Eli
I should be asleep.
That’s the thought I keep having while I lie on my back in the dark and stare at the ceiling.
The room is quiet except for the soft white noise machine near Mila’s bassinet and the occasional little sound she makes in her sleep, the kind that still makes my body go alert before I remember she’s fine.
She’s down for the night. Mrs. Alvarez left hours ago. The house has gone mostly still. Even Ryan finally shut the hell up downstairs sometime around midnight. I know I should be asleep. Instead, I’m lying here thinking about Julian.
That in itself shouldn’t be weird. He’s my best friend.
I’ve thought about him plenty over the years, in all the ordinary ways people think about someone who’s been woven through their life that long.
I’ve thought about him constantly since Mila came into my life because he’s there for all of it, and half the time when something happens with her, my brain reaches for Jules before it reaches for anybody else.
That part doesn’t scare me. The part where I’m alone in bed and replaying what happened in the locker room does.
Those stupid, impossible seconds when I looked at him, and something in me went hot and undeniable.
Then I tried not to look at him too much during dinner while also trying not to feel twelve different kinds of guilt every time he spoke to Mila in that low, easy voice of his, and my whole body decided to notice.
I roll onto my side and immediately regret it because now I’m facing the bassinet and all the evidence of the life I’m supposed to be thinking about instead. Mila. Bills. The next appointment. Practice. My parents. The lawyer. Real things. Big things. Important things.
Not Julian’s shoulders.
Not Julian’s chest.
Not the lines of ink disappearing down his sides to under the towel around his waist.
I close my eyes hard enough to see sparks and let out a slow breath through my nose.
Could I really be feeling something for my best friend?
That’s the question. Not some playful, harmless version of it either.
Not the kind you ask yourself once and laugh off because stress is making your brain weird.
I’ve been trying to laugh it off for weeks now.
That stopped working somewhere between waking up on his chest in his bed and nearly having a full-body meltdown in the locker room because I saw him naked and my body reacted before my brain could scream its protest.
Admiration, sure. That part is easy. That part’s always been there.
Jules is strong; that’s just a fact. Not only in the physical sense, though obviously that too.
He’s strong in the way he carries things without making them heavier for everyone else in the room.
He knows how to step in when something’s going wrong and somehow make the whole disaster feel more manageable just by being there.
He’s strong when I’m falling apart, and he gets his arms around me before I even know I’m going down. He’s strong when Mila’s screaming, and I’m one second from losing my shit. He just takes over with those steady hands and that calm voice, and suddenly the world feels survivable again.
He’s kind too. That’s another fact. Not soft in some easy, sweet way anybody can see from ten feet away. His kindness is sarcastic, bossy, and hidden under swearing half the time. But it’s there in everything he does.
It’s in the way he stayed when I gave him every reason to leave.
He never once made Mila feel like a burden, not for one second.
He notices when I haven’t eaten, when I’m spiraling, when I’m about to miss something important because panic has me by the throat.
He’s talked me through bottles and diapers and sleep deprivation without ever making me feel stupid for not knowing.
Even when he makes fun of me, he’s still holding me up while he does it.
I exhale slowly and stare at the shadowy outline of the bassinet.
That’s all normal. That could still be normal.
Admiration, gratitude, love in the broad, loyal, best-friend sense, and fifteen years of history. Anybody would feel intensely about someone who’s been there through this much.
So why does my chest tighten when I think about his mouth?
No. Okay. Fine. Let’s be honest, if I’m already this far into humiliating myself.
His mouth, yes. The way it curves when he’s trying not to grin.
The way it goes flat and dangerous when somebody says something that hurts me.
How it softens around Mila’s name and the way he says Liefling in that low voice that gets under my skin every damn time now, whether I want it to or not.
I drag a hand over my face.
This is bad.
I should stop thinking, obviously. That would be the smart move. But my brain has decided tonight is confession night, and once the thoughts start lining up, they don’t stop at safe, normal places.
Julian is beautiful. Sun-kissed skin, dark curls, those ridiculous hazel eyes that can go soft or hard in a blink, tattoos everywhere you look.
I’ve always known he was attractive—anybody with functioning eyes knows that.
He’s the kind of guy people look at twice even when they’re pretending not to.
That’s objective, it’s not me being weird.
Except lately it doesn’t feel objective… Lately, it feels personal.
I know the shape of his shoulders too well now.
I know the width of his chest under a T-shirt and the way those tattoos pull the eyes lower if you let them.
I know the line of muscle in his arms when he lifts Mila or leans over her bassinet or bracingly crowds into my space when I’m panicking and need him there.
I know the way his stomach tightens when he laughs, and the cut of his hips in those low practice sweats.
I know the dusting of dark hair on his chest, arms, and legs, and the dark trail below his navel.
My mouth goes dry at that last thought. “Fuuuck,” I groan.
I roll onto my back again and swallow hard, trying to shake off some of the tension building low within me. It doesn’t help. If anything, the movement makes me more aware of what’s happening in my briefs.
Oh, fuck.
The realization hits in layers, which is somehow worse than one clean shock: my cock is hard under the blanket and getting harder with every passing second I spend thinking about Julian West’s body.
I throw an arm over my eyes and let out one wrecked, whispered, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Great. Fantastic. I’m lying in bed with a hard-on because I was mentally listing all the reasons Julian is a good man and accidentally ended up at his abs.
No, not accidentally. There’s no point in lying to myself when my own body just gave testimony. It wasn’t an accident. The thoughts changed, and I let them because I am turned on by Julian.
I’m turned on by my best friend.
I nearly laugh, except there is absolutely nothing funny about this. There’s just me in the dark with my body reacting to a truth I haven’t wanted to name and a thousand follow-up questions slamming into me all at once.
Since when?
Since the locker room? No. Before that.
Since he stood in my room with Mila on his shoulder, and I looked at him for too long? Maybe.
Since he got in my space in the driveway after the call with my parents and held me like I was something worth catching?
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.