Page 17 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
God, I forgot how good that laugh is. Howeasyit makes everything feel.
But even as she laughs, there’s this… edge to her. Like she’s running a marathon in heels—smiling through it, but one wrong step away from collapse.
And I don’t know what’s worse: that I can see it, or that I don’t know how to help ease the weight she’s carrying.
“It’s a brunch menu tasting,” she says, finally managing some semblance of control. “Eggs. Fruit. Mini pastries. Not exactly your wheelhouse unless you’ve recently developed a thing for spinach quiche.”
I shrug. “I contain multitudes. I’m a mystery. A breakfast-loving enigma.”
“More like a human garbage disposal,” Ethan mutters from the other end of the table without looking up from his notes.
“Hey, some people find that charming,” I shoot back.
“Who?” Liam asks, deadpan.
I gesture toward Maya. “She’s clearly charmed.”
Maya arches a brow. “Clearly,” she says dryly, but she’s smiling again—and not the polite, let’s-move-on kind. It’s the real kind. The kind that lights her up from the inside. The kind I always found myself chasing back when I had any excuse to be around her.
The rest of the meeting passes in a blur of logistics and lists, Ethan actually taking notes, Liam fielding calls from the DJ, and Maya commanding chaos with a clipboard and calm precision.
I keep at it. Little jabs, dumb puns, flirty comments designed with one goal in mind: Get her to laugh again.
And itworks.Every time. And every time she laughs, I feel it in my chest. Like a punch I didn’t brace for. Like a memory that stings in the best way.
By the time we’re wrapping up, she’s standing next to me, going over final confirmations, and I realize she’s close. Really close.
I can see the gold flecks in her eyes, the faint smudge of ink on her wrist from jotting notes too fast, the way her hair slips from behind her ear when she tilts her head slightly toward me.
She glances up, catching me staring. “You okay?”
I clear my throat. “Yup. Just… thinking about quiche.”
She laughs again, and damn it, there it is. That warmth. That pull.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says, shaking her head.
“Guilty,” I murmur, and I don’t mean it as a joke this time.
Because the longer I stand here, the more dangerous it feels. The more my mind wanders—what if I leaned in a little closer? What if I touched her hand, just to see if she still pulls away, or maybe… doesn’t?
It’s ridiculous. I know that.
But so is she—standing here all calm and glowing, like she doesn’t have a clue how wrecked I still am for her.
And that clipboard she’s holding? Not half as dangerous as what she’s doing to my self-control.
***
That night, I’m sprawled in bed, one arm tucked behind my head, the other scrolling absently through my phone—but my eyes aren’t really on the screen.
I’m hearing her laugh again, that rich, warm sound like it’s echoing right next to me. I see her eyes light up, the way they catch the light with flecks of gold. I remember the way her lips parted when she smiled, soft and easy, like the world paused for a second.
And yeah—now my mind is going there. No use pretending otherwise.
I let myself sink into it, eyes closed, replaying every detail, letting it wash over me like a slow burn.
The way she brushed her fingers through her hair when she was thinking, twisting the strands between her fingers, and part of me wants to reach out and run my hands through those silky locks.
