Chapter 26 Now #2
“Tell me it’s not a textbook friends-to-lovers arc,” he says, sliding his hand across the booth seat until it finds mine under the table. His fingers curl around mine, casual enough to pass as nothing if anyone looked but purposeful enough that my pulse quickens.
“You’re not wrong,” I reply with a laugh that comes out a little shaky.
“Maybe book three isn’t about a meet-cute after all. Maybe it’s this. Maybe we’ve been writing it the whole time.”
There’s a moment, a split second, where it almost feels romantic. Like maybe this is the kind of story I’d want to tell. But then—
“If you go that route, you obviously have to dedicate it to me. Or I guess I can settle for a name-drop in the acknowledgments.”
He says it with a wink, like it’s a joke, like he doesn’t remember that I’ve been here before. That I already gave someone the dedication once, and it blew up in my face. Publicly. Permanently.
I laugh, because I’m supposed to. Because we’re at a diner, and it’s a Sunday, and he’s still holding my hand under the table. But suddenly none of this is funny. It’s all too scary. Too real.
With Cole, I had blinders on. I walked straight into a future I wasn’t built for, just because I wanted it to work.
I kept writing the story, even when the plot was falling apart.
And while I can look back now and recognize all the places we went wrong, what I can’t do is repeat those patterns with someone else.
History can’t repeat itself. Not here. Not now.
Not with Lucas. If I lose him, I’m not just losing a relationship. I’m losing my person.
The fear comes in slow at first, and then it builds. What if I’m projecting? What if last night was just some overdue nostalgia-fueled mistake, and now he’s going to regret it? What if I’m the one who regrets it? What if we crossed a line we can’t uncross?
I poke at my pancakes. Lucas is talking about something, maybe Aaron and Maddie, maybe his mom.
I’m not sure, because I’ve stopped listening.
I nod along and smile at the right moments, but it’s happening—I’m starting to panic.
By the time the check comes, my hand has quietly slipped out from his, and I’ve already built a tiny little wall around myself.
When we step outside, the sun is too bright. Winston trots down the sidewalk like he didn’t just sleep sandwiched between two people who may or may not have upended almost an entire decade of friendship in twelve hours.
“I actually have a few errands I need to run,” I say, tugging gently on Winston’s leash. “Groceries. Laundry. Just stuff.”
Lucas doesn’t question it. He just nods and kisses my cheek. “I’ll text you later,” he says.
I smile and wave, wait until he turns the corner, and then head inside. I lock the door behind me like that might be enough to keep all my thoughts out.
It’s not.
I sink to the kitchen floor, my back against the cabinets.
Winston circles once, then lies down next to me with a soft huff, his chin resting on my thigh like he can tell that something’s off.
And then it hits me like a slow wave, like my body was waiting until the door closed to let the feelings crash in.
Last night was good. It was so good. The kind of good that makes you forget what it feels like to brace for impact.
The kind of good that makes you believe maybe, just maybe, you could do this again.
How could I be stupid enough to believe this could actually work?
That we were meant to be? When does friends-to-lovers ever happen in real life? I’ll tell you: Never.
The stories make it sound so simple, don’t they?
The best friend who’s secretly in love with the main character.
Pages full of longing looks, slow realizations, and then the inevitable happily ever after.
It’s a whole subcategory of the romance genre.
But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: In real life, being “just friends” isn’t something you romantically overcome.
It’s a trap. The friend zone is a comfortable box you get shoved into, and once you’re there, it’s nearly impossible to climb out. Not without paying a price.
I think about every friends-to-lovers novel I’ve ever read. They always end the same way—with a big realization, a grand confession, and then the kiss that makes everything make sense. But there are never any stories about what comes after that.
No one writes about what happens if it doesn’t work out.
When one person moves on and the other is left to pick up the pieces, suddenly, utterly alone.
No one talks about how you’ll never go back to being just friends after you’ve crossed that line or how it feels to watch them fall in love with someone else while you’re still trying to get used to sleeping in an empty bed while also not texting your best friend through the heartbreak.
Real life rarely works like the books. People are messy, and relationships are messier. I think a part of me knew that all along, which is why I was afraid to jump into anything headfirst. Let alone anything with Lucas.
I let out a shaky breath, my eyes fighting to hold back tears, but one falls anyway.
I wanted to believe in it—the allure of the romance novels I write.
I wanted to believe, even in just one night, that Lucas and I could be the exception.
That we could go from friends to something more, something better, without breaking everything we had.
It was naive of me to think that I could ever have that kind of happily ever after.
Not without losing myself somehow. Just like I did before.
The girl with the dedications but not the happily ever after.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and try to breathe through it.
“You’re fine,” I whisper. “You’re fine.”
But I don’t feel fine. I feel even worse than I did the night Cole broke up with me, and that’s saying something. I open my laptop, bracing myself to write the ending to the story I spent years convincing myself was love.