Chapter 82 #2
“Babies, careers… You name it, and we’ll give it to you.”
“Babies,” the dreamy sigh escapes me with the vision of JJ holding Persephone. That tiny baby curled in his arm, and him cooing at her like she could understand every word he spoke to her. “I want that for us.”
“Me, too, sweet girl.” The grin on Eli’s face is tinged a deep shade of pink as he glances up at Jayden again.
“Gonna need to find ourselves a bigger place for all the babies we’re going to put in you,” Jayden says, sucking my lobe into his mouth.
“So fucking down with that plan.” Eli slips off the bed and goes to the chair by the door where his and Jayden’s gym bags are stacked on top of each other.
“The apartment is bigger than most people’s homes,” I muse, watching while Eli pulls a large hoodie from his bag.
“Yeah, but kids need a yard, and Bee, too…” He’s shaking out the huge top, holding it up to his chest with the Comets’ logo on the front. There’s a patch on each arm that, as he comes closer, I can make out his twenty-one and JJ’s seventy-four on each one.
“We need a bigger room so we can get a bigger bed, ‘cause I swear he was a starfish in another life,” Jayden chuckles with another kiss to the side of my head.
“That’s a totally valid point.”
Eli pauses with a mock glare. “Nope. No way… I sleep on the edge of the bed all the time.”
“Except when you starfish.” The hitch of JJ’s shoulder next to mine says he’s riling our grump, and I have to fight the grin that’s tugging at the corners of my mouth.
“Oh my God, that’s not even remotely true. You’re always the one spread out on the bed, over us… like a damn heated blanket!”
“I kinda like that part,” I shrug at the same time as Jayden chuffs, “Dunno what you’re talking about. I’m the neatest motherfucking sleeper on the planet.”
“Not in this fucking universe.”
“Babe… I feel like you’re getting like… a tad—” Jayden pinches his thumb and finger together. “—aggressive…”
He’s going to get his ass beat if he’s not careful. Although he’d totally love it. And I can’t say I wouldn’t, either.
In fact, I am here for it! Literally, figuratively, and every ally and ively there is.
“Just, you know… a little…” JJ side-glances at me, the green in his eyes glinting with that belly-swooping mischief I adore. “Wouldn’t you say so, Baby?”
With a hum, I absorb the palpable warmth of his wonky grin. I swear my heart adds a few extra beats into its eager rhythm just for him—mine and Eli’s glorious sunshine.
“Well… I suppose he is being somewhat… ya know…” My stare flits back to Eli, still holding the hoodie to his chest.
His eyes are dark, bottomless wells of obscene promise, while he takes a couple of purposeful steps towards us. When he comes to a stop at the foot of the bed, he rumbles, “You suppose I’m being somewhat…”
“Belligerent…” Jayden answers for me. His cocky smirk is audible in the trill of his words as he adds, “Grouchy…”
Oh, my heart.
It doesn’t know what to do with itself at the cock of Eli’s brow.
Jayden is trembling beside me with the laughter he’s holding in while my toes are curling with the shot of electricity that zaps from my head to my toes with every second Eli holds my stare.
“What do you suppose, Finley-James?” My lady parts clench with the press of my thighs at the rasp of his voice.
“Defensive,” I squeak, because I’ve committed to riling him up, and this tension between us is almost as good as sex… and it’s been a while since the three of us have been intimate. I miss it so much that the tiniest touch sets every cell of my being on fire.
I am constantly burning and yearning and dying for them.
It never stops. The torment never ends.
I don’t want it to. Because this is who we are. Who we have always been.
This innate desperation for one another that lives in our skin and bones, that resides in our hearts and souls, is what makes us who we are.
Perfect for each other.
“More like grumpy,” Jayden chuffs, getting up to stretch.
“Yeah? You think so, Fin?”
I pinch my thumb and forefinger like Jayden did before and nod in response.
“Really?” The deep velvet of Eli’s voice sends a shiver through me, tightening my chest until it feels like I can’t breathe again. Like my blood is rushing through me, making my heart pound into my lungs like it might beat them into function again.
I swallow with a manic nod when he traipses to my side, shaking out the hoodie so that I get a mouthwatering hint of his and JJ’s colognes mixed together.
