Page 87 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
I exhale, pacing a few steps toward my car and then away from it again. The bottle of wine in my other hand dangles uselessly at my side.
“She answered the door like she’d been crying for hours. Her voice was flat. She wouldn’t even look at me. Just said ‘okay’ to dinner and shut the door.”
I hear rustling, the scrape of a chair, and Liam’s voice in the background. “What’s going on?”
Jake must’ve put me on speaker, because a second later I hear him say, “Ethan’s at Maya’s. Something’s up.”
“She didn’t say anything?” Liam asks, voice low and tight with concern.
“Nothing, and it wasn’t just a bad mood,” I say, pacing again, my hand tightening around the phone. “She looked… hollow. Like she’s barely hanging on.”
There’s another pause. Then Liam declares, “I’m heading over.”
“Me too,” Jake says. No hesitation. His voice hardens, all business now. “Ten minutes.”
The call disconnects, and I’m left standing in the street with the phone still pressed to my ear.
I stare at her house, the warm light behind the curtains in the front room. Everything looks normal. Like the world didn’t just tilt sideways.
I walk slowly back to my car but don’t get in. Instead, I lean against the driver’s side door and slide down until I’m sitting on the curb.
The concrete is cool through my jeans. I set the wine bottle beside me, then scrub both hands over my face.
Whatever’s going on—whatever’s hurting her—she doesn’t get to carry it alone.
Not anymore.
Not with the three of us here.
I glance up as a familiar engine hums around the corner—Liam’s Jeep. Jake’s bike won’t be far behind.
We’re not always the best at saying the right things. Hell, we’re probably flying blind most days when it comes to this…thingbetween the four of us.
But when it counts?
We show up. And right now, Maya needs us.
Chapter thirty-six
MAYA
I’ve paced the same path across my living room so many times, I’m sure I’ve worn a groove into the hardwood. The boards beneath my feet creak like they’re tired of hearing my steps, of holding the weight of my spiraling thoughts.
My hand keeps drifting to my stomach. Like somehow, pressing my palm there will stop the swirling in my head.
Of course, it doesn’t.
It just reminds me this is real. This is happening.
I’m pregnant.
The test still sits in my velvet pouch, proof I didn’t hallucinate the two pink lines that changed everything.
I didn’t throw it away. I couldn’t. Every time I look at it, it dares me to say the words out loud.To make it real.
I don’t know how to say it.
I almost let it slip to Ethan. He was just here. God, he looked at me like heknewsomething was off. I shut the door on him like a coward.
