Chapter 68
FINLEY
Before the door opens, I’m there. For once, I beat Blanca to my guys. Traipsing forward, I wrap my arms around Eli when he walks through the door.
There are so many things I want to say. So many questions I want to ask.
Yet, all I can do as he lifts me up his body is hold on tighter with every limb, and breathe him in. I fill my lungs with his scent until I’m about to burst, and it’s pumping through my bloodstream.
“Morning, my beautiful,” he croaks into my hair while taking me deeper into our home.
His voice is threaded with exhaustion. Not just the physical kind. The gravel of it rakes from the bottom of his gut. Vibrating all the way through him and into me when he perches me on the back of the couch.
“Hello, my heart,” I whisper, nudging his nose with mine.
Eli braces his hands on either side of my hips, leaning over me. His soft sigh warms through me as I peel back to take him in. My hands sweep through his hair. The strands are rough and strong, shiny like spun gold, and I can’t stop my fingers from coiling in them.
“Fuck, that’s incredible,” is all he groans when I rub his scalp, applying more pressure with every hum he makes.
The instant his head drops to my chest, I lock eyes with Jayden. He looks as weary as Eli sounds, and my chest aches to comfort him, too.
“Hi,” I mouth, stretching one of my hands to him as he stands a few feet away with his hands in the pockets of his chinos.
Even though he smiles back, it doesn’t reach his eyes when he mouths back a “Hey.”
Something big is roiling in his stare—the kind of choked emotion that has my stomach twisting with the roll of his lips as he attempts to hide the quiver of his crestfallen expression.
Since they walked out the door yesterday morning, I knew they wouldn’t return from Portland unscathed.
The certainty of it is what prompted me to take today off work.
That unrelenting gut feeling is what had me glued to the TV for every second of the game.
And every second since I called Eli last night, the impending cloud of doom has been hanging over me.
Over us. Because, like the hockey pundits and reporters are saying, yesterday got messy and ugly, and something will give.
However, I’ll be damned if that something is me. I’ll burn heaven down before that something is my men or us.
Our love is strong and biblical—patient, kind, and hopeful. It protects and perseveres—and it will not fail us. Ever.
Waving Jayden to me, I stroke my other hand down the back of Eli’s head, rubbing the stiff muscles at his nape while our man trudges to us.
When his hand grips mine, I tug him all the way into me and cup his face to bring it to mine.
The dark circles under his eyes are heavier than ever, and the shadows along the sharp lines of his face give him a drawn appearance.
Then there’s the crusted cut on his lip and stitched brow.
The physical reminder of his fight with Presley.
“The bastard had it coming.” My voice catches in the back of my throat when he nods, and his emotions flood his eyes.
The splintering of my heart echoes through every fiber of my being. All I can do to hold my own feelings in check is swallow down all the words that fill my mouth like vomit. All the reasons why nothing he’s done or could do would be too much. There is no hit that is unwarranted or brutal enough.
Gently, I caress my thumb over the scrape on his cheek as I crane my neck and stretch to press my lips to his. I hope my kiss is enough to draw some of the languor from his bones as one long arm hugs my waist and the other snuggles Eli deeper into us.
“I love you,” the murmur rasps from my lungs as I hold them both to me and soak up all their melancholy.
I make it my own, allowing it to fill my chest until all the smithereens of my heart are pushed back into an aching jumble of endless affection.
“Love you too, Baby,” Jayden replies, resting his temple on Eli’s head as they both stand tall in front of me.
“Love you more, Angel.” Eli offers me a glistening, one-sided quirk of his lips while his arm circles JJ’s waist, holding him at his side like they’re sharing the same pool of strength.
I don’t know if that’s me. Whether it can be me. Nonetheless, it’s all I want to be—their strength, their home, their everything.
Seeing them like this has me more grateful than ever to have them back with me.
Even though I know we have to fully address the events of last night together, I’m in no rush to hash it all out as I slip to my feet and take both of their hands in mine.
I guide them to the other side of the couch and, once I settle into the chaise section, I pat the deep cushion next to me for them to join me.
Jayden lies down first, placing his head in my lap with a needy nuzzle while Eli lies next to him. They’re wrapped around each other when I pull JJ’s nap blanket over them, and Blanca jumps up to snuggle them.
With me rubbing their heads, it doesn’t take long for them to fall asleep. I’m not sure who’s snoring, my guys or Blanca, as I put on a mindless reality show and slowly drift off, holding them.
