33. Julian #2
Ryan straightens so fast the desk creaks under him. His expression flashes through surprise, irritation, and embarrassment.
“I’m fine,” he says quickly, pushing off the desk and grabbing his bag. “I’m good. We were just talking.”
Matteo’s eyes move from Ryan to me with cool interest. That pisses me off, mostly because I’ve had enough of powerful men looking at me like I’m a fact pattern.
I step farther into the room before I can stop myself. “Didn’t sound like just talking.”
“Oh my God,” Ryan mutters under his breath and crosses to me in three quick strides. He catches my arm and starts steering me back toward the hallway. “We’re leaving now before you make this weirder.”
I resist just enough to keep my eyes on Matteo. “Stay away from him.”
Matteo’s eyebrows lift slightly. “Is that right?”
Ryan tightens his grip on my arm. “Julian,” he says, and now his voice has lost the bratty edge completely. “I’m fine.”
I look at him then—his face is flushed, but not with fear, with embarrassment. His eyes are sharp and clear and pissed, yes, but not at Matteo in the way I thought.
The shame hits fast, followed immediately by stubbornness because my body is still flooded with adrenaline and doesn’t know how to stand down cleanly.
“You got pulled into a classroom by an older man who owns part of the school and he told you that you owe him. Forgive me if I’m not feeling fucking relaxed.”
Ryan’s irritation drops away by a degree, replaced by understanding so sudden it almost makes me look away. He gets it. Of course he gets it. Everyone in the house has been walking carefully around the bruised edges of me since Blakely, and Ryan, for all his chaos, isn’t careless when it matters.
“I know,” he says. “But it’s not like that.”
“I understand why you are protective,” Matteo says. “I also understand why this looked wrong to you. What happened to you should not have happened, and you’re right to distrust powerful men behind closed doors.”
Ryan shifts beside me, jaw tightening. “Matteo.”
Matteo glances at him briefly, and whatever passes between them is too fast for me to read fully, but not too fast to understand there is history here.
Real history, not some sudden grab in a hallway.
Something with rules neither of them has explained and tension neither of them is successfully hiding.
Then Matteo looks back at me. “But I am not Blakely.”
My stomach twists hard.
“You’re an owner, and he’s a student-athlete.”
Matteo’s eyes darken. “I know what I am.”
“Then act like it,” I grit out.
Ryan’s grip tightens once, this time in warning. “Jules, I said I’m okay, and I mean it. I appreciate the guard dog routine, especially because your timing is fucking insane today, but I’m okay.”
I exhale slowly. “You’re sure?”
Ryan’s face softens for half a second. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
I look past him to Matteo one last time. “If he ever isn’t okay, there are a lot of us.”
Ryan says, “Jesus Christ,” at the same time Luca mutters, “Subtle,” behind me.
Matteo doesn’t laugh. He looks from me to Luca, then back to Ryan. “I would expect nothing less,” Matteo says.
Ryan lets out an aggravated breath and starts dragging me toward the hallway again. “Great. Beautiful. Everybody’s terrifying. I’m so glad we established community values.”
Luca steps aside to let us out, but his gaze lingers on Matteo with a sharpness that tells me he’s filing away details too. Good. Let someone else keep a file. I’m exhausted.
The second we’re in the hall with the classroom door is shut behind us, Ryan lets go of my arm and rounds on me. “What the fuck, West?”
I deserve that, which is annoying.
I run a hand through my hair and glance toward the closed door. “I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” Ryan says, and his voice loses some of the bite before the sentence is done. “I get why you thought it. But holy shit.”
Luca leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, expression caught somewhere between concern and barely contained entertainment. “For the record, I did suggest not bursting in.”
“You suggested it approximately half a second before I burst in,” I say.
“I worked with the time I had.”
Ryan points at him. “Not helpful.”
I rub both hands over my face, the adrenaline finally turning sour in my bloodstream. “I’m sorry.”
Ryan stops, clearly not expecting the apology that fast, and for a second, neither of us quite knows where to put it. Then he exhales and looks away, jaw working. “Yeah, okay, it was kind of a fucked-up thing to walk in on from the outside. But Matteo isn’t… It’s not like that.”
There’s more there—a lot more. I can see it now that fear isn’t blocking my view. Ryan’s usual chaos is still present, but under it there’s tension. Defiance, maybe affection, though he’d probably rather walk into traffic than admit it with us staring at him.
Whatever exists between him and Matteo Vieri, it is clearly not simple, and maybe that’s what scares me most because complicated is where men like Blakely taught me harm likes to hide.
But Ryan is not me. Matteo is not Blakely, at least not by the evidence I have. My trauma does not get to become a weapon against someone else’s choices just because my nerves think vigilance equals love.
I breathe in slowly and force my shoulders down. “Okay.” I look at him properly this time, not the classroom door, not the shadow of what happened to me, but Ryan. “Okay. I believe you.”
Something eases in his face so quickly that it hurts to see. Then he ruins it by pointing at me. “But if you ever call me a victim of your white-knight bullshit again, I’m making Mila a basketball jersey with my number before she can walk.”
I almost smile. “You were already going to do that.”
“Yeah, but now I’ll make it ugly.”
Luca makes a pained sound. “No baby deserves that.”
Ryan turns on him. “Stay out of this, quarterback.”
The normal irritation in his voice helps. It doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t erase the image of Matteo pulling him into that room or the words I heard through the door or the complicated heat Ryan is trying to pretend wasn’t written all over him. But it helps enough that I can breathe.
We start walking toward athletics again, the three of us falling into step like we’re late for practice instead of coming off the strangest ten minutes of my week. Which is saying something considering I spent the morning formally describing the worst months of my life to Blackthorne’s ownership.
Ryan keeps his eyes forward for a while before muttering, “He’s not my Blakely. I know you’re scared because of what happened,” he says, still not looking at me. “And I’m not saying you were crazy to react. But he’s not that.”
I don’t understand any of it, but Ryan doesn’t have the dead-eyed look I had a few months ago. I want to push—fuck me, I want to push—but if someone had pushed me in the beginning, I would have made every fucking excuse under the sun.
“I hope you’re right,” I tell him.
Ryan looks at me then, expression unreadable for half a second before it shifts into his usual sharp grin. “I usually am.”
Luca snorts. “That is historically false.”
“Betrayal,” Ryan says, hand to his chest, causing Luca to roll his eyes.
I listen to them bicker the rest of the way down the hall, and the normalcy of it settles some of the jagged pieces inside me back into place. By the time the athletics doors come into view, my pulse has finally slowed.
My statement is done. Blakely is one step closer to gone. Ryan is irritated but okay. Matteo Vieri is now a name I will absolutely remember and possibly worry over against my better judgment.
Ryan bumps his shoulder against mine, lighter than a shove, heavier than an accident. “Thanks,” he mutters, not looking at me.
I glance over. “For almost starting a scandal with an owner?”
“For giving a shit, asshole.”
I nod once, because anything more would make it weird and Ryan has already suffered enough emotional sincerity for one hallway. “Always.”
We are all fucked up in our own ways.
At least now we’re fucked up together.