Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 9: Hayden

Friday, 9:06 P.M. PST

Sometimes I hate Gage for making everything seem like it could have been perfect. 

How could he be laying here with me like this knowing what I was about to do with Zain at that party?

Why does he have to do this to me?

I bet it’s just an act. 

He wants to seem perfect because I didn’t choose him, but I bet the moment I did? The whole dynamics of our relationship would change. I’d rather keep things between us like this forever than to risk turning him into another Dane… or Tyler.

Well, a now Tyler. But that’s the thing; Gage is more like my before Tyler. 

Before things between us got so complicated and mess. Before He would ever fathom hurting me in the way he did. Before we both single handedly ruined the perfect family we were going to built together…

Gage falls into place so easily, laying here with his head on my belly as he rubs it again. 

If I could manage to block out a few different parts of my mind, I might even be able to trick my mind into thinking he is Ty. I could trick it into thinking I’m here with my perfect family, happy, and nowhere near a breaking point…

“I’m so excited to meet her,” Ty says as he pulls himself away from my belly to lay beside me. 

I snuggle up under his arm, throwing mine across his chest as I lay my head on it.

“I am too,” I tell him, breathing him in with a sense of nostalgia for what we used to be. I’ve missed him. “We could just… do this the right way…Forget everything that happened before and just… be perfect…”

Ty laughs, staring at me with a look of disbelief spread across his face. “Really?” he asks, his tone eager. “I could try to make that happen for you! I-”

He cuts himself off, using his free hand to raise my face to his. “I really do love you, Hayden,” he says.

The dark room, highlighted only by the random splashes of color from my TV, grows silent. I know Ty loves me. He loves me, and we’re okay.

Before I know it, I’m pressing my lips into his so firmly I hear him gasp. They feel perfect against mine, just like they always have. 

“I love you too,” I whisper into his mouth, pulling my arm from beneath me to grasp his neck. “I love you too, I just… don’t want to get hurt…”

He pulls me on top of him, moving his kisses to my chest as his hands find their way to my lower back. “I’m not going to hurt you, Hayden,” he says, his breathing heavy as he grows worked up. “You know that already...”

I thought I knew that. But all it does is remind me about Sophie… and the fact that this is Gage beneath me, not Ty…

I can feel a wave of emotions start to rush through my body.

I sit myself up on top of my him, halting my kisses along his jaw and neck. “I know, Gage…” I say with a small sigh. “That’s why we can’t… do this…”

He hides the devastation on his face, but I know it’s there. Taking a deep breath, he removes his hands from my waist and runs them through his hair. “I’m sorry…” he mumbles, trying to pick up his pieces. 

I let myself slide off of him, returning to my position cradled up between his torso and arm. “It okay…” I tell him, trying to keep disappointment from lining my voice. “I let myself get carried away too.”

It takes a few moments before either of us can calm down, but it happens. 

He doesn’t get mad at me. He doesn’t pressure me to do anything I don’t want to do. He doesn’t even make me feel bad for teasing him like that…

He just lays here with me until eventually, we both fall asleep.