Eli #2
Luca’s expression doesn’t change much, but I can tell he takes the confession seriously. “Okay.”
“And then I kept thinking about him afterward,” I continue, because now that I’ve started, it’s easier to keep going than to stop.
“Not just normal stuff. His body. His tattoos. The way he looks while holding Mila. The way he says things to me. I fell asleep last night thinking about him and ended up hard because of it.” I scrub one hand over my mouth. “There. Happy?”
Luca, to his credit, doesn’t make a joke out of that part. “No,” he says simply. “But I am glad you said it, because now you have to stop pretending this is just admiration.”
That lands hard because he’s right. That’s what I’ve been doing.
Dressing it up in safer words because safer words don’t threaten anything.
Admiration doesn’t ruin friendships; lust and wanting do.
The idea that I might actually have feelings for Julian that stretch past loyalty and gratitude and old history—that’s the thing I keep trying not to look at directly.
Luca’s voice stays calm. “Do you want him?”
The question is brutal in its simplicity. I don’t answer immediately, which is enough of an answer. Luca waits me out, patient as hell, and I hate him for that too.
Finally, I say, very quietly, “Yeah.”
He nods once.
“And I feel like an asshole. I pushed him away for Celeste. I nearly burned fifteen years of friendship to the ground for a woman who lied to me and hurt me, and now that he’s here helping me raise my daughter, suddenly I’m noticing his body and thinking about his mouth and feeling like some fucking—”
“Stop,” Luca says sharply. His expression has gone hard in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times. “You are not gross for figuring something out late.”
“That’s not what this feels like.”
“I know.” His tone softens a little. “But that’s because your guilt is doing what it always does and trying to make every complicated feeling a moral failure.”
I drop my gaze, but he keeps going anyway.
“You did fuck up with Julian. That’s true.
But you apologized, and now you’re rebuilding—that part matters.
But being attracted to him now doesn’t somehow cancel out the fact that you were hurting, manipulated, and confused before.
Those things can exist at the same time. ”
I want to argue. I don’t, because I know I won’t win.
The room is quiet for a moment before I ask the thing that’s been lodged under everything else. “What if I’m not bi?”
Luca blinks. “Okay. Maybe you are, maybe you’re not, maybe there’s some other word you like better, maybe there’s no word you like right now, and none of that changes what you’re feeling.
” He gives me a look. “Straight men usually don’t lie awake thinking about their best friend’s body until they get hard, Eli. ”
I groan and drop my head into my hands. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You came here because I’m wise and beautiful.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“And correct.”
I laugh into my hands despite myself. Then I sit up again and look at him, more seriously this time. “What if it’s just Jules?”
Luca’s brows lift. “Meaning?”
“Meaning maybe it’s not men. Maybe it’s him.” The words feel strange in my mouth, but also weirdly true. “I can’t look at some random guy and feel what I feel looking at him. I’m not suddenly checking out every man who walks by. It’s Julian.”
Luca considers that for a moment. “That happens.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“It means sexuality isn’t always neat,” he says.
“Some people know exactly what they are from the jump. Some people don’t.
Some people are generally one thing until one specific person makes the labels feel too small or too rigid.
” He shrugs one shoulder. “You don’t have to solve your entire orientation in one night just because you want one man. ”
That relieves me enough that I almost sag. “Okay.”
He points at me immediately. “Do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying you should panic less because you could still somehow be straight.”
“I know.”
“Good.” He relaxes back against the headboard again. “I’m saying you can let this be about Julian without forcing yourself into an identity dissertation before you’re ready.”
I sit with that for a second. It helps, which I hate because it means he’s being useful and the Bi Godmother title is starting to feel less stupid than it should.
“What do I do?” I ask eventually.
Luca smiles a little at that. “Now we’re getting somewhere.
” He folds his arms over his chest and looks at me for a long moment before answering.
“First, you stop treating yourself like you committed a crime just because you want him. That’s step one.
Step two: you decide whether this is something you need to understand privately first or something you’re ready to test in real life. ”
The words make my pulse jump. “Test in real life sounds scary.”
