Julian #2
“I know how lucky I am,” he says quietly.
“I know most single dads don’t have it as easy as I do with all of you.
Most people wouldn’t turn their whole house upside down for somebody else’s kid.
They wouldn’t help with lawyers, diapers, fucking outlet covers, emergency grocery runs, and all the rest of it.
They definitely wouldn’t just accept a baby into their lives this fast.”
He says it with that open sincerity he only shows when he’s too tired to protect himself from being earnest. That’s still one of the purest things about Eli.
For all the guilt and the religious baggage and the blind spots that have wrecked things between us more than once, gratitude comes naturally to him. He notices care and effort.
“You’d do the same,” I tell him, and his smile fades into something more serious.
“Still. It’s different when it’s actually happening to me,” he says.
“I keep looking around and thinking how easy it would’ve been for everyone to back away.
They could’ve said it was too messy or too weird or too much.
Instead, Killian called his family lawyer.
Liam started making those stupid food schedules.
Luca keeps rearranging football shit so I can make appointments.
Even Ryan’s trying, and Ryan’s version of trying includes a musical rubber duck that plays Mozart when you squeeze it, which I’m still convinced is psychological warfare. ”
I laugh under my breath. “That duck is cursed.”
“That duck is loud as fuck,” he says, smiling again. “Mila’s probably gonna love it.”
The use of her name still affects him every time; I can hear it. The fact that he named his daughter after my mom has made me fall a little harder into a hole I can’t afford to be in.
“She probably will,” I say. “She’s got no taste yet.”
He shakes his head at me, but then his expression changes into something more private. “I’m serious, though. I’m grateful. For all of it. For everyone. For you.”
The last part lands hard enough that I feel it in my throat. “You don’t have to be grateful for me.”
His brows draw together. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”
Because I’d still be here if you hated me. Because loving you has never been contingent on getting anything back, and I’d rather tear my own skin off than make you feel indebted to me for that.
I shrug one shoulder and force a crooked smile. “Because I’m your best friend. That’s just the job description.”
Eli keeps looking at me before he lets out a slow breath and nods once, but there’s something in his face that’s searching, and it makes me uneasy in the worst way. “I know I fucked a lot up,” he says.
My body tenses before I can help it. “Eli, you already—”
“No, let me say it right.” He drops his gaze to his hands for a second, then lifts it again.
“I know I did. I know I was a shit friend to you while everything with Celeste was happening. I know saying thank you now doesn’t erase any of that.
I just…” He trails off and rubs his palm over the back of his neck, a gesture so familiar it hurts.
“I don’t want you thinking I’m taking you for granted again. ”
“I don’t think that,” I say quietly.
That’s true and not true in equal measure. I don’t think he’s taking me for granted now, but I did think it for months before Mila. I thought a lot worse than that, usually late at night when my phone was in my hand, and I hated myself enough to answer messages I should’ve ignored.
He leans a little closer, forearms on his thighs. “I really am grateful for you, Jules.”
He’s looking at me now with his tired blue eyes open and honest. I love him; that’s the constant.
What shifts is how impossible it gets to sit here quietly while he gives me these moments that feel almost like something I could mistake for more if I were the kind of idiot who still believed in miracles.
I have to break eye contact before I do something reckless, like lean in and kiss him.
Instead, I glance toward the bassinet. Mila is flat on her back, swaddled in a pale sleeper with tiny yellow ducks on it; one cheek turned toward us, dark lashes resting against soft skin.
Even asleep, she looks faintly offended by existence.
I smile at that because it’s easier than dealing with the pressure building in my chest.
“She’s lucky,” I say, buying myself a second.
Eli’s voice goes even softer. “I think I’m the lucky one.”
I look back at him and instantly regret it, because he means that, too. He means it in the terrifyingly sincere way that says he’s already rearranged his soul around her and knows it. I force a breath into my lungs and sit back a little because proximity is starting to suck.
Eli shifts back farther on the mattress, propping himself against the headboard now, long legs stretched out in front of him. “You good?”
There’s the question again. It would be funny if it didn’t make my spine lock every time.
“Yeah,” I say, because I’m getting very fucking good at saying that.
He studies me for one beat too long. “You’ve been off tonight.”
I should’ve known he’d notice eventually. He notices more now. Or maybe I’m just letting him again.
“Long day,” I tell him.
“That all?”
No. Not remotely. It was a long day. It was also a long week. It was also another evening of fielding messages I deleted without answering and reminding myself that surviving something ugly in secret doesn’t make me strong. But sure, long day is technically true.
“Mostly,” I say.
He doesn’t buy it. I can see that in the slight narrowing of his eyes, the way his mouth almost opens and then closes again.
But after babyproofing and lawyer calls, and the fragile normalcy we’ve been building one weird day at a time, he just looks at me with concern he hasn’t figured out how to hide and lets it rest.
“If you ever wanna actually talk,” he says quietly, “I’m here.”
The offer is genuine. That’s what kills me.
For one awful second, I nearly say it. Not everything, but enough to stop this ache of carrying it alone while helping him carry his. Enough to let him in on the fact that whatever happened to him isn’t the only violation sitting in this house pretending to be manageable.
Then Mila sighs in her sleep, turning her face into the swaddle, and the moment passes because the room is full of too much innocence for me to drag my filth into it.
I smile in a way that probably looks more tired than convincing and say, “I know.”
He keeps watching me, then I stand before I can sink any deeper into this bed, this room, and this version of our lives that keeps brushing too close to something I want and can’t have.
“I should head out,” I say. “You need sleep.”
Eli glances at the clock and makes a face. “That’s generous of you. I’m pretty sure sleep and I broke up last week.”
“Yeah, well, you should still call her and see if she’s willing to reconcile.”
He laughs softly and shifts forward, planting his feet on the floor. Our eyes meet again, and there it is, that same impossible softness from earlier. He smiles a little, tired and grateful and beautiful enough to be cruel, and says, “Thanks for staying.”
My throat tightens around things I will absolutely never say out loud if I can help it. “Thanks for staying” sounds so small for all the ways I’ve already built my life around that sentence.
“Always,” I answer before I can stop myself, then I leave his room.
I step into the hall quietly, pull his door nearly shut behind me, and keep walking.
Because that’s what I do. I keep walking. I keep showing up. I keep loving him from the space beside him because, right now, that’s the only place I’m allowed to stand.