Page 276 of Cross the Line
“On this note, I’m going to leave you until later. I will pick up Christina and grab sushi and dim sum for dinner.” With that, Summer gathers her and Persephone’s belongings and heads out, leaving me with my guys.
Although I saw them this morning when they brought me coffee from the place on the pier, it feels like it’s been ages since they left for practice. I hate that they’ll be leaving again in a couple of hours to get ready for tonight’s game.
“So Natasha said she was coming to see you this morning,” Jayden starts, his hand lacing with mine while he takes in the yellowing bruise surrounding my cannula.
“You okay?” Eli rests his chin on my shoulder with a coaxing nudge of his nose on my earlobe.
While he waits for me to answer, the length of his strong arm stretches across us. Holding us all together.
“Oddly, yeah. I’m fine. There’s nothing anyone could tell me about Presley that would surprise me anymore. I kind of expect the worst of a conversation where he’s concerned. You know?”
Eli nods at the same time as he nips at my shoulder. “Salem was devastated.”
“Of course. I mean, her husband poisoned her baby’s father. It’s awful. All of it.” What else is there to say that hasn’t been said by Natasha, the detectives, the media…
All the truths. All the lies. Everything has been said.
Contrary to what you’d think, it’s liberating for it to be out in the open and not to have to live with another secret.
After the full details of Casey’s death were made public record, themedia instantly assumed that Salem was the nameless victim. They weren’t wrong; she was Presley’s victim, just not his only one.
“It’s still crazy to me,” Jayden murmurs, thumb stroking along the inside of my wrist. “Salicylic Acid? That’s the shit they give you to kill warts and calluses, and they put it in lotions…”
“What are the chances of the team doc giving Casey an extra strong dosage of aspirin for muscle swelling on the same day Presley spiked his drink?” With a deep breath, Eli shuffles down the bed, turning on his side to hug my thigh. Kissing the exposed skin on the inside. That fleshy part that holds the sting of his bite so torturously well that I squirm deeper into the mattress at the mere thought.
“Prick got his just desserts,” Jayden scoffs with a shake of his head.
“And now, even though it doesn’t feel like it quite yet, it’s all done,” Eli tells me, ducking lower to kiss my knee while his stare flits to JJ’s.
He’s still holding my hand in his when he lifts my chin with the other. The instant our eyes lock, my chest squeezes tight.
Jayden’s beyond beautiful, and his eyes are so soulful that when he tells me, “It’s over, Baby,” I feel it all the way to the marrow of my bones.
“Time to live, Fin. Likereallylive and make all your dreams come true.”
“Everything we talked about. All the plans we made, Angel,” Eli says, nipping my knee to bring my attention back to him. “It’s over. The past is done, and now we get to make the future we want for ourselves.”
“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.
