20. Julian
Julian
Ignoring Blakely should feel like a victory.
That’s the stupid part. That’s the part I keep getting hung up on while I move through the next two weeks with my phone face down, and my nerves shredded thin enough to snap if somebody looks at me too closely.
Objectively, it’s working. Luca told me to stop answering, to screenshot everything, to let the silence do its job while Killian handled whatever dark, terrifyingly competent thing he’s handling in the background.
So, I stopped. I muted the thread first, then blocked the number for half a day, then unblocked it only long enough to keep collecting the messages because Luca said evidence matters.
Since then, the texts have been stacking up like a countdown.
At first, they were almost normal.
B: Where are you?
B: Call me.
B: You’ve got a lot of nerve ignoring me after everything.
Then they shifted the way I knew they would. The tone went colder, then sweeter, then colder again.
B: You don’t get to disappear on me.
B: You think football boys are going to protect you.
B: I miss you.
B: We need to talk.
B: Don’t make this ugly.
The fake concern makes my skin crawl worse than the threats do.
The entitlement in every word feels so familiar by now that sometimes my stomach drops before I’ve even unlocked the screen.
I can tell what kind of message it is from the length alone.
The short ones are worse. The long ones mean he wants to hear himself talk.
The short ones mean he wants me to be afraid.
I am afraid.
That’s the other stupid part, because I’m also angry now in a way I wasn’t before. Talking to Luca cracked something open. Maybe it was hearing the whole story out loud in one ugly line, or the simple relief of being believed without having to explain myself.
Whatever it was, I’m not trapped in exactly the same way anymore.
I know I’m done. I know this has an end now, even if I don’t know what shape the ending takes.
But fear doesn’t just pack up because logic asked nicely.
So I keep ignoring the messages, and it keeps working, but my body still reacts to every vibration in my pocket.
By Thursday, I’m so keyed up that I nearly take Eli’s head off with a bad pass in practice.
He catches it anyway, plants his feet, and sends me a look over his shoulder that’s half irritation and half concern.
That concern is the problem. I can handle his annoyance.
I’ve known how to handle his annoyance since we were kids, and he used to cross his arms and glare at me when I stole fries off his tray in the cafeteria.
What I cannot handle this week is Eli noticing too much—not with everything already humming under my skin.
“Wake the fuck up, West,” Luca barks before Eli can say anything.
I mutter something in Afrikaans under my breath and reset for the next rep.
The whole week feels like I’m half second behind my own life.
Too alert and too brittle. Every loud sound punches a little deeper.
Every text from an unknown number makes my pulse jump.
Every time I leave a building, I check the lot twice before I get in my car.
I hate that most of all. I hate the vigilance.
I hate the way it shrinks the world without asking permission.
Ignoring him is the right move, and it still feels like carrying a live wire in my pocket.
Eli notices by Wednesday.
Not directly. He doesn’t corner me with some big, impossible question I’m not ready to answer. That would almost be easier. Instead, he notices in the Eli way, in the accumulation of little things.
He catches me jiggling my knee at the kitchen table while Mila dozes in her swing. He notices that I leave my phone upside down even when Mrs. Alvarez texts the group with one of Mila’s dramatic post-bottle faces. He looks at me for too long when I flinch at the front door slamming.
We’re in the den when he decides to corner me.
It’s late enough that the rest of the house has spread out into its usual evening patterns.
Eli’s on the couch sorting through Mila’s tiny laundry because caring for Mila has turned all of us into deeply strange versions of ourselves.
I’m across from him in the armchair, pretending to scroll while my leg bounces fast enough to count as cardio.
“Jules.”
I look up too quickly. “Yeah?”
He’s holding one of those absurdly small socks between two fingers, his brow pulled together. “You’re doing the thing.”
I force a shrug. “Very specific.”
“The knee thing,” he says. “And the phone thing. And the staring-off-like-you’re-about-to-start-a-fight-with-the-wall thing.”
I almost smile despite myself. “That one feels unfair. The wall started it.”
He doesn’t laugh. He just keeps looking at me with that direct, worried stare that gets under my skin worse than almost anything else. “What’s going on?”
There it is. The question should make me panic. Instead, it mostly makes me tired.
