Chapter 21 Julian
JULIAN
“The Latin Quarter was absolutely spectacular, Jules. The way the light caught the stone, turning everything golden, it was like walking through a postcard as I strolled through the streets. Notre Dame, my God, she’s back to her perfect former glory, but somehow better than before.
The restoration work is incredible. I’ve seen so much in one day, the Louvre this morning, that little café you recommended near the Seine.
My terrible French made a few merchants give me the side eye.
Oh yeah, I did find the bookstalls along the riverbank where I bought Mom that vintage cookbook she’ll never use but will display like a trophy. The only thing missing was—”
The knock at my dressing room door comes sharp and insistent, cutting through Cy’s animated recounting.
Cyaire looks up from the velvet couch where he’s sprawled, those impossibly long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, hands folded behind his head like he owns not just the room but the entire opera house.
He grins at me, that lazy, familiar smile that’s been disarming people since he learned to walk, all easy confidence and inherited charm.
“See?” he says, voice rich with amusement. “I told you Paris would suit you. Even the knocks sound expensive here. Very dramatic. Very. . .operatic.”
I snort despite myself, turning back to the mirror to smooth the lapels of my charcoal jacket one final time.
The fabric is perfectly pressed, not a wrinkle in sight, because God forbid I appear onstage looking anything less than immaculate.
“You’ve been sightseeing all day while I’ve been in rehearsals.
You don’t get to comment on my acoustics. ”
“Correction,” he says, pointing one long finger at me with theatrical precision, the gesture so reminiscent of our father that it makes my chest tighten.
“I thought I’d be sightseeing with my big brother.
You know, bonding, making memories, taking terrible tourist photos that we’ll laugh about for years.
Instead, I’ve seen three world-class museums, eaten my body weight in croissants that have fundamentally changed my understanding of what bread can be, learned exactly how to order coffee without embarrassing myself, and discovered precisely how long my supposedly responsible older brother can disappear without explanation. ”
I glance at him in the mirror, catching the way his reflection grins back at me. He lifts his eyebrows in that exaggerated, teasing way that used to get him out of trouble as a kid, the expression that never fails to make our mother laugh despite herself.
Oh hell, please don’t ask. I don’t lie to my brother, that’s never been the type of relationship we have. It’s us against the world, always has been. This. . .this is different. This is fragile and new and mine, and I’m not ready to share it yet, not even with Cy.
“You look happy, though,” he adds, and his voice shifts, becomes quieter, more observant. The teasing edge softens into something genuine. “Busy as hell, stressed about tonight’s performance, but. . .happy. Really happy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you look like that, Jules.”
I open my mouth to answer, to deflect with some comment about Paris or the music or the venue—The door bursts open without ceremony.
“Julian, what the hell are you doing?”
Eli storms in like he’s already halfway through an argument that’s been building for days, his wool coat still buttoned against the evening chill, phone clutched in his white-knuckled grip, his usually controlled expression twisted with barely contained fury.
The careful composure he’s cultivated over twelve years of managing my career has cracked completely.
He doesn’t even notice Cyaire at first, too focused on the confrontation he’s been rehearsing.
“I’ve clocked it,” he continues, his voice rising with each word.
“I’ve clocked all of it. Roderick’s sudden schedule changes.
Your mysterious disappearances. I knew you were acting out of character, Julian.
The way you’re never in your room anymore.
How you slip away after soundcheck. The night I knocked on your door at midnight and neither of you were there—”
“Eli,” I say, my voice sharp with warning. My heart hammers against my ribs as the truth of what I’ve been doing, what Malik and I have been doing, spills from his lips like accusations. The careful walls I’ve built around this fragile thing we’ve created are crumbling in real time.
Either he doesn’t hear the warning in my tone or he doesn’t care. The words keep coming, each one a small betrayal of the privacy I’ve fought to protect.
“You think I don’t know what’s happening? You think I haven’t put the pieces together? You think I don’t know you’ve been with Malik—”
Cyaire coughs from the couch, the sound cutting through Eli’s tirade like a record scratch.
Not a polite, excuse-me-I’m-here cough. No, this is a why-the-hell-are-you-yelling-at-my-brother and I’m-about-to-check-you kind of cough.
