Chapter 42 BARBEQUE NIGHT
Eli’s POV
When we step into the house, Julian closes the door behind us like he’s sealing the world out.
I don’t even try to pretend I’m okay.
I go straight to the couch, drop onto it like every bone in my body just gave up, and let myself sink deeper into the cushions.
My chest still feels tight. My hands won’t stop shaking. My mind is stuck replaying the gunshot, the body falling, the horrible stillness that followed… and the fucking horrific sight of walking up to a dead body at the door step!!
Julian walks toward me, steps sharp and controlled.
“Get up,” he says quietly. “Go upstairs. Shower. Then sleep.”
I don’t even look at him. “I don’t want to.”
He pauses. I hear the breath he drags in slowly, and clearly frustrated, like he’s trying not to snap and force me up.
“Eli,” he says. “You need to—”
“No.”
I close my eyes. “I don’t want to shower. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to move. This… this couch is the farthest I can go tonight.”
It’s the truth, and it strips something in me bare. For a moment, Julian is silent. Maybe calculating. Maybe irritated.
Before he can respond…
“Ease up,” Anton says from the doorway.
I sigh in relief at the interruption without meaning to. Julian’s head whips toward him.
Anton steps farther in, hands raised halfway in a lazy peace gesture.
“It’s hard,” he says simply. “To go through routines while everything around you is falling into chaos.”
Julian stares at him like he’s a particularly annoying ghost.
Anton nods toward me. “None of this is horrific to us. To him? It’s nightmare fuel. So ease up.”
Julian’s expression twitches.
Then Anton claps his hands once. “Alright. I’m grilling meat outside. Barbecue. Anyone dying tonight can wait till after dinner.”
My head pops up. “Barbecue?”
Anton beams at me like a golden retriever with a knife hidden somewhere. “See? He’s practically cured.”
He walks over and ruffles my hair before I can dodge it. I blink in surprise.
No one ruffles my hair aside from Julian doing it a few times back when he was putting on a terrible show instead of straight up telling me he married me to bait my father.
Except now apparently Anton does.
Julian watches the contact with a look that could probably start a small fire.
\---
A few minutes later, we’re in the garden.
The night air feels good. Cooler. Cleaner. Less suffocating.
Julian sits beside me, elbows resting on his knees. Anton stands by the grill, flipping meat with the casual confidence of someone who’s probably burned down a house before but learned from it.
The meat sizzles loudly, the smoke curling into the air.
“This is nice,” I mumble.
Anton smirks. “It’ll taste divine too. Because I made it.”
Julian snorts under his breath.
I glance between them. Something feels… different tonight. Less sharp. Less tense. More human.
Anton notices me watching and grins.
“Want a story?” he asks. “A real one. From before Julian turned into the charming sociopath he is now?”
Julian shoots him a glare that could kill three people if weaponized.
I lean back. “Yeah. Tell me.”
Anton gestures at Julian dramatically. “Picture this: a tiny Julian—”
“No,” Julian says.
“—who thought being quiet meant being mysterious—”
Julian mutters, “I hate you.”
“—and there was me. The wild card. The chaos maker. Every teacher’s headache and every parent’s regret.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Anton flashes a playful wink.
“So you were childhood friends?” I ask.
And instantly,
“No,” they both say at the exact same time.
I blink, holding back a laugh.
Anton laughs. “We were childhood enemies. The kind of enemies who competed for everything. Grades. Fights. Breathing. Who could piss off the school director more creatively.”
Julian stares blankly into the distance as if regretting all his life choices.
Anton flips the meat and continues, “We hated each other so thoroughly that we somehow circled all the way around and became brothers. I couldn’t stand anyone else trying to bully or hate him because—hello—I was the only one allowed.”
A weird warmth blooms in my chest.
“So you… defended him?” I ask.
Anton shrugs. “Only so I could torment him. It’s about maintaining the ecosystem.”
Julian’s lip twitches. “You were unbearable.”
“And you were insufferable,” Anton fires back. Then adds proudly, “Still am. And you still are.”
The simplicity of their banter… it’s comforting in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Anton glances at me, softer now. “I stay around mostly because he’s grown into such a cold-hearted psycho that without me, he’d probably forget what emotions are.”
Julian picks up a small decorative stone from the table and throws it at him.
Anton dodges easily. “See? Look at that! Movement! Expression! You can’t be stiff around the clock.”
He gestures with the tongs like a lecturer. “Get out of your insane head once in a while. Throw things at people without murderous intent. You’re improving, Jules.”
“Shut up,” Julian says, but there’s something close to a smirk forming.
Something eases inside me.
The three of us sit there…
Anton grilling meat and talking with his hands,
Julian pretending not to listen but clearly listening,
and me caught between them, laughing at the smallest things because it’s the first time in weeks something feels even close to normal.
Anton finally places a plate in front of me.
“For the traumatized baby of the night,” he announces.
“Stop calling me that,” I mutter, but I’m smiling.
Julian eyes the plate like he wants to make sure it's safe. I bump his shoulder lightly.
“It’s just meat.”
“Cooked by Anton,” Julian corrects, deadpan.
“And yet you’re eating it too,” Anton says, handing him a plate.
Julian swears quietly but takes it.
We eat.
We chat.
We tease.
Anton tells a story about Julian almost burning down a shed at age twelve. Julian throws another small object at him. Anton laughs until he drops the tongs.
And for the first time since being trapped in Julian’s world, I don’t feel like I’m suffocating.
I feel… almost okay.
Like maybe this insane triangle of danger and tension and rivalry could sometimes also be something warmer. Something weird and human. Something like…
Family?
No. Not family.
Just… something.
I watch Anton as he wipes his hands on a towel, laughing at Julian’s scowl, and I catch myself smiling in a way that surprises me.
He’s chaotic, messy, unpredictable, dangerous…
But right now?
Right now he’s also the reason I’m breathing easier… he's making me smile.
I watch him as he tells another story, dramatic as always… and Julian rolls his eyes but listens anyway.
I watch them both.
And I think quietly, almost shyly:
He’s not that bad.
I think I like him.