Chapter 75
FINLEY
Goodbyes suck.
Ass-crack-of-dawn goodbyes, even more so. The emptiness they leave behind cloys in my chest as I walk into mine, Eli’s, and Jayden’s bedroom. The warm smell of almost-morning sex still lingers, along with creases in the rumpled sheets that Blanca has corkscrewed herself into.
She raced me in here to swaddle in Eli and JJ’s mixed-up scent. Cheeky girl is lucky I love her, or I might run her out of the bed. Instead, I cuddle up and drag the duvet over us, cocooning us completely.
“Four games, Bee,” I tell her as my bracelet vibrates twice, then once, and one more time. Right before my phone trills with a text.
I snag it from the nightstand and find a message from Eli in our group chat. I have to double-take to make sure it’s him, since Jayden changed our chat name to Forever—because that’s what we are. Forever and always. Eternity.
Eli
4 games
My chest squeezes at the number we’ve put on this away run. It’s easier to digest games than days.
Six.
Six days of missing them with every breath. Six nights of aching for their return. Until I can hold them again. Share the same air. Steal their body heat to warm my cold hands and feet in the middle of the night.
Six whole days.
My fingers tickle over Blanca’s short fur, letting her warmth seep into my skin while I reread Eli’s message. Four games.
JJ
3 days until Kiki arrives
A deep breath inflates my chest only for achy ribs to squeeze it out in a quick puff. With Kailey accepted to UCLA for kinesiology, she’s spending more time in LA to get her bearings before the full-time move.
JJ
Stay out of trouble
Eli
Have fun
JJ
Don’t let her corrupt you
I burst out laughing at Jayden’s message. Kailey is sassy, but she’s also laser-focused and responsible from years of strict training. An old soul wrapped in sunshine.
Fin
I won’t make any promises…
Let’s be honest, we all know I won’t leave the apartment unless I have to, and to walk Blanca and Samson. Even then, I’ll stay close. No more hikes until they return.
That makes me sadder. The hikes have kept my head clear when the voices threaten to pull me under. But the last two days—especially after Presley made bail—reporters have loitered outside on the street. Everywhere we go: work, training, the dog park…
At least with them stalking us, I know I’m safe. Presley wouldn’t dare come near me with the press watching my every move. He might be reckless, but he’s not stupid.
Anyway, no rabbit holes today.
No promises…except that I’m already missing you.
Eli
We’re going to call you all the time.
JJ
You might get sick of us
You’ll be lucky if I pick up with all the trouble Kiki and I are going to get into.
There’s a long stretch of silence as the word Typing… appears and disappears beneath the name of our chat.
After a beat—clearly a deliberation—a new message lands.
JJ
Be careful. Please.
Eli
If anything comes up and you need someone STAT, call Lex.
JJ
I’ve made his contact a favorite so you can find it easy. And Dad’s.
Shouldn’t you be resting? Focussing on beating Colorado?
Their Colorado game is going to be wild. The way they’ve been reviewing tape borders on obsessive. It’s all they’ve lived and breathed when they haven’t been inside me these last couple of days since the Portland game.
JJ
Colorado who?
Anyway, rest is for the weak.
Eli
We’re gonna take off now.
Go back to sleep.
Rest is for the weak…
JJ
And when do you ever listen to me?
When I’m being a good girl…
Eli
Then be a good girl and go back to bed, Finley-James.
I tent the duvet with my phone, shimmying away from Blanca.
She instantly curls into Eli’s pillow. I tug the slightly torn neckline of Jayden’s T-shirt as low as it will go to show the swell of my boobs and the taut buds of my nipples beneath thin cotton.
I snap the photo, double-check the effect, and send.
Already in bed… happy?
JJ
…
Eli
…
Safe flight, boys!
With a few taps to my wrist, I wait for their replies. Watching the Typing… cue appear and disappear for what feels like forever.
JJ
Not sure that’s possible right now…
Eli
Yeah, plane’s gonna struggle to take off with our wood.
Pssst…
Use the bathroom
Send me pics
Oh, Jesus. I contemplate deleting the messages for a moment. But the Typing… prompt says it’s too late to backtrack and the bashful heat already has my cheeks flaming.
JJ
Eli
Yeeee…….
JJ
Eli Sylkes
Death by dirty talk
Eli
JJ
Yep…you broke our man, Lucky!
