22. Eli
Eli
The adrenaline from the den wore off in ugly waves after I got back to my room, leaving me stranded in that horrible space between humiliation and hope where everything feels too sharp to touch directly.
Mila is asleep in her bassinet beside the bed, the baby monitor glowing softly on my nightstand.
My lamp is still on because I told myself I’d read through some of the paperwork Mara sent over.
But instead, I’ve spent the last forty minutes sitting against the headboard replaying the almost-kiss in the den so many times I want to claw my own skin off.
I can still feel how close he got. I didn’t imagine the look in his eyes or the way his hand slid up to my jaw or the way my whole body went hot and helpless and completely sure when he leaned in.
Then Ryan stomped in with all the timing of a curse from God, and Julian bolted like the room was on fire.
I’ve been sitting here ever since, wondering if I ruined everything by not going after him.
So when there’s a soft, uncertain knock on my door, I look up too quickly and feel my stomach drop before I even say anything.
“Yeah?” My voice sounds small. I hate that immediately.
The door opens partway, and Julian stands there with one hand still on the knob and his face set in a way I don’t know how to read at first. Not closed off or angry. Just serious enough that all the nervous hope in me stumbles and falls on its face.
“You awake?” he asks.
That almost makes me laugh, because I’m obviously awake. I don’t think I’ll sleep again before Mila starts college. I sit up straighter against the headboard and say, “Yeah. Come in.”
He walks in and closes the door behind him with care. I watch every movement too closely after what almost happened in the den, and every second of silence feels loaded. He’s changed into gray sweats and a black T-shirt, but under the embarrassment, want, and confusion, I can see something’s wrong.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “What happened?”
He looks at me for a second, and I know immediately that this has nothing to do with the den. Or not only that. Whatever brought him here tonight sits older and uglier under his skin than one almost-kiss gone sideways.
He lets out a breath through his nose and drags one hand through his curls. “Can I sit?”
That scares me more than if he’d just started talking.
“Yeah,” I say immediately, shifting over and making space on the bed. “Yeah, of course.”
He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the mattress, but not close enough to touch. His elbows brace on his knees, hands hanging loose between them, and for a second, he just stares at the floor.
I don’t push right away because I know how it feels to sit on something awful until the words become their own kind of sickness, and somebody looks at you too hard before you’re ready.
That’s the only thing stopping me from grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing every word out of him this second.
So, I wait.
Mila shifts in the bassinet and sighs softly in her sleep.
The room goes still around that tiny sound.
Julian glances toward her automatically, and the look on his face almost wrecks me because there’s so much tenderness there alongside all the damage.
He loves her; that part’s obvious. He loves her like she’s just as much his to protect as she is mine, and maybe that’s stupid to think.
But nothing about the way he holds her or watches her or arranges his life around her feels casual at all.
He swallows hard and says, “I need to tell you something.” His jaw shifts. “And I need you not to do the Eli thing where you decide the answer before I finish.”
“I don’t—” He just looks at me, and I stop. “Okay.”
He nods once and visibly swallows. “There’s a reason I’ve been… off. For a while now.”
I don’t say I know. I don’t say no shit. I just wait.
He presses his palms together once and rubs them over his thighs. “A while ago, after things went bad between us,” he starts carefully, still staring down, “I started something with someone I shouldn’t have.”
My chest tightens at those words, and Julian keeps going before I can interrupt him.
“At first, it was a rush. That’s the embarrassing part, I guess.
It felt exciting. Hidden. Dangerous in a way I thought I was choosing.
” He gives one short, humorless laugh. “I told myself that was all it was. Something reckless. Something… fun.”
I don’t like the sound of any of that, and hate the look on his face while saying it.
He finally lifts his head and looks at me, and there’s enough shame in his face that my throat tightens painfully. “Then it stopped being fun.”
Every muscle in my body goes hard.
“What does that mean?” I ask, and my voice already sounds wrong.
Julian hears it and almost looks sorry for causing it, which makes me want to start breaking things immediately.
“It means he got possessive,” he says. “Then controlling. Wanted to know where I was, who I was with, why I didn’t answer fast enough. He’d go sweet if I pulled away, then mean if I still didn’t give him what he wanted. He started using whatever he thought would work.”
