Page 115 of Beautiful When He Breaks

The sound of his carefree voice almost breaks me.

I close my eyes and lean my shoulder against the brick. “Jules.”

Everything in his voice changes immediately. “Eli?”

I swallow hard, staring at the little black drive trapped in my hand.

“I need you,” I say, and the words come out rough enough that I know he hears all of it. “Something happened.”

35

Julian

I leave the lecture so fast I don’t even remember standing up.

One second, I’m sitting halfway down the auditorium, pretending to give a single fuck about sport psychology while my phone lights up against my thigh. The next, Eli’s voice is in my ear, sounding like all the air has been dragged out of him.

I need you.

Something happened.

That’s all it takes—not an explanation or even a full sentence. I’m moving before the professor finishes his next slide. My bag hits my shoulder badly enough that the strap catches wrong, and I nearly take out the guy beside me getting into the aisle. He mutters something irritated under his breath, but I’m already gone, feet pounding up the lecture hall stairs, phone still pressed to my ear.

The professor pauses, probably to glare, but I don’t look back. There are very few things in my life that outrank Eli Matthews saying he needs me, and absolutely none of them are happening in this room.

“I’m coming,” I tell him before killing the call, and I mean it so completely that there’s no room for anything else. “Get home, Liefling. I’m coming.”

When I get to the house, my chest burns, and my shirt sticks to my back beneath my hoodie. I shove through the front door hard enough that it bangs against the wall, and Liam’s head appears from the kitchen for half a second before he clocks my face and disappears again, probably to get Killian or water or both because Liam processes crises by becoming a field medic with snack options.

Eli is in the living room. He’s sitting on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees, one hand fisted so tightly his knuckles have gone pale. He looks up when I come in, and for one beat his expression goes blank with surprise, as if some part of him genuinely didn’t expect me to appear just because he called.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” he says, and his voice is too quiet. “I only realized after that you were in the middle of a lecture. I’m sorry, I—”

I stop in front of him, and whatever anger I had left for the lecture, all of it folds under the look on his face.

“Of course I came, Liefling,” I say, cupping the side of his face. “You called.”

His mouth trembles once before he forces it still, and I get it. God, I get it. Sometimes the hardest thing to accept is that you’re allowed to ask and someone will come without making you earn it.

I crouch in front of him, careful not to touch him unnecessarily. “Tell me what happened.”

He swallows hard and opens his hand where a flash drive sits in his palm.

“A girl stopped me on campus,” he says, staring down at it instead of me. “I don’t remember her name. I know she was in Celeste’s sorority, but I can’t place her. She looked freaked out and said she was sorry about Celeste and that she was leaving the sorority, moving back home, and then she gave me this.”

I keep my voice level. “What did she say was on it?”

Eli’s jaw works. “Screenshots, group chat, videos. That’s what she said before she ran and said I didn’t deserve it.”

Before my anger takes over, I take one slow breath, then another. He watches me, bracing for whatever comes next.

“I don’t know what’s on there,” he says. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

“You don’t have to look,” I say immediately.

His eyes snap to mine. “But if it’s evidence—”

“Then someone should preserve it, and Mara should handle it,” I say, keeping my voice steady through sheer force. “But you don’t have to be the one to go through it.”