Page 76 of Texts From My Exes
“No, do not put me on speaker,” Ezra snapped, immediately followed by, “Hi. Yes. Thank you. Tell him to shut up.”
He listened. Exhaled. “Yeah. I know. Okay. I know… because it’s Harper… because she’s—” He stopped, like the word he wanted had teeth. “Because she’s it.”
My heart did a full Olympic floor routine.
There was a pause, then Ezra’s voice softened in a way that shouldn’t have made my eyes sting and absolutely did. “I don’t want to mess her up. I want to fix what I broke. And I want to keep her. All of it sounds impossible at the same time.”
Another pause. A low laugh. “Right. Marry the girl. Very helpful. Revolutionary.”
He hung up.
I was already in the doorway, drowning in his T-shirt, hair a disaster, dignity somewhere under the bed with a rogue sock. He didn’t hear me, so I padded toward him, feeling him jolt under my hand as I traced my fingers over his shoulders to his chest.
He jumped, then raked a hand through his already perfect hair. “Please don’t be a hallucination or someone out to kidnap me.”
“Do you want to be kidnapped?” I asked, my voice thick. I slid into his lap, my heart fluttering with howrightit felt. I let my hip lean into the front of his sweats, grinning when I felt him press against me. His smile was sleepy, a little dorky and every part my best friend.
“What does it entail? This kidnapping?”
I traced my fingers down his chest, lower, teasing the waistband of his pants.”Your kidnapping?”
“I wanted him like air. I dipped my hand lower, brushing against hot bare skin. I could hardly form the words as I met his hungry gaze. “It involves a bit of exploring.”
“Yeah?” Ezra nearly shot off the chair as I grasped him, and I let go. “I like to explore.”
“No—no, come back!” I reached for him. “Should I keep going?”
Later, sweat cooling, limbs tangled, I traced shapes on his chest until he caught my hand and pressed it flat over his heart.
“Promise me when we wake up,” I whispered, surprising myself with how small my voice sounded. “It’ll still be like this.”
He stared at the ceiling for a beat like he was calculating trajectories and then—gentle, certain—“I promise.”
I wanted to ask for a notarized copy. Instead I tucked in closer and let the promise settle under my skin.
At some point I drifted off. I don’t know how long I slept—minutes, hours—but I woke to Ezra watching me like I was a sunrise he didn’t want to blink through.
“Creepy,” I muttered, smiling. “Stop staring.”
“By my calculations, we have approximately two hours before it’s adulting o’clock.”
His fingers slid into my hair, scratching lightly at my scalp until my eyes fluttered. “You’re dangerously easy to manage with head scratches. Noted.”
“Weaponized affection,” I sighed. “I’m powerless.”
“For the record,” he murmured, more serious than teasing now, “I meant it.”
“The calculator slander? Because I stand by it.”
“The promise.” He angled my face up so I had to meet his eyes. “I meant it.”
Something in my ribcage unclenched. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoed, like we’d signed a treaty.
A beat of quiet. Then my phone, traitorous as ever, lit up on the nightstand with a stack of notifications. Mentions. Tags. DMs. The outside world, knocking like it had a key.
I stared at it. He didn’t.