***
Eli’s on the phone with Taylor when Jayden follows me into the laundry room. He’s freshly showered, and his scent is warm in the air while he watches me sort through their laundry from the last two days.
Leaning against the wall beside me, he grasps my waist and brings me into him. Every muscle of his body flexes into mine, accenting the softness of my curves with the hardness of his lines. When he cups my face, lifting my stare to his, the raw emotions flooding the muddy depths rake through me.
I can’t resist the pull in my belly, tugging me to him—urging me to give him the comfort he needs.
“Lucky,” the hoarse murmur fists my heart.
“Yes, JJ…”
The way he’s chewing on his lip makes it plenty obvious he wants to talk in spite of his silence, and after a few attempts at opening his mouth, he sags down the wall a tad, bringing himself level with me.
The longer he takes to speak, the tighter my insides coil.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Shaking his head, he keeps a hand anchored on my hip while molding the other to my face. “You’re so damn precious. Real fucking beautiful…”
“That’s not answering my question.” My palms flatten to his pounding chest, and every word he doesn’t say amps up the nausea roiling in my stomach. Because every word he doesn’t say, coupled with the twisted expression on his face, sounds a lot like my heart is about to be torn from my chest.
With a deep inhale, he tells me, “Eli told coach about Presley.”
Oh, the breath I was holding escapes in a relieved whoosh. “He did?”
His brows are wrinkled together while he replies, “Yes, this morning.”
“This is good.”
His head cants with a chuff. “Is it?”
“Yes. Eli deserves to get some form of justice, and perhaps Presley will finally get some kind of comeuppance.” He’s looking at me like I’m not seeing the whole picture. As though I’m missing a glaring detail. “Isn’t this what we wanted for him?”
“I don’t know, Fin. The other night…” Jayden drops his head as his fingers claw deeper into my hip, and the hand on my face shifts to my shoulder.
“Fuck, I know he didn’t hurt himself. I know he’s trying, and talking to Connie is helping him.
But if Salem’s knowing triggered him, what happens when it’s the stranger walking past him on the street, or the person at the checkout at the store, or… ”
“JJ, people already stop and stare. Because you’re attractive men. You’re hockey stars. People stare, and they’re going to keep staring. They’re curious and—”
“This is different,” he whispers, head falling back into the wall as he looks up at the ceiling pleadingly.
“Yes, it is.”
“The fucking stranger on the street won’t just stare at him, Fin.
The cashier, the barista, the client that you meet with.
They’ll stare at you, too. Do you get that?
” Jayden’s twisted face levels on mine again.
His eyes are drowning as he sucks his lip into his mouth.
“They’re going to talk, say hideous things that will make those other messages you received pale in comparison. ”
“You think they don’t already say and do shitty things? A guy refused to serve me at a coffee shop the other day. A girl at the mall called me a slut to her friend.”
“What? Where… who? What the fuck?” He appears genuinely shocked, even though we both know it’s not surprising. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Because… I shrug.
There isn’t a person who doesn’t have an opinion on us, on what the three of us being together makes of us. Whether it’s warranted or not. Regardless of whether it’s accurate.
“Because I can’t control what people say or think of me, but I can choose not to listen or care.”
“Finley…”
“Those same people will look at you and talk about you, too.”
“I don’t care about me. What they think or say, or if they judge me.
” The choked-up rasp of his voice wrenches in my chest—a sharp blade that bleeds my anguish through my bloodstream as I carefully wipe away the tears beading on his lashes.
“I want to protect you from all the shit out there. To shield him from any more pain and… I can’t. ”
“We don’t need your protection.” He winces at my words. “All we’ve ever needed is you.”
Warm hands trail up my sides, bracketing my rib cage beneath the loose T-shirt I’m wearing. His shirt.
When I step backward, closer to the washing machine, he steps forward with me. Moving seamlessly with me until my butt hits the machine and he sits me on it.
“Eli is strong and resilient, and what he needs from us is faith.” Wrapping my arms around JJ’s shoulders, I press my forehead to his when he gives me a half glare. “We are strong and resilient, and we can make it through anything together. You, me, and Eli.”
A slow breath breezes past his lips. “You are something else, Finley-James.”
“I am everything that you and Eli have made of me,” is all I reply, nudging my nose with his before he deposits a gentle kiss to my lips.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to myself that I’m as terrified as he is. We’re not just going into a storm; we’re getting sucked into a major hurricane.
Even so, I firmly believe that, together, we can survive anything. Our love will carry us through everything the world throws at us.