Page 106 of Break the Ice
Clearing my throat, I push past the thickness there. “Thank you,” I say, clinging onto Fin’s hand as I edge it next to Jayden’s on her lap.
Finley nods, leaning her head lightly onto my shoulder meanwhile Jayden stares at our hands. His blanched expression flushes from his cheeks to his ears and his nose. Each flutter of his lashes slices through me.
He’s so close to tears. His lips are quivering...
Then Finley inches our hands over his and I think it’s the first time I’ve heard him breathe. Part dry sob and part shaky gasp.
“I hate hospitals,” he finally says with a roll of his eyes.
“Me too.”
“Yeah, me three,” Finley croaks, lifting her head and lightly kissing my cheek.
I don’t have it in me to stop her or pull away. It feels too good—her kiss and this closeness between us, and Jayden.
A throat clears in the open doorway and as I glance in the direction Lex is walking towards us, Jayden pulls his hand from under mine and Finley’s. When I look at him, he stares down at his lap with a sigh.
“Feeling better?” Lex asks, standing beside the bed, hands on his hips while he casts his assessing gaze over me.
“Sort of hazy, but no migraine, so...”
“Good, the neurologist is due to come see you in the next hour or so.” The matter-of-fact tone amplifies the tightness in my chest. “So, now Eli’s awake the two of you can go home and rest. Let him rest, too.”
“Lex—”
“You need to rest.” He cuts me off, focusing on Jayden. “And you have a game tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jayden retorts.
I don’t want them to leave me here on my own, but...
“Lex is right,” I tell them, glancing between each of their furrowed stares. Dark and tired. “You’ve been here all night; you need to go home and take care of you.”
Finley grasps my arm. “No, Elijah. I can’t leave y?—”
“Yes, you can if I tell you to.”
“Don’t,” she chokes back.
“I’m fine now, and I don’t want you getting sick, too.”? Moving my gaze to Jayden, I push down the flurry of emotion that flutters up from my stomach into my chest. “Take Finley home. Please.”
“Okay,” he says, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he leans forward and rests his chin on her head.
The sight of them together makes every cell of my being hurt. I wish that I could be like that. Like them.
I wish I could be close and touch without fear taking over. Without the past haunting me. Because everything in me yearns for it so bad.
“Take Fin home,” I tell him, prying Finley’s hand from my arm. “Eat, sleep…”
Jayden nods, his eyes are sunken, and the lines of his face are sharper. I can’t be the reason he’s like this—drained of his usual energy and cocky attitude.
“Come on, Lucky,” he finally says with a long sigh, pushing to his feet.
“No, Jayden." Finley grips his hand. There’s a wordless exchange between them that’s all upended breaths, rounded eyes, and half-shrugs that ends with a teary glance between Jayden and me. “Elijah…”
“It’s okay, Fin.”
“You heard the man,” Jayden croons, tugging her up onto her feet, his tone a forced kind of easy. “He’s okay.”
