41. Eli
Eli
Mila is still in my arms, now wearing a fresh bib because she chose to end a legal briefing by spitting up on my shirt.
Julian is crouched beside me, one hand still near Mila’s back, his fingers brushing mine in that careful way he’s been doing more often now, as if he’s not sure how much we’re allowed to show in front of everyone but also can’t quite stop himself from reaching.
I look at him because I’m helpless not to. He looks back because apparently, he has the same disease. His hazel eyes are still heavy with everything Mara said, but under it is something softer, private, and so fucking obvious to me now that I don’t know how I ever missed it.
Maybe I didn’t. Maybe missing it was just a thing I told myself because seeing it would have required admitting what it meant.
His mouth shifts like he’s about to say something to me, and I’m ready for it. So stupidly ready, my whole body is leaning toward his voice before he even uses it.
Then Ryan clears his throat.
It is not a subtle throat clear or a polite little social cue. It is the kind of noise a man makes when he has decided, against all sense and survival instinct, to detonate a room because silence makes him itchy.
“So,” he says from near the island, holding his coffee mug with both hands and looking far too innocent for someone who has never been innocent a day in his life, “was anyone gonna mention the sounds coming from Julian’s room last night, or are we all doing that very mature thing where we pretend this house has soundproof walls? ”
My entire body catches fire, and my soul leaves my body.
There is no other way to explain it. One second, I’m a legal father holding my daughter and processing a potential criminal investigation. The next second, I am a red-faced twenty-two-year-old who wants to crawl into the dishwasher and let Liam run a sterilize cycle.
Julian goes very still beside me, but before I can say a thing, Luca is moving like he’s been waiting for this exact disaster his entire athletic career.
He crosses the space behind Ryan with the grim speed of a quarterback reading a blitz and, without one second of hesitation, wraps both arms around Ryan from behind.
One forearm locks across Ryan’s chest while his other hand clamps directly over his mouth.
Ryan makes a muffled sound of outrage, coffee sloshing dangerously in his mug, while Luca drags him backward two full steps.
“Absolutely not,” Luca says, with the exhausted authority of a captain, boyfriend, and emergency Ryan handler. “Nope. We are not doing this.”
Ryan tries to speak around Luca’s hand, the words coming out as offended nonsense.
Luca tightens his grip. “I know you have thoughts. I know you believe every thought deserves release into the world. You are wrong.”
Ryan makes a muffled sound of protest against Luca’s palm, eyes wide with theatrical offense.
Luca tightens his arm around him. “You asked the question none of us wanted to ask, which is exactly why you shouldn’t have asked it.”
Ryan’s eyebrows shoot up, and he starts talking anyway, every word reduced to garbled noise.
“Not a single intelligible syllable,” Luca tells him. “That’s my favorite version of you.”
Sage, leaning against the far counter with his coffee held near his chest, closes his eyes. Liam turns slowly from the fridge with Mila’s bottle in hand, his expression suspended somewhere between horror and the dead calm of a man who has accepted that he lives with animals.
Roman lowers his mug from his mouth, not quite hiding his smile.
Damon presses two fingers to his lips and looks down, which would seem polite if his shoulders weren’t shaking.
Adrian stands by the doorway with that smooth, unreadable goalie face he gets when he’s witnessing something he will absolutely weaponize later.
Thorn, meanwhile, starts grinning with a sucker in his mouth.
I, on the other hand, want to die.
“Oh my God,” I say, but it comes out strangled because Mila is still in my arms and I can’t even use both hands to cover my face like I desperately want to.
Julian turns his face away, but not fast enough. I see the smile. “Don’t.”
He looks back, eyes bright despite the tension still under his skin. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You smiled.”
“I’m emotionally reacting.”
“I will put you outside.”
His smile twitches harder. “That feels harsh after last night, baby.”
Luca makes a loud, strangled noise while still holding Ryan hostage.
Sage’s eyes fly open. Liam says, “Julian,” in the same tone he uses when Ryan tries to microwave foil.
Roman loses the battle and laughs into his mug.
Damon turns fully into Roman’s shoulder, shaking now.
Thorn looks delighted enough to be punched.
My soul leaves my body a second time.
“Why would you say that?” I demand, glaring at Julian while Mila pats my jaw with one tiny damp hand. “Why would you make it worse?”
Julian’s cheeks actually color, which would be satisfying if mine weren’t already a nuclear event. “I panicked.”
“You panicked into flirting?”
