But Dad i Love Him

Chapter 5: Unfiltered

The ride back to my house had been spent in total, crushing silence. My father’s jaw remained so tightly clenched I thought his teeth might break, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. When we pulled into the garage, he didn't scream or lecture me. He simply took my bedroom key, locked me inside from the outside, and left me in the dark with my own racing thoughts.

By seven o'clock the next morning, the high school was already buzzing.

I could feel the stares the second I stepped out of my mother's car. Whispers rippled through the hallway like electricity through a wire. Chloe and Sarah were standing near the main display case, surrounded by a court of varsity cheerleaders and track athletes. The moment I walked past, their conversation cut off sharply.

“Did you see the picture on the group chat?”

“She’s actually dating Vance?”

“Her dad is going to murder him.”

I kept my chin up, staring straight ahead, pretending the weight of a hundred eyes wasn't crushing my ribs. But inside, I was suffocating. My father had assigned Mr. Gable to monitor my every move between classes, effectively turning my school day into a supervised escort program.

The only time I was truly free was during track practice.

At 4:00 PM sharp, as the rest of the team headed into the warm locker rooms, I ducked out behind the stadium. The November wind was brutal, cutting right through my thin athletic jacket as I hurried toward the cold, rusted underside of the visitor bleachers.

Julian was already there.

He was sitting on the overturned wooden crate, a small portable kerosene heater humming quietly beside his boots, throwing off a weak, orange glow. He had his black hoodie pulled up, his leather jacket zipped tight, and a faded yellow notebook open on his knees.

"You're late, Princess," he said without looking up, his pencil moving steadily across the lined paper. "By ninety seconds."

"Mr. Gable followed me all the way to the track gate," I breathed out, leaning against a rusted steel beam to catch my breath. "I had to hide behind the equipment shed until he went inside."

Julian finally raised his head. His dark eyes swept over my face, lingering on the pale skin under my eyes. "You look like hell."

"Thank you, Julian. Always so charming," I muttered, dropping my heavy backpack into the dirt and slumping down onto the plastic bucket across from him. "My dad locked me in my room last night. He took my laptop, too. The only reason I'm here is because Coach Miller thinks I'm doing extra cool-down laps."

"He locked you in?" Julian’s pencil paused. A sharp, dark shadow crossed his face, his jaw tightening into a hard line. "Your dad is losing his mind."

"He's terrified of losing control," I corrected, pulling my hands into my jacket sleeves to keep them warm. "To him, my life is a giant chess game. Every move has to be calculated. And you... you're a wild card he can't predict."

"I'm not a card, Maya," Julian said softly, dropping his pencil into the spine of his book. "I'm just a guy trying to pass Algebra so I can get my diploma and leave this town in my rearview mirror."

I looked at him, really looked at him in the dim, flickering orange light of the small heater. The harsh street lamps from the parking lot cast long shadows across his sharp cheekbones. Up close, without the arrogant smirk or the protective wall he usually built around himself, he looked tired. Not just sleepy—exhausted down to his bones.

"Why do you stay at the shop so late?" I asked softly, the question slipping out before I could stop it. "I saw your car parked down by 4th Street at ten o'clock three nights ago."

Julian let out a short, quiet breath, his chest expanding under his leather jacket. He looked down at his hands, his fingers lightly tracing a faded scar across his left knuckle.

"My older brother, Marcus, got caught up in some bad debt a few years ago," Julian said, his voice flat, stripped of all theatrical charm. "When he went on probation, the interest didn't just disappear. The guys he owed didn't care that he was trying to go clean. So, I work night shifts at the garage. Mr. Henderson lets me keep sixty percent of the late-night repair cash under the table."

My heart squeezed tight in my chest. "You're paying off your brother's debt?"

"He's my brother," Julian said simply, as if that explained everything. "He took care of me when our dad walked out five years ago. He worked two jobs so I wouldn't end up in foster care. Now it's my turn to hold up the ceiling."

I stared at him, speechlessness washing over me. All those times I had heard the teachers whispering in the faculty lounge—calling him lazy, calling his family a blight on the town, claiming he was bound for prison—they knew nothing. They saw a leather jacket and a bad attitude, and they filled in the blanks with their own prejudice.

"Julian..." I reached out, my fingers hesitation-free as I gently touched his forearm. "That's... you shouldn't have to carry that all by yourself."

Julian looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine. For a long, silent moment, neither of us moved. The cold wind howled outside the bleachers, whipping dust across the dirt floor, but inside our little shadow world, the air felt thick, heavy, and undeniably warm.

"Everyone carries something, Maya," Julian murmured, his voice dropping into a low, quiet hum that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "You're carrying your dad's insane expectations. I'm carrying my family's mess. Difference is, I know I'm in the dirt. You're still pretending you can fly."

