Page 79 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
The last few weeks have passed in a blur of stolen glances, breathless laughter, and quiet touches that say more than words ever could. The guys and I—we’ve fallen into this rhythm. A secret one, sure, but one that feels… good. Safe. Sacred, even.
The world outside doesn’t know. But inside these walls, it’s everything.
We rotate nights, dates, combinations. My little house, with its scuffed hardwood floors and too-small kitchen, has become our home base.
My furniture carries the imprint of more bodies than it was designed for. My fridge is always full, my laundry basket perpetually overflowing with socks that aren’t mine. And still, it works.
Some nights it’s all four of us crammed on the couch, limbs tangled under soft throw blankets, the TV flickering light across the room as a movie plays in the background that no one’s really paying attention to.
Jake always makes snarky commentary—loudly—until Liam throws popcorn at him with deadly precision. Ethan just watches us with that soft, quiet smile that turns my insides to molten sugar.
Sometimes I fall asleep halfway through, head in someone’s lap, fingers laced with someone else’s. My body relaxed in a way I never thought possible.
I’ve never felt safer.
One night, it was just me and Jake. He showed up at my front door grinning like a lunatic and holding a canvas grocery bag full of baking supplies—sprinkles, food coloring, three kinds of chocolate chips, and a suspiciously large bottle of rum extract.
“Let’s make something that explodes,” he said, eyes gleaming, like that was a perfectly normal request.
Thirty minutes later, the kitchen was a war zone. There was flour on the ceiling, melted chocolate smeared across my counter, and cookies shaped like dinosaurs baking unevenly in the oven.
“Why dinosaurs?” I asked, laughing so hard I had to lean against the counter for support as I wiped green frosting off my cheek.
Jake’s eyes sparkled as he sidled up beside me and whispered, “Because hearts are boring. You deserve extinct sugar creatures.” Then he grabbed my waist and spun me around like we were in a baking-themed rom-com. The kiss that followed was warm and messy and tasted like vanilla
With Ethan, it’s always quieter. Calmer. He took me to this hidden wine bar downtown, nestled between a secondhand bookstore and an old florist that always smells like eucalyptus and crushed rose petals.
Inside, the walls were brick and velvet, candles flickered low on tiny wooden tables, and soft jazz played from invisible speakers. It felt like we’d stepped into another world entirely—one where no one could find us.
He never rushes. Never interrupts. Just listens to everything I say.
“You always look like you’re holding something back,” he said that night, his thumb brushing gently over the inside of my wrist.
“I probably am,” I admitted.
He didn’t push. He didn’t ask what. He just took my hand in both of his and held it under the table. Silent, sure, and steady.
Liam’s different. He doesn’t fill silence or reach to pull me out of it. He just lets me be.
One night, he drove us out to the lake in his beat-up SUV with a trunk full of blankets and two mismatched thermoses of hot chocolate. The moon was a silver coin overhead, the lake glittering with its reflection.
We lay on the weathered dock in silence, the scent of pine and cold air all around us, the water gently lapping against the wood.
“You think this is going to break us?” I whispered after ten minutes of quiet.
Liam didn’t even look over when he answered. “No,” he said softly. “I think it’s going to make us.”
It’s thrilling.
It’s terrifying.
It’s mine.
I have Ava, who doesn’t bat an eye when I text her about any of it—who sends back chaotic gifs and relentless heart emojis and the occasional “You are living a literal dream.”
She’s the only person who knows everything. Well—almost everything.
Maya: You’re not going to believe this but Jake just tried to serenade me. With a ukulele.