A teasing grin tugs at one side of his face. “Well then, I suppose you don’t want this, then…”
I reach for the sweater at the same time as he steps back into Jayden, who’s coming up behind him with a megawatt smile.
“Don’t be a tease, Sweetheart,” he croons into Eli’s ear, wrapping his arms around the top of his chest while he edges them closer again.
“Weren’t the two of you just teasing me?” Eli throws a wide-cocked glance between us.
Jayden nips playfully at his lobe. “Only because you make it so easy.”
“Nah…” Eli’s head cants to the side, and with the brush of his lips along JJ’s cheek, he adds, “You get off on it. That’s the kind of sick fuck you are.”
“And you fucking love it.”
“Do I?”
We do.
“Yup,” Jayden retorts, trailing the tip of his nose along the bridge of Eli’s. “And too bad if you don’t, ‘cause you are stuck with me forever.”
“I suppose we will be,” Eli says with a sigh that wraps around me warmer than a tight hug. So wistful that my insides clench. “When we make it official.”
Eli is beaming at Jayden when he turns the hoodie in his hands so that the back is in plain view.
I’m staring at the letters appliquéd across the top while they watch me.
It’s the longest moment before Jayden asks, “What do you think, Lucky? Do you want to make it official?”
Suddenly, it’s not just my lungs forgetting their job. It’s my brain and my heart. It doesn’t matter how hard I swallow; I can’t stop the tears from flooding my eyes.
My vision turns to a blur of navy, white, and purple as I nod in reply, even though my brain is still piecing together the white letters curved over a large purple four leaf clover.
Sylkes-Morrow.
Rough pads swipe below my eyes with a gentle reverence that makes the tears heavier.
Totally impossible to control while Eli carefully threads the hoodie over my head and JJ continues stroking my face, hands gliding down my neck and across my shoulders until they find mine and he helps our man get the hoodie on me properly.
“I meant what I said, Finley,” Eli tells me, sitting next to me on the bed with JJ snug behind him. “Your name doesn’t change who you are or how we feel about you. It certainly doesn’t dictate our future.”
“That future includes your happiness,” Jayden adds, lacing his fingers with mine at the same time as he leans forward, resting his chin on Eli’s shoulder. “More than anything else, it’s what matters to us.”
“So…” Eli grips my chin lightly, holding my face to his. With his thumb tracing along the curve of my bottom lip, he continues, “If you really don’t want to be a Tomes anymore, you don’t have to be.”
“You never have to be anything you don’t want to. Not with us.” Jayden rakes his thumbnail along my palm, bringing my blurry stare to his. “The joy of being us is that we can be whatever we decide and do anything we want, because the rules don’t apply to us. We make our own beat to dance to.”
“Thing is, you’re as much a part of me as you are of JJ. So your name should reflect that.”
“Our name should reflect that we are a part of each other.”
“I think Sylkes-Morrow has a good ring to it. What do you think, Angel?”
Every word in my vocabulary is MIA as I open my mouth to speak, and nothing but a breathy sob sputters out with my nod.
“Just imagine little Easter and Valentine Sylkes-Morrow… definitely has a ring to it,” Jayden says, leaning closer to smoosh us together at the same time as Eli groans, “We are not naming our kids after holidays.”
“But they’ll be sweet like chocolate and totally lovable…” Jayden croons while Eli traces his lips along my jaw to my ear.
“More so without those names,” he groans, peppering warm kisses along the shell of my ear.
“We’ll see,” Jayden hums as his mouth finds mine, and I gasp into his open lips when Eli sucks at that spot behind my ear that lights up all my pores.
Even though Jayden’s teasing, I want to tell him that Eli is right—our children will not be named after holidays; however, all my focus is on the way my body is screaming with need when Jayden licks into my mouth.
Meanwhile, Eli continues exploring the curve of my throat with his lips, and it’s taking every ounce of my energy to remember how to breathe so I don’t pass out.
My heart is hammering harder than ever as he tunnels his fingers through my hair while his mouth trails back up to my jaw with open-mouthed kisses, from me to JJ.
This is everything I love about us. The way we fit. The taste of Jayden’s groans when Eli licks and sucks along his jaw. The feel of Eli’s chest rubbing against mine every time he gasps for air.
Everything about us is perfect and unique. And there will never be anything like this.
Like us.