Page 41 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
She stares at him.
I raise my eyebrows. “You’d really do that?”
He looks at me, and there’s a flicker in his expression—warmth, certainty. Confidence. “Yeah. I like a challenge.”
Danielle glances between the two of us, then slowly sits up straighter. “Okay. All right. What would you need?”
“Table dimensions, a few materials, and about an hour,” he says, already moving toward the craft table like a man on a mission. “And coffee. Possibly cookies.”
Danielle sniffles. “I’ll get the coffee.”
He throws her a small smile. “Make it strong.”
Then he looks at me again—briefly—but long enough to send a strange little shiver down my spine. Something flickers in my chest—confusion, maybe. After last night, I half-expected distance, or at least discomfort.
But he’s here. Helping. Looking at me like he hasn’t spent the last twenty-four hours avoiding a second kiss. What does that mean?
His pencil’s already in hand, sketchbook flipped open as he starts scribbling something that, from where I’m standing, already looks impossibly elegant.
Danielle wipes under her eyes and stands. “If he pulls this off, I might actually kiss him.”
I laugh and turn away before she can see the weird way that sentence hits me.
His lines are fluid. Confident. Purposeful.
Each stroke of the pencil is deliberate—elegant, even. He sketches with the kind of ease that makes it clear he’s not guessing. Heknows.
Where the curve of a petal should sweep, how leaves should fall, how the centerpiece should guide the eye without overwhelming the table.
Danielle, seated beside him, leans closer, her mouth slightly open. “Holy crap. You’rereallygood.”
Ethan glances at her, giving a crooked smile like it’s no big deal. “I used to help my mom design stage sets,” he says. “She loved making things beautiful. Guess it rubbed off.”
Suddenly, we hear Danielle’s mom call out, “Danielle? Can you come here a moment?”
“Coming!” Danielle pushes to her feet before grumbling, “I swear to God, if she’s complaining about something, I’m going to snap.”
She leaves, and Ethan and I are suddenly alone.
I still don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m too caught up in watching him work. The way his brow furrows when he concentrates. The way his fingers dance over the page with a light, sure touch.
The way he looks at the world—like he’s always searching for details no one else notices. Like he wants to understand it, not just sketch it.
He flips to a fresh page, adjusting the sketchbook in his lap, and that’s when I see it.
It’s not a floral arrangement. It’s… me.
I blink, thinking maybe I imagined it, but the image is clear—too real and life-like to be mistaken.
I’m sitting by the window of the venue, exactly how I was two days ago. My hair is down, falling over one shoulder in loose waves, and I’m holding a mug between my hands.
I’m not facing the “camera”—his eyes, I guess—but there’s a peacefulness in the lines of my body.
A quiet I didn’t know I had. A softness I’ve never seen in myself.
I press a hand to my chest without meaning to. He saw me—quiet and still—in a way I never let myself be. Not even alone.
“Ethan…” I say in a breathy voice.