Ooops… A giggle shakes my chest, setting butterflies loose. The confidence they give me is a high I’ll never tire of. A power I’ve never felt outside of us. It’s heady and addictive.
Sorry, not sorry
JJ
We’ll see
Eli
Fuuuuck… what have you started?
JJ
Be a *good girl*, Fin. Rest up.
I swear I hear that low, promising chuckle tickle the shell of my ear, slide down my neck. My thighs press together, rubbing the sticky residue of their cum into my skin. Even though it’s been just over an hour since they were inside me, need simmers deep in my belly.
Good Lord, how am I going to survive the next six days?
Is it too late to ask for mercy? Because I need every bit of it I can get.
The yearning grows hot and fast, taking over every inch, just as the screen lights with their simultaneous sign-off.
Eli
I love you, angel.
JJ
Love you, baby
Love you more
Warmth stutters through my heart when they heart my message. I press the phone to my chest like I can absorb that visual affection. I hold it there until last night’s lost sleep pulls me under.
It’s where I’ll be living my best life until my men return.
Four games.
Salem watches the screen beside me, eyes tracking Corey Cavanaugh while I try not to die of a heart attack every time Kailey rockets off the couch and yells at the TV.
I’m pretty sure I’ve aged a decade by the last ten minutes. Eli and Jayden are out on the ice, defending the Comets’ empty net, the team hell-bent on avoiding another overtime like last night’s nail-biter that went to a shootout.
“Are you fucking kidding me? What’s wrong with this guy?” Kailey yells, setting Blanca and Samson off into a chorus of yowls.
Salem’s chuckling when the camera finally pans to Corey. The lightness in her features dulls with a gasp.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, hands molding to her belly as she shuffles to the edge of the couch. “Casey said they looked alike, but… they could be twins.”
The man in question shakes his blonde hair before he puts on his helmet and jumps over the boards, swapping with one of the other Chicago centers. Crystalline blue eyes narrow on Eli and Jayden’s line while he yells orders at his teammates.
With a sigh, Salem looks up at me. “His eyes are different… colder.”
“He looks sorta grouchy,” I say, absorbing the sadness rolling off her deep into my bones in a way that wrenches my insides at the obvious downturn of Corey’s eyes.
He’s suffering.
The pain I’ve watched Salem endure is etched in the lines around his stare and in the grimace of his mouth.
“Casey wasn’t grouchy. There was nothing moody about him.” She shakes her head and sinks back into the couch, sole focus dropping to her growing belly. “He was always bright and happy, like hope sprang inside him.”
Now hope is inside her, in the form of their child. I don’t say it; the faint, half-hitched smile on her face says she’s thinking it, too.
“Motherfucker!” Kailey’s shout whips my attention back. Auguste and Matheo are holding Eli and Jayden back from a brawl with Chicago’s forwards. Dylan is sprawled in the crease, half-buried inside the net that was empty moments ago.
“What happened?” I ask, leaning forward.
“Damn shitshow, that’s what happened,” Kailey huffs, dropping onto the glass coffee table before grumbling at the TV. “That’s your fucking net, protect it at all costs, assholes!”
Maybe my memory’s skewed, but I don’t recall her being this boisterous during other games. Then again, the stakes ratchet higher every night.
“We’re so freaking close, now is not the time to fall to shit, guys… guys!”
They won’t.
Eli and Jayden are living and breathing hockey until they bring the Stanley Cup home to LA. It’s all they’re talking about now that the end of the season is nigh and the Playoffs are on the horizon.
I think Kailey might have an aneurysm through the first period of overtime when Chicago ricochets a couple of pucks off the top bar and Dylan’s pads. Thankfully, Matheo gets a clean shot right between the Chicago keeper’s legs with a few seconds to spare in the second period of overtime.
Watching the guys celebrate, relentless yearning slams back.
My brain goes to an instant countdown as they file off the ice into the tunnel.
Every cell readies for them to burst through the door and find me—to use the last dredge of victorious adrenaline to make me scream their names as they fill me with their cum.
Because there’s nothing better than being full of them. Than having their pleasure scald me from the inside out.
It’s when I feel strongest. Untouchable. Unshakeable. They are my rocks, and I am needy for them—desperate to my core. Damned and saved.
I wouldn’t change a thing. Not even when every part of me waits painfully, hanging on my every breath for the second they walk through the door.
Even though I know I won’t have them back with me until tomorrow.