“Nothing,” I say, because some habits die slowly.
His mouth flattens. “Bullshit.”
I lean back harder into the chair, crossing one ankle over my knee in a performance of relaxation that fools absolutely nobody in this house anymore. “I’m fine.”
“Julian.”
The way he says my name should be illegal.
Not because it’s sexy. Jesus Christ, no, that’s a bad direction for my brain to take right now.
It should be illegal because it sounds too soft and too sure at the same time, and somehow that always makes me want to either tell him everything or run in the opposite direction.
“I’m just tired,” I say.
“You’re fidgety.”
“Maybe I’ve finally developed a personality.”
He folds the sock with irritating precision and sets it on the little pile of clothes beside him. “I know when you’re joking to dodge.”
I look away first, which is probably enough of an answer.
The room goes quiet for a second. I can hear the dryer running somewhere down the hall.
A floorboard pops upstairs. Mila gives one tiny, outraged squeak from the kitchen and then settles again.
The whole house feels close and warm and almost safe enough that I hate myself for still feeling like I’m waiting for something bad to get through the door.
Eli stands abruptly, dropping the last little sleeper onto the laundry pile. “Come on.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“Get up.”
“For what?”
He gives me a look that is somehow both exhausted and stubborn. “Because if I ask what’s wrong again, you’re going to lie to me, and if you keep vibrating in that chair, I’m going to lose my mind. So, I’m distracting you.”
The words hit me harder than they should. I cover it with a snort. “That sounds ominous.”
He grabs the pool cue from the wall rack by the den bar and tosses it lightly in one hand. “It’s pool, not ritual sacrifice.”
“That depends on how badly you play.”
That gets me the look I wanted; the tiny, offended narrowing of his eyes that means I succeeded in tugging him half an inch off concern and into banter.
“You’re talking a lot for somebody who’s about to get humbled,” he says and points the cue at me.
I should say no and go upstairs. I should keep my distance tonight because my nerves are shredded enough already without adding dim lighting, Eli in a black T-shirt that fits too well, and a game that involves leaning over green felt while standing too close to each other.
Instead, I get up because Eli asked me to and because I’m weak where he’s concerned.
The den is one of those ridiculous rooms Killian’s family probably added because rich people fear empty corners.
Dark wood paneling, low leather couches, too much expensive whiskey on the built-in shelves, and a full-size pool table under a hanging lamp that throws everything beneath it into intimate light.
I’ve played in here plenty of times with the guys. It has never felt like this.
Eli racks the balls while I chalk my cue, and I try very hard not to notice stupid shit: the bend of his wrists, the concentration on his face, the way the light catches in his hair when he leans over the table.
I fail immediately.
“Winner gets whatever he wants for the night,” he says, straightening.
“That’s not a fair bet,” I say with a frown.
He grins, rolls his eyes, and gestures for me to break. “I’m still winning, West.”
The first few minutes almost work the way he intended.
The game gives us something stupid and manageable to focus on.
Angles. Jokes. Calling shots. Talking shit over missed easy pockets.
The simple physicality of it helps too, or maybe it just gives my body something else to do besides hum with tension.
Eli starts smiling again within the first two turns, and some part of me relaxes just because I made that happen even a little. It’s always been that way with him. Give me one clear task where his peace is involved, and suddenly I can breathe better around my own wreckage.
“You leaned too close,” he accuses after I sink the striped seven.
“I absolutely did not. Stop making shit up because I’m destroying you.”
He laughs under his breath and circles the table, cue resting against one shoulder. “You sink one ball and think you’re God.”
“I sink one ball beautifully.”
“That sentence sounded grosser than you meant it to.”
I do laugh then, real enough that it loosens something in my chest. Eli’s grin widens at the sound, and the sight of it hits me with that now-familiar, stupid warmth. It’s such a simple thing, wanting him to smile and wanting to be the reason he does.
The feeling used to sit in a clean place. Friendship. Loyalty. Love of the broad, survivable kind. Now it slips too easily into wanting more time, more closeness, more of whatever changed in his eyes these last few weeks and refuses to settle back into ordinary.
He leans over for the next shot, and my brain betrays me all over again.