Dominic exhaled slowly, the sound almost breaking. “You saw me hours ago.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
A long pause.
“I know,” Dominic said softly.
Now the silence wasn’t heavy with hesitation. It was charged with recognition—of the truth they both knew but avoided.
“I keep thinking about earlier,” Eli said, voice barely above a breath. “What we did.”
“What we were always going to do,” Dominic corrected.
That hit Eli hard, a punch in the gut he didn’t want but needed.
Eli fell back onto the bed, the phone pressed tight to his ear. “Were we?” he asked. “Or did we just… finally stop pretending?”
Dominic laughed under his breath, bitter and low. “I stopped pretending a long time ago. You just weren’t ready to hear it.”
There it was again—that edge beneath Dominic’s voice, that buried hurt neither of them dared speak aloud.
“I was a kid,” Eli said, voice shaking.
“I know.”
“You were—”
“Older. Responsible. Meant to be reasonable. Supposed to be your father’s friend, not…” Dominic’s voice
