Page 139 of Cross the Line
“Be safe.”
“Always. Promise me you’re not going to let the bastard ruin the holidays for you. If how you left things with Eli is bothering you, go to him, talk to him, fuck him… just don’t dwell on it. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“I mean it, Finley-James. ’Tis the season for ho, ho, ho-ing, not boo-hoo-hooing.” She rolls her eyes. “That sounded a lot better in my head.”
Kailey tries and fails not to laugh.
“Make sure she doesn’t wallow.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kailey salutes.
“See you soon… Love you, Amish,” Christina blows kisses and disappears into a waiting car. “Over and out, bishes.”
“Over and out,” Kailey laughs.
I sink into the seat, cradling the cup on my knees. Cream slides down the elf-shaped rim faster than my thumb can catch it.
“Wallow swapsies?” Kailey nudges my shoulder.
I shift to look at her. After this morning, I’ve been so in my head that I didn’t clock how tired she looks.
“Sure… but I have to warn you that I’m failing miserably at normal life, so?—”
“Of course you are. I mean, your boyfriend dumped your ass after you told him you have to take a break from pro-sports, and you have a huge family of meddlers to break the news to without sounding ungrateful for all the time, money, and effort they’ve put into supporting you. It doesn’t matter what you do, your body is working against you, so you can’t get back into competing shape without getting sick, and…Fuck.Yeah, you’re totally failing at life.” She side-eyes me with a grin that is all JJ, and my heart melts on cue.
My throat tightens when she scrunches her nose exactly like her brother. Her dimple pinches, and that’s all it takes for the lump in my throat to dissolve to a sting behind my eyes.
I shouldn’t have come. I need to be with my guys. There’s too much going on to enjoy the spa. Relaxing is impossible.
“Joke,” Kailey huffs. “Well, about you failing at life. The rest is all accurate.”
Kailey rarely talks about her skiing. We always drift to conversations about Jayden and their childhood, their family, his career…
Like him, she’s always got a smile and something cheerful to say, a funny observation to make.
Today, her smile is weary.
I hate it. A smile like hers, like JJ’s, should always be bright.
“You never said you have a boyfriend,” I say, sipping the thick hot chocolate so the cream stops overflowing.
“It’s not common knowledge. Wasn’t. It wasn’t common knowledge.” Kailey licks a drip up the Santa mug. “Ben is older.” Her voice dips . “He’s thirty-eight… my coach…”
Oh.“Oh. Okay.”
“Please don’t tell JJ. He would kill me and then go all torturous-psycho murderer on Ben. It would be ugly, and you’d be visiting him in jail for the rest of his life. Trust me, orange is not his color.” She blows out a raspberry. “So, what’reyouwallowing about?”
“Turns out the person who sent all those messages is a guy I met at a bar. Ryker Hallman is his name, and he has some sort of grudge against me or Elijah. I don’t know… he did some voodoo magic on my phone and got my number?—”
“Fucking hate NameDrop. I tried to give some asshole at a club Ben’s number as a big fuck you to him, but my contact card came up because our phones were too close together… Talk about failure.” The exaggerated roll of her eyes makes me chuckle.
“Yeah, it’s a totally crappy feature, and I didn’t know it existed…andI am naïve enough to miss that most people come with an agenda.” The words taste bitter like my thoughts.
“Being related to or dating a pro-sportsperson is hard. People go through you to get to them all the time.And…as boggy as the grass is where you came from, it isn’t greener out here,” Kailey chuffs.
“Nope, I’m learning that it’s just a different kind of grass.”
