. She was barely legal… “Sick fuck.”
“I know eight years in the grand scheme of life is nothing, but she was a kid. My kid sister.” With a grunt, he sinks deeper into me.
Time feels too normal when we sit in silence. Not slow, not fast—steady—as I stroke my thumb along the back of his hand. Thinking about our conversation.
How there’s no right or wrong. Just perceptions. What we think and feel about facts.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about talking to Finley more often than not. Imagining the right words to say, the different variations that might soften the blow of the truth.
Jayden was right, the weight of holding it back from her is constantly pressing on my shoulders, squeezing around my heart. I don’t want to hurt her, but the more I think about where we are now, the clearer it becomes that I am hurting her more by withholding this part of me.
Because that’s what it is—a part of me that I’ve been so ashamed of that I’ve tried to bury it to my own detriment.
And I think it’s time to cut it off, the rotting limb that it is, and leave it behind. In the past, where it belongs.