Page 226 of Cross the Line
“Go on, pick your poison and I’ll walk you around.” Harrison pauses in the glass arch, waiting for us while we grab drinks.
I’ve never been offered so many different types of green tea, nor heard of all the different roasts of coffee on the menu.
“You can leave your cups in any of the hatches along the way. If you wish to make a donation directly to the Women in Crisis foundation, the details are right here,” the bar tender-slash-barrista hands us a small booklet with a black and white portrait of a faceless woman embracing her pregnant belly. It’s dark and gritty. The depth of the blacks and grays gives it a murky, oil-like quality.
“That’s Summer,” Finley murmurs at Jayden and me as we traipse toward Harrison. “That’s one of the portraits Alice shot of her.”
“It’s stunning,” Jayden muses, taking in the photo. “The way she captures the shadows is striking.”
With a nod, Fin adds, “It’s like she finds the darkness in her subjects and makes it beautiful.”
Hazel eyes peer at me beneath knitted brows. “There is something special about raw vulnerability.”
“It’s human,” Finley observes, threading her arm with mine while we follow Harrison through the archway to the exhibition.
JJ hovers close behind us, his warmth a steady backstop. When we pause to take in the art, his hand flattens to the small of my back, his thumb caressing along the base of my spine. Each time, I lean into his touch until he’s practically pressed to me, sandwiching me between his front and Fin’s back.
Warm and gentle, his palm drifts from my hip to Fin’s side, holding her flush to me while we move through photographs, paintings, sculptures. Floor to ceiling canvases of graffitied poems and abstract portraits, collages, and décollages.
As incredible as it all is, I’m totally focused on the feel of Jayden and Finley. The only things I ever want to spend my time staring at are my guy and our girl. They are the most precious things in this world to me. Bringing color and wonder into my world.
I stay lost in them until we step back into the sun and pile into Fin’s car. She insisted on driving; her new confidence is its own work of art.
I slide into the back. JJ takes a shotgun and keeps his hand on Fin’s thigh for the entire thirty-minute drive up to a restaurant in Malibu. Like his life depends on his hold on her.
As much as he tried to hide it today, he’s shaken after last night. I don’t blame him. I didn’t do it, but I thought about it. I was close until the blade felt heavier than my feelings and any of the crap around me.
How could something so heavy lighten anything?
It can’t.
The guilt of breaking my promise to JJ and Fin would be worse than all other feelings.
I should’ve put the razor away. Except all my strength went into not cutting myself, and I was so exhausted afterward that I couldn’t get myself up. I couldn’t move.
We’re almost at the oceanside restaurant when my phone rings. It’s loud, suddenly jarring the quiet. I can’t ignore it.
“Lex,” I answer while Fin turns the radio down.
“I’ve contacted Casey Cavanaugh’s agent like you asked,” he says right away.
“And? What did he say?” To say that I’m anxious about this is an understatement.
Salem may not be my friend, and I know I don’t owe her a thing. Nonetheless, she’s a twenty-one-year-old girl, pregnant with her dead lover’s baby, and with a husband who’s unhinged at best. If anything were to happen to her or her child, I wouldn’t be able to shrug it off.
“Brett confirmed that Casey was on the verge of securing a contract for next season with Chicago. He knows about Salem, that he wanted to take her home with him to his family, and he’s willing to reach out to the Cavanaughs.”
“But?” The tone in his voice says there’s something more. A stipulation, maybe?
“They’ve just lost their son… brother…” With a deep breath, he goes on, “He wants to wait a beat before approaching the family with this.”
“Lex, Salem’s pregnant with Casey’s kid.”
Fin parks the car a lot faster than I thought she could, before both she and JJ turn to look at me pointedly. His eyes bug and her jaw drops.
I didn’t tell either of them that I contacted Lex about Salem first thing this morning. As I go on, I place the call on loudspeaker.
“Surely they’d want to know that sooner rather than later? To know there’s a piece of him left for them?”