My stomach turns. “Did he hurt you?” I ask.
Julian looks at me for one long second, and I know the answer before he speaks.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Sometimes.”
Something savage tears loose in my chest so fast I almost get off the bed without meaning to. I stop myself by sheer force, fingers curling into the blanket instead. “What the fuck do you mean ‘sometimes’?”
His mouth twitches like he hates the question because there isn’t any version of the answer that doesn’t make this uglier.
“I mean, it wasn’t every time. That’s part of why I stayed as long as I did.
He’d be good just enough to make me think maybe I’d overreacted.
Then he’d get angry again. Or cold. Or rough.
Or…” He shakes his head once and drags a hand over the back of his neck.
“Sometimes it was physical. Sometimes it was just words, but honestly, those started getting in my head worse.”
I’m breathing too hard now. I know that. I don’t care.
“Who?” I ask. “Who was it, Jules?”
Julian’s face changes instantly. His eyes drop again, and I watch him brace for the damage of saying it out loud.
“Blakely,” he says. “Coach Blakely.”
For one second, my brain doesn’t process it.
Then it does.
The man who walks around campus with that polished, respected adult smile. The man who I have probably passed a hundred times without ever thinking twice about.
I think I actually stop breathing.
“No,” I say, and the word comes out rough and disbelieving. “No. You’re telling me that fucking—” I cut myself off because Mila shifts in her bassinet, and I instantly lower my voice even though my hands are still shaking. “He’s the one who’s been hurting you?”
Julian nods once, eyes still on the floor. “Yeah.”
That simple agreement nearly does me in. I get off the bed before I even think it through because if I stay seated, I’m either going to break something or start crying, and I cannot handle either right now. I pace to the window and back, dragging both hands through my hair.
“That disgusting motherfucker,” I say, voice shaking now with how hard I’m trying to keep it down. “That slimy, predatory piece of shit. He’s a coach. He’s a grown fucking man who had authority over you!”
Julian’s shoulders hunch slightly, and I know that it’s my anger hitting him wrong. I stop pacing immediately and kneel in front of him instead, because he does not get to carry my volume on top of what he’s already holding.
“Hey,” I say, softening my voice; my hands hovering before I settle them carefully over his. “I’m not mad at you.”
He lets out a breath that sounds broken. “I know.”
“No, I need you to really hear me.” I squeeze his hands once. “I am not disgusted with you, either. I’m disgusted with him.”
His eyes finally lift to mine then, and what I see there almost destroys me. Shame, yes. Anger. Exhaustion. But under all of it there’s this awful, bruised relief, as if some part of him still expected me to hear the name and step away.
I don’t. I move closer.
“How long?” I ask.
He looks at our hands for a second before answering. “Months.”
I shut my eyes briefly because if I keep them open through that answer, I might actually cry from how much I hate it. I get up and sit beside him again. “Does anyone else know?”
“Luca does.” He rubs one hand over his face. “I told him about a month and a half ago because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Unfortunately for me, Killian heard everything through the door.”
I blink at him. “Killian knows?”
“Everything.”
That explains so much that I nearly laugh, except nothing about this is funny. “And no one told me?” I ask, then immediately hate how selfish that sounds.
Julian hears it too. “It wasn’t because they didn’t trust you. Luca said he wanted me to decide who knew. And I…” He swallows. “I didn’t want you looking at me differently.”
That knocks something out of me.
I turn toward him fully. “Jules.”
He laughs once, ugly and quiet. “I know. Stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” I shake my head hard. “It’s not stupid, and I wouldn’t have looked at you differently.”
He doesn’t answer that, which means he doesn’t fully believe it.
So, I say the next part slowly, making damn sure he hears every word. “You tell me you’ve been hurt by someone who had power over you, and all that changes is the fact that I want to kill him faster.”
That gets the smallest, weakest huff of laughter out of him. Good. I’ll take that. I look at him for another second, then ask the question I really don’t want the answer to. “Is he still trying to contact you? That why you’re looking at your phone like it’ll bite you?”
He nods. “He’s been texting. Calling. Getting more aggressive when I don’t answer. Killian’s doing something. I don’t know what. Nobody’s telling me much except to keep everything and not meet him alone.”