Page 60 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Since Dr. Peters called him my partner and I didn’t correct her because part of me didn’t want to?

Since waking up on his chest in his bed, with my leg over his, and realizing that the panic beneath the comfort wasn’t because it felt wrong but instead felt too right in ways I wasn’t prepared for?

Another thought follows so fast it almost makes me nauseous.

Has it always been him?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I know I cared about him in ways I never really questioned because I didn’t think I had to. I know losing him—even partly—hurt more than it should’ve if he were just a friend. I know watching him with Mila does something to me that goes deeper than gratitude and all the other shit I’ve been trying to file it under. I know his approval and opinion matter too much. The way he looks at me matters too much, and now my body has officially entered the chat to make sure I can’t keep pretending this is abstract.

I slowly lower my arm from my eyes and stare at the ceiling again.

If I really am feeling something for him now—something physical, real, and undeniable—then what the fuck does that say about all the ways I failed him before?

It says I’m an idiot, for one.

It says I spent too long trying to force a version of myself that sounded easier in my own head than it ever felt in my body.

It says I might have wanted him long before I had the language or courage to notice.

That thought is too big, so I shove it away immediately. One impossible thing at a time. I am not solving my whole identity tonight. I’m barely surviving the fact that I’m hard because I pictured Julian shirtless and smiling.

My hand curls over my stomach under the blanket, then stills because even touching myself right now feels like crossing some invisible line I’m not ready to even look at yet.

I lift one leg and grit my teeth when the movement reminds me that my body is still very much invested in the subject of Julian West. But my pulse gradually settles, and the ache in my body fades by slow degrees, and every minute that passes just leaves the truth sitting there more calmly than before.

Julian does something to me. Julian has been doing something to me for longer than I wanted to admit. And now I have to figure out what the hell that means without wrecking the best thing I’ve ever had.

19

Eli

I make it until just after two in the morning before I accept that sleep is not happening.

This would probably be easier if I had anybody else to ask. Not about diapers or formula or pediatricians, because apparently every bastard in this house has an opinion on those now. I mean about this.

About looking at your best friend one day and realizing admiration has somehow slid into something hotter. About wanting someone you’ve known so long that their voice should feel like furniture and instead it feels like being touched. About whether this means I’ve been lying to myself for years or whether it’s possible to be one thing and then not, or maybe never have been that thing in the clean way I thought.

There is exactly one person in this house I can ask without spontaneously combusting from shame. I sit up before I can argue myself out of it.

The room is cool enough now that the floorboards chill the bottoms of my feet when I stand. I check Mila automatically before I do anything else, because that’s instinct now. Her little mouth is open, one hand tucked by her cheek, and she looks deeply unimpressed by life even in sleep. I pull the blanket a little higher over her belly, then grab the baby monitor off the nightstand and slip out into the hall in sweatpants and an old T-shirt.

A low lamp near the landing throws soft light down the hall, enough to see by without waking anyone. I stand there for a second with my hand on my neck, wondering if this is insane. It probably is. Walking to your captain at two because you need sexuality advice feels deeply fucking insane. But the alternative is lying back down and replaying Julian’s body in the locker room until dawn, and I’d rather die.

Luca’s room is halfway down the hall. His light is still on under the door, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s either working, texting Sage, or staring at film because he’s secretly eighty-seven years old inside that quarterback body. I knock softly, already half hoping he’s asleep so I can tell myself I tried and retreat with some dignity left.

Instead, his voice comes immediately. “Yeah?”

I open the door a crack and lean in. “You awake?”

Luca looks up from where he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed with his laptop open and a notebook beside him. The second he sees me, his expression changes from mild distraction to alert interest.

“You look like a haunted Victorian child,” he says. “Come in.”

I shut the door behind me and stand there for a second longer than I should, suddenly very aware that I did not actually plan what words I was going to use once I got in here. Luca closes his laptop, sets it aside, and leans back against the headboard with the kind of calm that is either reassuring or infuriating depending on your mood.

“What happened?” he asks.

I drag a hand through my hair and exhale hard. “Nothing happened.”