Page 50 of Cross the Line
Erik snorts. “Gotta say, the kid looks more like a golf cart cruiser.”
“Maybe we should make an effort to get to know him,” Jayden says.
“Come on,” Ansel scoffs, “he’s the new guy, and?—”
“He's a teenager. A kid. Considering we’re constantly giving him shit, we should make the effort to welcome him into the pack, you know?” Jayden pulls up Oliver’s profile, follows him, and pockets his phone without fanfare.
“Isn’t he staying with Dabrowski and his family?” Erik asks. “That’s in your neighborhood, right, Dylan?”
“Maybe you should invite him out for coffee,” Ansel offers.
“Nah,” Matheo chirps. “Coffee is a brush off, food is how you get to know someone.”
“Last time you started this conversation, my place became a social club,” Dylan grumbles, pointing at Matheo. “Not happening again. Your place is bigger.”
“You live on the beach,” Matheo counters.
“It’s winter. You have a heated indoor-outdoor pool,” Dylan says, crossing his arms as he leans back.
Erik and Ansel chorus, “He got you good.”
“Party at Rio’s it is,” Jayden declares, slapping the table like it’s settled. “Can you ask your mom to make those cheesy bread rolls I love?”
“Nope.”
“And the toasted cassava flour,” Erik adds.
“Oh my God, her chicken hearts are the fucking best,” Ansel says, making a drooly-slurpy sound that makes me shudder.
“No fucking way, it’s not happening. Dabrowski’s feral kid pissed in my pool last time. No way…” Matheo shakes his head hard.
“Who said it was just his kid?” Erik laughs, brows tilting with shameless glee. “The water is just so warm and mmm… it invites you to?—”
“Cabrão, you’re fucking blacklisted,” Matheo grunts, whipping a balled napkin at him while the table cracks up.
“This is so weird,” Christina leans in as a bartender arrives with a tray of soft drinks and two buckets of loaded fries. “Get a bunch of superstar hockey players together and all the macho,poof,disappears. They’re like teenage girls.”
A giggle bursts out of me—because she’s right and because it all feels so normal—as hands dive into fries and everyone talks with their mouths full. I hung with them at Matheo’s party, but seeing them like this is unexpectedly heartwarming.
They’re welcoming, safe, easy to fall into step with. I melt deeper into Jayden while the talk shifts to tactics.
Christina and I barely get a few words into where she’ll stay when Matheo steals her attention again. They make a striking pair with his rich tan, midnight eyes, dark hair against her strawberry blonde, sage eyes, pale skin. Opposites, yet somehow the same; brash, with a devil-may-care attitude.
“You can take Weissman’s room,” he tells her with a soft grin, swiping a crumb of cheesy bacon from her lip.
Christina blushes to the tops of her ears. Whatever he said earlier that upset Jayden must’ve been out of character; he’s hanging on her every word now, tender and intent.
“Tired?” Jayden purrs at my ear, hands bracketing my thighs as he lifts me higher onto his lap so my ass settles into his groin. His fingertipstickle up my inner thighs, stopping shy of my underwear. “You want to go up to the room?”
“What about Elijah?” I ask, but before he can answer, Erik and Ansel erupt in a cheer.
“Thank fuck,” Matheo sighs as a heavy hand lands on my shoulder.
I don’t have to look. I’d know his touch in a blackout.
“Guess who’s back…” Jayden sings, twisting us in the seat to look at him.
Elijah’s ear-to-ear grin detonates a flutter of warmth through me. When his gaze drops to mine, the hand on my shoulder slides to cup my cheek.
