Page 23 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I huff out a humorless laugh. “You make it sound so appealing when you say it like that.”

“I’m serious,” he says, and bumps my shoulder with his. “And for what it’s worth, Eli’s not alone. Even if you can’t be standing next to him every second.”

That one lands square in the middle of me because it’s true and still not enough.

I nod once. “Yeah.”

He lets out a breath through his nose. “But somehow that’s not the same thing, is it?”

There’s no smart answer to that, so I don’t try for one.

Luca reaches for his bag and stands. “Go shower, then get home. He’ll want you there whether he says it or not.”

Before I can answer, he turns and heads toward the showers, leaving me sitting there with my pulse going strange and my skin feeling too tight.

I shower fast, dress faster, and get the hell out of there. The late-afternoon air outside the athletic center hits warm and heavy, the sky washed gold at the edges as the day starts sliding toward evening. I fish my keys out of my bag while walking to my car, already mentally calculating the quickest route back to the Sin Bin. I’m halfway through planning what I can do the second I walk in—grab food, check in quietly, make sure Eli’s eaten, maybe take the baby for a bit if he looks wrecked—when my phone rings.

I know who it is before I even see the screen; my body knows first.

That old, immediate drop in my stomach. The flare of dread. The stupid reflexive tension in my shoulders that thinks if I brace fast enough, I can stop what’s coming. I stop dead between two rows of cars, look down at the phone in my hand, and consider letting it ring out. But I know exactly what happens when I don’t answer, so I give in.

“Yeah?”

The voice on the other end is calm in that carefully controlled way that means danger, not peace. “Where are you?”

I close my eyes briefly. “Just finished practice.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you.”

It’s one missed call from twenty minutes ago, but facts have never mattered much in this particular dynamic when there’s anger to be manufactured instead. I start walking again because standing still makes me feel cornered. “I was on the field.”

“Come see me.”

Demand dressed up as preference. Same as always.

I yank open my car door and toss my bag into the passenger seat harder than I mean to. “I can’t tonight.”

Silence—his silence—is always worse than shouting. Then, very softly, he says, “Excuse me?”

I grip the roof of the car with my free hand and stare out across the parking lot. Two freshmen linemen are laughing over something on one of their phones. A golf cart rattles as it passes by near the equipment building. The whole campus keeps moving while I stand there, feeling my options shrink to a singular point.

“There’s shit going on at home,” I say carefully. “I need to get back.”

“That house of yours is always full of drama.”

My jaw tightens. “Yeah.”

“So, leave them to it and come see me.”

It’s the certainty that gets me. The absolute confidence that I’ll come because I always come in the end. Because secrecy is a leash if the other person knows how much shame you’re carrying.

I lean my forehead briefly against the top of the car door and close my eyes. “Please.”

The word is out before I can stop it, soft with exhaustion instead of defiance, and I immediately hate that.

“What was that?” he asks.

This is the part where I always start trying to predict the angle. Anger. Mockery. Cold disappointment. Threat dressed up as concern. He has a whole shelf of them, and I’ve seen enough by now to know there’s no winning once he’s decided I’m the thing he wants to put his hands on tonight, one way or another.