“I have a limited skill set under pressure.”
Ryan manages to pry Luca’s hand off just far enough to say, “He calls that flirting?” before Luca immediately seals his mouth again.
“Enough,” Luca says, hauling him back another step. “I am begging you to develop survival instincts.”
Ryan licks Luca’s palm, and he jerks his hand away with a disgusted noise. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Ryan spins out of his hold with the triumphant expression of a man who has won a war through biological warfare. “Many things,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I am still the only person in this room brave enough to address the obvious.”
I close my eyes.
I would like Celeste to come back and frame me for another crime. That might somehow be less embarrassing than standing in this kitchen while a room full of athletes, partners, and one baby discuss the fact that I apparently made noises in Julian’s room last night.
Luca glares at Ryan. “History is going to remember you as the reason we can’t have normal mornings.”
Ryan points at him. “First of all, that was homophobic.”
“We’re both bisexual, asshat,” Luca growls.
“Internalized quarterback oppression,” Ryan shoots back.
Sage pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means Luca hates free speech when the speech is fun.”
“It wasn’t fun,” I say, voice still strangled. “It was invasive and horrible.”
Ryan turns toward me with wide, wounded eyes. “Eli, I am happy for you. I’m not judging, I’m celebrating. Love is love, but noise is also noise.”
“Ryan,” Luca warns.
“What?” Ryan asks, flinging a hand toward Julian and me. “Am I wrong? They’ve been eye-fucking over baby bottles for weeks. I think I deserve emotional closure.”
“You deserve a muzzle,” Liam mutters.
Ryan looks offended. “Kinky accusation for a Tuesday morning. Is that why you call Nate ‘Pup’?”
“Shut up,” Luca and Sage say at the same time.
Damon, who has recovered enough to breathe, lifts his hand slightly. “In Ryan’s defense—”
“Babe, no,” Roman says immediately, though he’s smiling.
Damon glances up at him. “I was only going to say it was a little obvious.”
“See?” Ryan says, clearly feeling vindicated. “The artist speaks.”
Roman gives Damon a fondly betrayed look. “You were supposed to be on the side of dignity.”
“I’m an artist and on the side of observation,” Damon says. “And aesthetically speaking, the longing wasn’t subtle.”
I blink at him. “The longing?”
Damon’s face softens, but his eyes glitter with amusement. “Eli. Please.”
Julian coughs into his fist, and I whirl on him. “You are in so much trouble.”
His eyebrows lift, and something warm and dangerous flashes in his eyes before he wisely buries it. “Later?”
My mouth drops open.
Ryan makes a wheezing sound, and Luca grabs him again on instinct, though this time he only hooks an arm around Ryan’s neck loosely rather than covering his mouth.
“Do not,” Luca says in his ear, “say whatever just entered your head.”
Ryan is vibrating with the effort of self-restraint. “I am showing so much growth right now.”
“You are one syllable away from death,” Luca tells him.
Julian moves closer to my side, and I expect him to rescue me because he loves me and should, theoretically, care about whether I survive the morning.
Instead, he puts one hand lightly on the back of my neck and says, far too quietly for anyone else to hear, “You’re very cute when you’re mortified. ”
His mouth is still doing that barely contained smile thing. I love him so much I might throw something at him. “Read the room,” I hiss.
“I am,” Julian murmurs. “It’s a good room.”
“It is a terrible room.”
His thumb moves once against my neck, and even mortified, even surrounded by idiots, my body reacts to the touch in a way that makes my face somehow hotter. Julian notices, because of course he does. His smile softens, and that is almost worse.
Adrian tilts his head slightly. “For clarity, the question wasn’t whether something was happening.”
My stomach drops because I know that tone. Adrian is about to be precise, and precision is not my friend right now.
“The question,” he continues mildly, “was when one of them would admit it without being forced by auditory evidence.”
I close my eyes again. “I hate all of you.”
Thorn’s grin turns downright wicked. “That sounds like confirmation.”
There’s no good way around it, is there?
Everyone knows, suspected, or apparently had ears pressed spiritually to our walls for months.
Last night gave them proof, maybe more proof than I would have liked, but the truth was already living in the room with us long before Ryan opened his massive mouth.
Julian and I are not a secret in any way that matters. Not from these people, maybe never from them. This house notices everything, then pretends badly until someone gets bored and detonates the pretense.
Julian looks at me, and I see the moment he decides.
“We’re together,” he says.