It’s pointed, deliberate, loaded with the quiet authority that runs in our family.
A hello-I-exist-and-you-need-to-adjust-your-tone kind of cough.
Eli freezes mid-sentence, his mouth still open around unspoken words. Slowly, like a man walking toward his own execution, he turns his head toward the couch. His face goes ashen as he takes in Cyaire’s presence, and I watch him mouth a silent curse.
Cyaire waves from his sprawl on the velvet cushions, that same cheerful grin never wavering. “Hey there, Eli. Lovely evening, isn’t it?”
The room goes dead quiet. Even the distant sounds of the sound technician checking the speakers seem muted. Eli blinks once. Twice. Then drags a hand down his face, his fingers scraping against stubble he probably forgot to shave this morning in his rush to track me down.
“Cyaire,” he says, his voice flat as roadkill.
“Great. Just. . .fantastic. I didn’t know you were backstage.
Fucking perfect timing.” He turns back to me, and I can see him trying to reassemble his professional mask, trying to stuff the fury back into its carefully controlled container.
“Julian, my apologies. I should have paid attention to who was in the room before I—”
I look at my reflection in the mirror instead of either of them, my hands gripping the edge of the vanity hard enough that my knuckles have gone pale against my dark skin.
In the harsh dressing room lights, I can see every line of tension around my eyes, every sign of the exhaustion that’s been building for weeks.
For a long moment, no one speaks. The silence stretches between us like a held note, beautiful and uncomfortable.
Then Cyaire sits up, unfolding that long frame with fluid grace, interest sharpening in those eyes.
“Wow,” he says, and there’s genuine fascination in his voice, like he’s just discovered a particularly intriguing plot twist. “I missed quite a few phone calls, apparently. Your life has turned into a full-blown daytime soap opera, Jules. As the Piano Turns.” He snorts, clearly amused by his own reference to one of our mother’s beloved soap operas she used to love when we were kids.
Eli exhales hard, a sound like steam escaping from a pressure cooker, and plants his hands on his hips.
His expensive leather shoes tap an agitated rhythm against the marble floor.
I can see him counting in his head, trying to find his equilibrium, fighting not to explode again in front of my brother.
“How long?” he asks finally, his voice carefully controlled.
I don’t answer right away. How can I? What’s happening between Malik and me feels too private, too precious to expose to this harsh light.
It’s ours, this fragile, impossible thing we’ve built in stolen moments between soundchecks and after shows, in quiet hotel corridors and empty rehearsal rooms. I don’t want to let go of that secret space we’ve carved out for ourselves, don’t want to watch it dissected and analyzed and judged.
That privacy is shattered now, spectacularly and irreversibly. Honestly, I don’t know how to quantify what we have. Saying it out loud, giving it shape and substance, feels like taking a running leap off a cliff without knowing if there’s water below or jagged rocks.
“I don’t know,” I finally say, the words feeling inadequate even as they leave my mouth. “It just. . .happened.”
Cyaire’s eyes flick between me and Eli, taking in the tension, the careful way we’re all positioning ourselves like pieces on a chessboard. His smile softens, and I catch a glimpse of something proud and knowing settling into his expression.
Eli scoffs, the sound sharp and dismissive. “That’s not an answer, Julian.”
“No,” I say quietly, meeting his eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “It’s the truth. My truth, Eli.”
I turn then, slowly and deliberately, facing them both.
The dressing room suddenly feels too small, the walls pressing in, the overhead lights too bright and exposing.
Every instinct tells me to retreat, to deflect, to rebuild the walls.
Instead, I stand there, wide open and vulnerable, heart hammering against my ribs.
“I love him,” I say.
The words land in the room like stones dropped into still water, sending ripples through the silence. There. The admission doesn’t sting the way I expected it to. There’s no immediate regret, no urge to snatch the words back. Just pure, unadulterated relief flooding through me.
Cyaire’s entire face lights up like Christmas morning, like he just watched me unwrap the gift he’s been hoping I’d give myself for years. Eli looks like someone just knocked every molecule of air from his lungs and left him gasping.
“You—” Eli starts, then stops, his mouth working soundlessly. He tries again, visibly struggling to find solid ground. “Julian. You don’t just say something like that without—”