Eli
I wake up slowly enough that for a few perfect seconds I don’t know why I feel warm and steady and safe.
That deep, body-level comfort that only happens when I’ve fallen asleep for real instead of drifting in and out while one part of my brain keeps watch.
The mattress smells faintly of detergent and the same body wash I’ve known on instinct for years. My brain catches up to my body all at once, and every muscle in me goes tight under the blanket.
Julian.
I’m in Julian’s bed. I’m halfway on top of him because sometime in the night, my body decided that curling into my best friend was the most natural thing in the world. Which, to be fair, once upon a time, it probably was.
Oh, fuck.
I stay exactly where I am for a second too long, because if I move too fast, I’ll turn this into something. But if I stay still, maybe I can get my shit together before the panic starts making decisions for me.
We’ve slept in the same bed before. There were sleepovers when we were kids, road trips when we were older, the occasional party or late-night movie where one of us passed out in the wrong room and neither of us cared enough to make it weird.
We’ve shared blankets on couches and laughed it off because that’s what boys who’ve known each other forever do when they’re comfortable enough in each other’s space.
Except none of those mornings happened after I started noticing him differently.
Now I’m wide awake with my face pressed to my best friend’s chest and my body noticing way too much.
Like the fact that I’m very aware of exactly what part of him my thigh is near, and I hate myself instantly for even thinking about it.
This is bad. This is really, really fucking bad because I don’t think this is random anymore.
I don’t think it’s just stress or gratitude or my mind reaching for comfort and getting confused.
I think something’s happening in me that I haven’t let myself look at directly because it keeps arriving in the middle of too many other disasters, and if I stop long enough to really examine it, I might break something I can’t put back together.
Before I can make myself do the right thing and get up, the bedroom door slams open hard enough that it makes me jolt, and I almost knee Julian in the dick.
“Rise and shine, you useless bastards,” Killian says.
Julian wakes at the same time with a rough, disoriented curse, his arm dropping away from me as he blinks up at the ceiling.
“Jisis, what the fuck is wrong with you?” he growls, voice thick with sleep and irritation. “Has nobody ever taught you how to knock, you psychopath?”
Killian stands in the doorway, fully dressed, expression completely unimpressed by the fact that he just nearly sent both of us into cardiac arrest.
“I did knock,” he lies calmly. “You were too dead to hear it. Get up. Mrs. Alvarez will be here in an hour, Luca wants Eli downstairs before he goes to class, and if either of you sleeps much longer, I’m gonna start making protein oats for everyone out of spite.”
“I’m going to kill you in your sleep,” Julian mutters.
“Get in line,” Killian replies.
I sit up slowly, schooling every inch of my face into something calm and normal and not at all reflective of the absolute chaos going on inside me.
My pulse is still hammering from the shock of the door and from the much worse shock of being caught in that position, even if Killian almost certainly doesn’t care about anything except the fact that we’re alive and late.
Still, I can feel the heat in my neck, and the awareness of Julian beside me.
He turns his head toward me, still half asleep, curls a mess, eyes squinting against the light from the hall. “Morning,” he says, voice rough.
“Morning,” I say back, and somehow it sounds fine. Casual. Normal. Thank God.
If he notices anything off, he doesn’t show it. He just yawns, stretches both arms over his head in a way that makes the hem of his sleep shirt ride up enough to expose a strip of tattooed skin and muscle, and drops them again with another low curse.
“You’re a prick,” he tells Killian.
Killian shrugs. “Mila has been awake for an hour, which means Eli should be too, unless you want me to put her on your chest every morning and let her scream directly into your soul.”
That gets my attention through the embarrassment fast.
“Mila’s up?” I immediately ask, already throwing the blanket back and swinging my feet to the floor.
Killian looks at me like I’ve just proven his point. “Yes. We’re in the kitchen,” he says before walking away.
I’m halfway off the bed before I even realize how abrupt the movement was. Julian laughs under his breath, and that sound does one more unhelpful thing to my insides. I leave the room because the kitchen means Mila, and Mila is the safest thing in my life right now.
Mila is simple. Mila needs things. Mila is my shield, at this point.
I’m aware of the way my skin still feels too tight from waking up wrapped around Julian, but I’m trying hard not to think about that as I head downstairs.
The house is waking up properly now. I can hear cabinets opening in the kitchen, a television on low in the den, and Roman saying something too loudly from somewhere outside on the back patio.
When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I see Killian wasn’t lying.
He’s standing by the island now with Mila on one arm and his coffee in the other hand, which would look ridiculous if he didn’t somehow manage to make it look natural.
Mila is wide awake, staring at him with that same solemn expression she gets when she’s deciding whether the world is currently beneath her standards.
My chest softens instantly.
“There’s my girl,” I say before I can stop myself.
Killian hands her over without comment, though his mouth twitches faintly.
Mila settles into my arms with an ease that still feels miraculous every single time.
Warm. Small. Real. Mine. She smells like baby wash and milk and whatever impossible thing makes babies smell of hope and panic at once.
