Page 30 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“It’s impressive, actually.”

I hand Mila over, and his arms go around her with that effortless steadiness I’m starting to associate with safety. He tucks her against his chest and lowers his voice automatically, though she’s only half awake.

“Hey, Mila,” he murmurs, and hearing her name in his voice has my heart doing cartwheels. I have to look away for a second because the sound goes through me like a low current.

Julian doesn’t notice as he carries her to the changing pad and starts unsnapping her sleeper while talking to her under his breath in that mixture of English and the occasional Afrikaans mutter he slips into when he’s distracted.

“You’re gonna have the whole house wrapped around your tiny fingers, meisiekind. Not that they weren’t already pathetic before you got here.”

I stand by the dresser pretending to sort through wipes, but really, I’m just watching him.

That’s not unusual. I’ve watched Julian my whole life. I watched him grow into his height before the rest of us caught up. Watched his curls get longer, his shoulders broaden, his body turn hard from football and the gym. Watched tattoos spread across his arms and chest until they climbed his neck in dark, beautiful lines that should feel worlds away from the church-baked version of me and somehow never have. I’ve watched him laugh with his whole mouth, swear under his breath, and throw himself into every friendship he cares about so hard it looks reckless from the outside. None of that is new.

What’s new is the way my attention catches and stays. It’s a pull, a noticing. A deep, confused shift in the centermost part of me that makes my breath catch when Julian glances up and catches me staring. He doesn’t say anything, just lifts one brow in silent question before looking back down at Mila, and that tiny movement sends heat crawling up the back of my neck.

I grip the pack of wipes harder than necessary.

What the fuck?

Julian is my best friend. He’s always been beautiful in the kind of way I filed under facts I wasn’t supposed to dwell on. He’s the person I trust most. The person I hurt most. The person who keeps showing up anyway.

He finishes changing her and lifts her against his shoulder to burp her with one broad hand spreading over the middle of her back. She settles there instantly, tiny against him, and my chest twists.

I don’t just feel grateful. I don’t just feel relieved that she’s safe with him. I feel… pulled toward the image of Julian in my room holding my daughter, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He glances over and catches me staring a second time. “You good?”

The question is simple. My answer is not.

“Yeah,” I say, because what else am I supposed to say?

Sorry, I’m suddenly looking at you weirdly because my brain apparently chose this exact moment to start malfunctioning in an entirely new direction.

Yeah. No.

Julian studies me for half a second longer. Then Mila gives one tiny, perfect burp, and he grins down at her. “There we go. That’s my girl.”

My girl.

I don’t know why that makes my stomach dip.

Julian lowers Mila into the bassinet with slow, careful hands, waiting until she settles before he steps back. He turns to me then, and for a second, we just stand there in the warm, low light with my daughter sleeping between us.

There’s a shine in his eyes. “You named your daughter after my mother,” he says softly.

I knew he’d bring it up.

“She was an important part of my childhood, too,” I say, because that part matters. “She’d have spoiled Mila rotten and then acted shocked when the kid turned out impossible.”

That gets an actual sound out of him, half laugh and half something too cracked to stay simple. “Thank you,” he says, and there’s still too much feeling in his face for him to pull off his usual dry tone. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

I think I do. Amilah West had been one of the only soft places in my childhood, and I think some part of me wanted to give that softness back to Julian in the only way I could. She never made a show of what she did for me. She never sat me down and told me my parents were wrong when they sent me to bed hungry due to some imagined disrespect or some failure to be holy or obedient enough.

She’d just find me the next day with a plate already made, or she’d pull me into the kitchen with Julian and act like there was nothing unusual in feeding one more growing boy. No pity. No questions that made me feel small. She made space for me at her table so often that I stopped feeling like a guest there. For a long time, I think I understood love by the sound of her voice calling us in to eat before I understood it by anything my own parents ever said.

And when she died, something gentle went out of Julian’s house that never really came back the same. Naming my daughter Mila felt right the second it came to me because it wasn’t just about honoring Amilah. It was about giving my little girl a piece of someone who had fed me when I was hungry, held me in kindness when my own home felt cold, and loved me in a way that asked for nothing in return. If Mila carries even a fraction of that woman’s heart through the world, then I’ve done something right already.

Julian glances back down at Mila one last time before heading for the door, and I know this moment is ending even though I’m not ready for it to.