And he loved knowing that. He loved the idea that Julian was being romanced and adored at every turn. It made him smile as he unlocked the gate and shuffled his way across the creaking wood toward the sand. He took a moment to wonder what life would be like right now if he’d never sent that text looking to hire an escort for the wedding. Julian would have gone to keep the peace between him and his mother. He would have been miserable, of course. He would have called, begging for help, and Ilan would have thrown his shifts at someone else and raced down to the Cove to pick him up.
Fredric would still be divorcing Jacqueline—and he comforted himself with knowing that no decision he made in the past would change that. But Julian would still be miserable and lonely—and no amount of feeling small and selfish was worth knowing that Ilan might have had the power to stand between him and the love of his life.
He wouldn’t have robbed Julian of the happiness he found for the world.
With a fortifying breath and ready to run from his quiet pain, Ilan stepped onto the harder packed sand, then took off at a slow jog. The sand still sank under his feet enough to make his calves ache after only a couple minutes, but he wanted that. He hadn’t touched a drink since his phone call with Preston, but he wanted to burn the last remnants of his melancholy from his system and start fresh before Sunday.
Preston at least deserved a chance, and this was the start of that.
When he felt like he’d run for a hundred years, Ilan stopped for a drink, then turned and grimaced when he realized he’d only gone half a mile—if that. His calves were on fire, and his lungs were burning, and the idea of running back made him want to burrow into the sand like a little ghost crab and never come out.
Dropping to the ground, Ilan pulled off his shoes and peeled away his socks, then dug his toes into the sand and leaned back on his elbows. The cool morning air felt better now than when he’d first stepped out. It danced across his skin with the easy ocean breeze, and he smelled a little bit of brine on the current. He was pretty sure he’d never get tired of this, but he wondered if the sea would always hold the same magic.
Once upon a time, it was a luxury, a step outside of his life. What would happen when this started to feel like his new normal? He wanted to fill the empty spaces of his life with things that mattered, but he was terrified that real and actual contentment was beyond him. What if something was just fundamentally broken inside of him? What if he needed constant conflict to feel anything at all?
Before despair could grip him by the throat, he pulled his phone from the arm band, then counted back the hours before pressing his finger over Julian’s number.
“If I told you I was in the middle of an existential crisis on the beach,” he said when his friend answered, “what stupid Shakespeare line would make me feel like I could breathe again?” he said by way of answer.
Julian was quiet for a long while. “Is that really what you want? Or do you just want me to distract you?”
Ilan couldn’t exactly tell him he was terrified that he was falling in love with Fredric, so he bit the inside of his cheek and breathed out a heavy sigh. “Both, maybe? You always helped me make sense of things.”
“Hey,” Julian said very softly, then all the sounds in the background faded to nothing. “What’s going on?”
“I have a date,” Ilan said with a short laugh. He stopped and squeezed his eyes shut for a long second. “Remember that fucker I hated back during my residency? Preston?”
“Vaguely,” Julian said wryly. “You hated a lot of people back during your residency.”
Ilan would have flipped him off if Julian could have seen him. Or maybe he would have hugged him and never let go. “Whatever. He was tall, blond, gorgeous.”
“Mhm.”
“I asked him for some advice about getting into a new practice down here, and he kind of…asked me out, I guess.”
Julian hummed in thought. “Well, I’m surprised you’re not asking my dad this since apparently he’s your new best friend now…”
“Oh my god, are you twelve?” Ilan groaned, mostly because this was something he could not go to Fredric about. “You’re still my favoritest best friend in the whole wide world, Julian. So, will you fucking help me out, here?”
Julian chuckled and then let out a small sigh. “I just don’t know what you’re asking. Are you afraid of dating or afraid of dating him?”
“Both? Neither?” Ilan groaned and dragged his hand down his face, his water bottle thumping him hard in the chest. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I mean, when Papa asked me to help him with this dating thing, that was easy. But when it’s me, I feel like I’m having a two-week long panic attack.”
“I mean, I’m not even remotely surprised,” Julian told him. “I knew the moment you gave in and decided to date, it was going to be a goddamn disaster. You think you’re unlovable.”
“No, I don’t,” he argued, because he knew he was lovable. Just…maybe not that kind of love. “I don’t know how to be…you know…nice. I can do romance—I can do seduction. But I have no fucking clue how to be nice to someone who isn’t you. Or your dad.”
“Yes, you do,” Julian said, way too kindly, “your heart is just rusty.”
Ilan laid back in the sand and squeezed his eyes shut. “Is that Shakespeare?”
“No, asshole, it’s a Julian Pedalino original,” he answered with a small laugh, then he sobered. “The only thing I can tell you is to be patient and to let people be kind to you first. It’s basically what you told me when I was struggling.”
“I hate you,” Ilan said, and Julian laughed again. “Can’t you just give me some sonnet that’ll get rid of this fear that love is going to suck?”
“The day drags through,” Julian started, and his voice took on the familiar, melodic tone he always used when reciting poetry, “though storms keep out the sun. And thus the heart will break, but brokenly live on.”
Ilan froze, and he swallowed thickly. “That wasn’t Shakespeare.”
“It wasn’t,” Julian confirmed with a quiet sigh. “Lord Byron. The poem isn’t wrong—love means getting your heart broken sometimes. It’s a wound that bleeds but never bleeds out. You will always wake up the next morning.”
Ilan’s hands were shaking. “You’re about to tell me it’s worth it, aren’t you?”
“I think so,” Julian said. “Sometimes Archer and I fight, and it feels like…it feels like it did before, because I’m scared that it’s all one big lie. But it never ends the same way. He doesn’t walk out. He stays, and we fight more, and then suddenly it stops feeling like I’m suffocating. And when it takes me longer to recover, he loves me until the world stops spinning.”
“I want that,” Ilan whispered, hating himself for showing that weakness. “But I don’t know if I’m strong enough for it.”
“Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about you being lonely,” Julian replied. “And I think about how much I hate how far away I am now, because you were there for me at my worst, and I can’t be there now.”