Page 80 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Julian’s expression changes in a way that almost hurts to look at. He reaches up and cups the side of my face, thumb brushing lightly over my cheekbone.

“Liefling,” he says, and now that I know exactly what it means, it goes through me in a whole new way. “You seeing me now is enough.”

It shouldn’t be enough. Not after everything. Not after how long he carried all of it. Not after how long I stood in my own way. But the way he says it makes me believe he means it, and that only makes my chest ache harder.

I kiss him again, and he makes another quiet sound and turns his head just enough to deepen it. I feel the smile that almost catches between us when my hand slides into his hair. His curls are warm and sleep-soft under my fingers, and the intimacy of that nearly gets me more than anything else has so far.

Then Mila gives a bright, happy little gurgle from the bassinet.

I break the kiss with a helpless laugh and turn my head toward the sound. She’s awake now, wide-eyed and perfectly content—one tiny hand waving in the air like she’s announcing herself to the room after the longest, most patient wait of her little life.

Julian laughs too, low and breathless beneath me. “Her timing is impeccable.”

Another happy little sound comes from the bassinet, followed by the unmistakable wriggle that means she’s got about thirty seconds before happiness turns into demands.

I shift back reluctantly, and the second I do, I feel how warm my face is, how hard my heart is still pounding, how dangerously easy it would be to just climb right back over him and forget the rest of the world exists. Julian watches me with a look that says he’s having the exact same problem.

I sit up slowly, still looking at him, and it hits me all over again, how stupidly beautiful he is. Rumpled, kissed-flushed, eyes softer than I think I’ve ever seen them and somehow still full of enough heat to make my stomach drop.

I shake my head once in quiet disbelief. “You’re beautiful, Jules,” I mutter.

That actually makes him blush again, which might become my new favorite thing on the planet.

“Go get your daughter,” he says in a rough tone and pushes me away.

I laugh and lean down just long enough to press one last quick kiss to his mouth before I push myself off the bed and reach into the bassinet for Mila. She comes up warm and wiggly and immediately nuzzles into my chest, her little foot pressing against my stomach while she makes another pleased little noise.

When I turn back around, Julian is propped on one elbow watching us both with this look on his face that makes something in me settle in the deepest place I’ve got.

My best friend. My Jules. The guy who’s been right here all along.

25

Julian

Being in love should not make a man this stupid.

I catch myself smiling like an idiot at absolutely nothing and have to physically drag my face back into something respectable before one of the guys can ask questions.

It’s humiliating, honestly. I spent years imagining what it would do to me if Eli ever looked at me the way I looked at him, if he ever wanted me back in any way that crossed the line from friendship into something more.

Somehow, the answer turns out to be this: I become a fucking disaster in the stupid, grinning, distracted, floating-through-my-own-life sense.

I keep thinking about the way he looked at me in his bed with sleepy eyes and my mouth still warm from his. I keep hearing him asking what Liefling means, then watching that realization hit his face and turn into something so soft and hungry that he kissed me first the second time.

I am gone. That’s the problem. My whole body feels lighter. When Eli brushes his hand over the back of my neck in the kitchen while reaching past me for a bottle, my brain goes blank for a second, and I nearly forget what I’m holding. Every glance we steal across the living room or the hallway or practice feels like we’re getting away with something huge even though, technically, all we’ve done is kiss.

We keep acting mostly normal in front of the house because Mila still needs bottles and diapers, and nobody in the Sin Bin needs to watch us try to figure out what we are with our tongues halfway down each other’s throats.

It’s not a public thing yet and probably won’t be for a while. That part is fine with me. I don’t need an audience. What I do need is, apparently, to stop wandering through the week with my guard down because I’ve got Eli’s mouth still haunting mine and his smile doing permanent structural damage to my self-control.

It’s Thursday afternoon, warm enough that the air around the athletics building feels thick and stale; cloying campus heat that clings to the concrete and makes everyone just a little meaner by default.

We’re all supposed to meet at the gym before lifting—me, Eli, Luca, Ryan, and whoever else drifts in on time for once. I’m cutting across the side path behind athletics because it’s faster. I’ve let myself stop scanning every shadow, parked car, and blind corner the way I’ve been doing for weeks. It’s not even a full lapse, just a softening. A stupid, human, dangerous softening because the last few nights have been so full of warmth that I forgot fear can wait patiently in the dark until you stop looking over your shoulder.

“Julian.”

Every muscle in my body goes tight so fast it feels mechanical. I stop walking immediately, one foot still half lifted, and turn my head toward the side of the building where the maintenance entrance cuts the brick wall into a blind little recess of concrete and shadow.