He chuckles. “It means, do you want to sit with your feelings and figure them out quietly first, or are you at the point where you want to actually let yourself notice what’s happening between you two and see if it goes anywhere?”
I stare at him. “You think something’s already happening between us?”
Luca gives me a look so dry it could preserve food. “Eli. Please.”
My whole face heats again. “That is not an answer.”
“Yes, it is. You just don’t like it.” He leans forward a little. “Do I think Julian’s been in love with you forever? Yeah. Did I think you were both going to keep being idiots until one of you got hit by a bus? Also, yeah. Did Mila and your entire life exploding speed some of this up? Definitely.”
I blink at him, my mind snagging on a few choice words. “You think he’s been what?”
Luca just stares.
“Luca.”
He exhales through his nose. “I’m not saying he’s waiting on your porch with a ring and a sonnet, but come on. You cannot possibly be that blind.”
I sit there in silence because my brain has temporarily ceased functioning in any useful capacity. Julian. In love with me. The words don’t fit anywhere neatly. They crash into the rest of my confusion, making it all brighter and more dangerous.
When I finally manage to speak, my voice is rough. “Why wouldn’t he say anything?”
Luca’s expression softens in a way that somehow makes this worse. “Because of how you were raised? Because he’s got his own shit? You’ve been best friends forever, Eli. Why would he ruin that for a chance that you might feel the same way about him?”
I look down at the floor, feeling abruptly unsteady. “If that’s true, I’ve been awful.”
“You were hurt,” Luca says. “And yeah, sometimes also awful.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It’s not supposed to help. It’s supposed to be honest.”
I scrub both hands over my face and let out a long breath. “So, what, I just walk into his room tomorrow and say, ‘Surprise, I might be into you, and also maybe men, and also I’m sorry for all of time?’”
Luca laughs, and this time I’m glad he does because otherwise I might actually start hyperventilating. “No, for the love of God. Do not workshop sexuality confessions before breakfast.”
“Then what?”
“You calm down.” He points at me again, annoyingly captain-like even in his room.
“You pay attention. You stop running from every feeling the second it stops being convenient. You let yourself be honest with yourself first. And if, after that, you still want to tell him, then you do it carefully and sober and not while somebody’s changing Mila’s diaper. ”
I make a face. “That feels too specific.”
“You live in a house full of interruptions. I’m being practical.”
I huff out a laugh and shake my head. “You really always suspected?”
“Since before Mila,” he says. “You were never fully straight about Julian.”
I throw a pillow at him. He catches it against his chest without effort, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“This is why nobody likes quarterbacks,” I mutter.
“No, people love quarterbacks. They just hate when we’re right.”
The room goes quiet again, but now it feels easier. Less like a confession booth and more like… I don’t know. A place where I can actually think. The panic in me is still there, but it’s no longer this formless, shame-soaked thing.
I look toward the door, then back at him. “Do you think I’m going to ruin this?”
Luca’s answer comes fast enough that I know he doesn’t have to think about it. “Not if you stop lying to yourself.”
I sit with it for a second, then nod once. As I stand to leave, Luca tosses the pillow back onto the bed and says, “One more thing.”
I pause. “What?”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Welcome, I guess.”
“To what?”
He spreads both hands in a grand little gesture. “The deeply inconvenient world of not being straight enough for your own peace.”
I actually laugh, full and tired and more relieved than I want to admit. “You’re such a dick.”
“And yet, you came to me.”
“Against my better judgment.”
“Clearly your judgment needs a coach.”
I shake my head and head for the door, but just before I open it, I look back at him. “Thanks.”
Luca’s expression softens for real then, all the teasing falling away. “Anytime,” he says. “And Eli?”
“Yeah?”
“When you’re ready to stop acting like this is the end of the world, it might actually turn into something good.”
I don’t answer that, mostly because I can’t. The hope in it is too much, too soon, and too dangerous to touch without everything in me shaking loose again.
So, I just nod, slip out into the quiet hall, and head back toward my room with my heart still beating too fast and my whole life somehow feeling even more complicated than it did an hour ago.