Page 45 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
“What’s up?” I say flatly.
“You’ve got some nerve,” he snaps without preamble. “Helping her with this wedding after everything she put me through.”
My grip tightens around the phone. “Maya is doing her job, and doing it damn well. I don’t have anything to do with her staying.”
“She shouldn’t be there,” he growls, clearly furious. “You know what she meant to me. This whole thing is a circus.”
“No,” I bite back, standing now and walking toward the window. “It’s not, and it’s wild you keep thinking you still get a say in her life.”
There’s a bit of silence, sharp as a blade. I can practically hear his jaw clenching through the line.
“She’s not your responsibility,” he says finally. “You don’t know her like I do.”
I exhale hard through my nose, pressing my free hand to the back of my neck. “No, I just see her. The version you ignored until it was too late. Don’t call me to rewrite your regrets, man.”
He lets out a bitter laugh, low and mean. “You think you’re better than me?”
“I know I’d never walk away from her.”
That shuts him up. For a second.
Then he sneers, “Funny. You think she’d pick you over Jake or Ethan?”
That hits a nerve and I see red.
I shut my eyes, willing the surge of heat back down, but it’s no use. Something inside me snaps.
“Get off my damn phone, Nick,” I snarl, and I hang up.
I stare at the screen, jaw tight, breath shallow.
The room suddenly feels too small. The walls press in, thick with silence. I toss the phone on the nightstand and drag a hand through my hair, pacing once before sitting heavily on the edge of the bed.
Elbows on my knees. Head in my hands.
I tell myself to let it go. That he’s not worth the energy.
But his voice plays on repeat, that smug tone when he said her name like it still belonged to him.
Maya.
She’s in my head again.
Not the way Nick talks about her—not as a possession or a memory or a ghost. No, I see her as she is now.
The way she laughed with her whole body while we strung up greenery, cheeks flushed.
I feel her in my chest… in my heart.
I’ve never wanted someone like this. Not with this intensity. Not with this ache. It’s not just want. It’s need. This magnetic pull that drags me toward her whether I’m ready or not.
And worse?
It’s not just me.
Jake sees her. Ethan, too. I’ve watched the way they look at her when they think no one’s paying attention.
It should make me jealous.