"I'm not pretending anymore," I whispered, holding his gaze. "Not since last night."

A slow, genuine smile touched the corner of his lips—not the arrogant smirk he wore for the school hallways, but a real, quiet smile that softened his entire face.

"Good," he said softly. "Now show me how to solve this quadratic formula before your dad pulls his SUV up to the curb and shoots me."

I swallowed hard, forcing my mind back to the textbook. "Right. Math."

For the next fifteen minutes, we worked in tight, focused synchronization. He listened intently as I broke down the steps, his sharp mind picking up the patterns much faster than he let on in class. Without the pressure of a classroom or the judging eyes of teachers, Julian was quick, analytical, and relentless until he got the answer right.

"Done," he declared, slapping his pencil down on the notebook page. "x equals four, or x equals negative two."

I checked my answer key, my eyes widening slightly. "That's... actually completely correct."

"Told you," he grinned, leaning back against the steel beam with his hands behind his head. "You're a miracle worker, Princess."

"Don't get cocky," I smiled, closing the textbook. "You still have to do it on the actual test on Friday without me sitting next to you."

"I'll just pretend you're in my ear, nagging me about negative signs," he teased.

Before I could fire back with a witty retort, the distinct sound of heavy footsteps crunched against the gravel outside the bleachers.

My blood ran cold. The footsteps were deliberate, rhythmic, and coming straight toward the visitor stands.

"Maya?"

It wasn't my father. It was Coach Miller, holding a heavy flashlight, the bright beam sweeping through the dark metal beams toward us.

"Maya, are you still out here?" Coach Miller called out, his voice echoing under the bleachers. "Your father is waiting at the front gates. He sent me to look for you."

Panic hit me like a bucket of ice water. If Coach Miller saw me hiding under the stands with Julian Vance, surrounded by a textbook and a portable heater, he would tell my father immediately. The fake-dating rumor was one thing; getting caught lying about track practice was total annihilation.

Julian didn't hesitate for a single second.

He grabbed his heater, clicked the switch off, and shoved his notebook into his bag in one fluid, silent motion. Then, reaching out, he grabbed my hand and pulled me flat against the narrow wooden wall of the old equipment storage shed tucked deep under the stands.

"Stay still," he breathed against my ear, his body shielding mine entirely from the entrance path.

The beam of Coach Miller's flashlight cut through the darkness just inches from where we stood. The light swept over the overturned bucket, over the dusty ground, and hovered for three agonizing seconds near the edge of the shed.

I held my breath, my heart beating so hard against my ribs I was terrified Coach Miller would hear it. Julian was pressed flush against me, one of his hands resting flat against the wall right beside my head, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady rhythm. The heat radiating off him was overwhelming, the scent of rain, dark cedar, and motor oil enveloping me completely.

I raised my eyes in the dark, finding his. Julian was staring down at me, his face inches from mine, his dark eyes wide and intense in the shadow.

For a terrifying, exhilarating second, I didn't think about my father. I didn't think about my 4.0 GPA, or college, or the rumors spreading through school. All I could feel was the warm press of Julian's hand near my shoulder, the steady rise of his chest, and the undeniable, electric spark pulling me toward him.

Coach Miller let out a loud sigh. "Must have walked back to the locker room," he muttered to himself, his footsteps turning around and crunching back across the gravel toward the stadium lights.

The beam of light vanished.

Silence settled over the dark space once more, heavy and charged. Neither of us moved. Julian's hand remained pinned to the wall above my head, his eyes locked onto mine, his breath warm against my lips.

"He's gone," I whispered, my voice barely a thread of sound.

"Yeah," Julian murmured, his voice rough and low. "He's gone."

He didn't pull away. His eyes flicked down to my lips for a fraction of a second before returning to my eyes, a silent, unspoken question hanging in the narrow space between us.

My heart thundered in my chest, a dangerous, thrilling heat pooling in my stomach. The good girl inside me vanished entirely, replaced by a desperate, breathless desire to bridge the tiny inch left between us.

Then, the sharp, shrill sound of the school’s 4:30 PM dismissal horn blasted across the athletic field.

The spell broke.

Julian blinked, stepping back a pace and running a hand through his dark curls, pulling his wall of cool indifference back into place. "You need to run, Maya. If your dad comes out here looking for you himself, we won't be so lucky."

I swallowed hard, trying to regain control of my trembling hands as I picked up my backpack. "Right. I... I have to go."

"See you tomorrow, Princess," Julian said softly, stepping back into the shadows of the bleachers.

I ran out from under the stands, my sneakers pounding against the wet track, but as I reached my father's idling SUV in the front parking lot, my mind wasn't on his cold, furious glare.

It was completely stuck under the dark bleachers, trapped in the memory of Julian's eyes.