Page 11 of Beautiful When He Breaks

She keeps crying. Of course she does. She’s one month old, and I’m standing over her in sweatpants and yesterday’s T-shirt, hair a mess, chest tight, and whispering profanity.

I reach down, then stop, because suddenly all the warnings from last night come back at once. Support her head. Don’t let her roll. Watch her neck. Check the diaper. Check hunger. Check temperature. Don’t panic.

Great. Awesome. Very helpful.

I panic.

“Okay. Okay, I’ve got you.”

I do not, in fact, have her.

“Hey,” I say immediately, voice cracking because I have no idea what I’m doing. “Hey, okay, okay, I’m here.”

She does not care that I’m here. If anything, she gets louder.

My heart starts pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. I stare at her for one useless second too long, trying to remember every single thing Julian said last night, and I finally slide one hand beneath her head and the other under her little body the way Julian showed me. She feels impossibly fragile, all squirming limbs and rage. The second I lift her, her head tips in a way that makes terror blast through me, and I jerk her closer to my chest too fast.

Her crying gets worse.

“Oh my God,” I breathe, horrified. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Fuck, I didn’t mean to—”

The door swings open so fast that it hits the wall.

Julian steps in wearing black sweatpants and no shirt, dark curls wild from sleep. His eyes are alert before the rest of him should be. No confusion or groggy blinking. Just an immediate focus locked on the baby in my arms.

“Eli,” he says, voice rough with sleep but calm enough to cut through the screaming. “Give her to me.”

“I don’t know what I did,” I blurt, clutching her to my chest while also being terrified of clutching her too hard. “She started crying, and I tried to pick her up, but her head—Jules, her head moved wrong, and I—”

“She’s okay,” he says, crossing the room. “Hand her over.”

I do it because it’s Julian, and even when everything else is splitting apart, some old part of me still trusts him before I trust myself.

He takes her smoothly, one big, tattooed hand supporting her head, the other under her back, tucking her against his bare chest with a practiced ease that makes shame burn hot under my skin. She’s still crying, her face scrunched up and furious, but somehow she already sounds less panicked in his arms. Or maybe that’s me projecting because he isn’t shaking and I am.

“Okay, meisiekind,” he murmurs, bouncing her gently, not up and down but this small rocking motion from his knees. “I know. Your dumbass dad woke up scared. He’s new here.”

I stare at him. “Did you just call me a dumbass in front of my daughter?”

He glances at me, one brow lifting. “She screamed at you first. I’m translating.”

Despite everything, a laugh cracks out of me, weak and broken. It dies fast when she wails again and roots her face against his chest, mouth open and searching.

Julian looks down at her and nods once. “Hungry. Probably wet too. Newborns are dramatic little dictators. Food, diaper, warmth, sleep. That’s the whole cycle, and somehow, they still make everyone feel like shit at three in the morning.”

He moves around my room easily, as if he hasn’t spent months staying out of it because I was too much of a coward to fix what I broke between us. Then he lays her carefully on the changing pad someone set up on top of my dresser last night, keeping one hand on her belly while he reaches for the diapers with the other.

I stand uselessly beside the bed.

My hands are empty now, but they still feel the shape of her. Warm, squirming, too small. I flex my fingers and look at them as if they belong to someone else. These are football hands. Tight end hands. Hands made to block, catch, shove, and lift. Hands that know cleats and tape and gym chalk. Not this. Not tiny snaps and fragile necks and soft skin that could bruise if I breathe wrong.

“Eli,” Julian glances over his shoulder. “Come here.”

“I’ll get in the way.”

“You’ll learn.”

The words are firm enough that I move before I argue. He doesn’t look away from the baby as he talks, which somehow makes it easier.