Page 85 of Break the Ice
My heart is jackhammering into my ribs as Jayden crouches, placing me on my feet with the kind of gentleness that chokes.
“Eli needs to handle this on his own,” he says as though he knows something I don’t. “To prove to himself that he can protect you.”
He pulls his shoulders back and walks towards the living area, not giving me room to argue that Elijah has nothing to prove. Not to himself or anyone. He’s always done everything he can to protect me. He took beatings for me. Was punished in my place when I broke the rules.
Elijah has nothing to prove.
“Fin,” Jayden calls down the hallway at me. His voice is soft, beckoning. “Come on. I’m making coffee.”
His hands are in the pockets of his slacks, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows while he waits for me to join him. Even though he’s not smiling there’s still that all-encompassing Jayden ease about him that draws me to him.
A light at the end of a pitch-dark tunnel.
The aromatic,woodsy scent of Jayden’s blanket fills my lungs every time I fidget on his couch.
Elijah hasn’t come for me yet, and even though Jayden keeps telling me to relax and go to sleep, I can’t. I can’t do anything except worry. I know he’s feeling the same as he flips through the channels endlessly, checking the time on his watch whenever he thinks I’m not looking.
I still feel guilty enough about my comment earlier that I shuffle closer to him. We’re sitting side-by-side when he turns off the TV and wraps his arm around my shoulders. The instant I’m curled into his side, Jayden drops his head back onto the couch cushion and dims the lights on the portable home panel.
We sit in silent, near-darkness, holding each other. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting…
My eyes are heavy, and Jayden’s breaths are evening out when Elijah’s tall shadow sinks down beside me.
“My father said it’s not them.”
“You spoke to your father?”
“It took me a while to get through to him.”
“How did you…?”
“Evelyn.”His grandmother?
Thinking of her makes my thighs throb, the ghost of her lashes burns in my flesh—an invisible wound that’ll never heal.
“I told her I was going to the cops and she had him call me.”
“Do you believe that it isn’t them?”
“Fuck no.”
“What happens now?” I ask, and Jayden’s arm tightens around me while I lace my fingers with Elijah’s on the couch, between us.
“They leave us alone for good, or I’ll lead the cops to their way.”Oh.“The Fellowship doesn’t want that, Fin. My father doesn’t want it. Your father doesn’t want it.”
Jayden remains silent on my other side. If it wasn’t for the rampant hammering of his heart into my shoulder, I’d think he was asleep. When I burrow deeper into him, Elijah’s hand squeezes mine.
“Clean break, Fin. No more bullshit,” he says with a long exhale.
The smell of bleach and lemon dish soap clinging to him takes me back to our conversation earlier.
That damn skunk brought us together, and the irony that another stench has brought him to me again isn’t lost on me. Not one bit as he shifts closer until his side is pressed to mine and I’m sandwiched between him and Jayden again.
For the first time in…ever… I know that I’m exactly where I belong.
I’m home.
CHAPTER 25