I tuck her against my chest and press a kiss to the top of her head.
Mila blinks up at me, then relaxes into my chest. “Hey, baby girl,” I murmur, brushing one finger over her cheek. “You terrorized everybody already?”
Killian takes a sip of coffee. “Just me.”
“You volunteered.”
“I did,” he says dryly. “That doesn’t make her less bossy.”
“You’re training her well, then,” I say and smile down at her, shifting her a little higher against my shoulder. Her tiny hand catches in the front of my shirt and stays there. Holding her like this makes one truth impossible to avoid any longer: my parents need to know.
Not eventually. Not when things are more convenient.
Not after I’ve found the perfect words. They need to know now, or as close to now as I can stand.
Every day I wait, it gets bigger and harder to explain.
And selfish as it is, I’m tired of bracing for the call.
I’d rather choose the moment than keep fearing it.
Maybe it’s waking up in Julian’s bed and realizing I cannot keep living in this suspended state where everything important is either unspoken or delayed.
Maybe it’s the way Mila turns her face into my chest like she already trusts that I’ll hold her steady.
Maybe it’s just the simple fact that I’m her father and fathers don’t get to hide behind fear forever.
My stomach drops anyway.
There will be questions, disappointment, and Catholic outrage. The disbelief and judgments I can already hear in my head before either of them says a word.
Why didn’t you tell us sooner?
How could this happen?
What kind of situation have you gotten yourself into?
Where is the mother?
Why are lawyers involved?
The questions about Celeste. The questions about me. The questions I still can’t answer cleanly without opening the door to uglier truths I’m not sure they’ll even believe.
No. Enough.
I’m done waiting for courage to arrive in some perfect, holy beam of light. I’ve got a daughter. I’ve got a legal file. I’ve got a house full of people stepping up for me in ways I never expected. The least I can do is stop hiding.
“I’m telling them today,” I say.
The kitchen quiets enough that even Roman stops rustling the cereal box.
Killian looks over first. “Your parents.”
I nod.
Ryan winces sympathetically. “Rough.”
Liam lowers his mug. “Are you sure?”
“No,” I say honestly. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
Killian studies my face for a second, assessing, maybe checking whether this is a panic decision or a real one. Then he nods once. “Good.”
That’s it. Just good. Simple. Solid. Somehow, it helps.
Luca sets his coffee down and asks, “You want anyone there?”
The offer hits harder than I expected. I glance around the kitchen.
Roman is pretending not to look worried.
Ryan is failing to pretend at all. Sage is already mentally preparing a support plan.
Nate is observing everything from his seat next to Liam.
Killian is standing there as if he’ll have three backup strategies before I hang up if this goes badly.
Even the absence of Damien and Julian is felt, because I know exactly what they’d say if they were standing here too.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
Killian answers before anyone else can. “You call them this afternoon after classes. If it starts going sideways, hand me the phone.”
Roman lets out a short laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
Killian doesn’t even look at him. “I mean it.”
Mila makes a little hungry rooting motion against my chest, and Killian silently hands me the warmed bottle.
I take it with my free hand and settle into the chair nearest the table without thinking, angling her the way Julian taught me, the way he always explains things while pretending not to make a big deal out of how much he knows.
That thought comes with another image of waking up in his bed, and my ears go hot again.
I focus on getting the bottle to Mila’s mouth and thank every saint that nobody in this kitchen can hear what my brain’s doing.
She latches fast and starts drinking. Relief moves through me automatically. One problem solved. One thing I can do right.
The kitchen starts moving again after that, conversation trickling back in, but my own world narrows down to the bottle in my hand and the baby in my arms. Mila’s eyes drift half shut while she drinks, dark lashes resting on her cheeks.
Every now and then, her tiny fingers flex against my shirt, and every time they do, my chest goes soft and tight at once.
Footsteps sound on the stairs, and I know who it is before I look.
Julian comes into the kitchen half a second later in sweats and a hoodie, hair still sleep-mussed, face rough with morning, and my whole body notices him too quickly.
His eyes find Mila first, then me, and I have to grip the bottle harder because all I can see is the shape of his chest under my cheek when I woke up.
Nothing in his expression suggests he’s thinking about this morning the way I am. Of course it doesn’t. Why would it? To him, it was just sleep. Comfort. Familiar ground. He probably hasn’t thought about it for more than three seconds.
I drag my eyes back to Mila before my face does something unhelpful.
“Morning,” Julian says to the room at large.
Roman immediately points the cereal box at him. “You missed Killian’s parenting era. Very emotional.”
“Shame,” Julian mutters, moving toward the coffee.
Killian hands him a mug without being asked. They do that kind of thing all the time now, small domestic motions in this insane house full of oversized athletes and one tiny baby.
I lower my mouth to the top of Mila’s head and close my eyes for one second.
Then I open them again and look up across the kitchen, where Julian is leaning against the counter with his coffee—listening to Ryan argue with Roman about something stupid—and smiling just a little.
The weird feeling in my chest stirs again.
I ignore it.
One thing at a time.
Today, I tell my parents about my daughter.