Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Two weeks after Ellis stayed the night, my phone became a problem.
Not because of Ellis. Ellis texted like a person who’d been raised right.
Good morning messages that arrived around seven-thirty, photos of bad code his coworkers wrote with captions like “pray for me,” and the occasional link to a song that made him think of me.
Normal, sweet, boyfriend-adjacent behavior that wrecked me at inappropriate times.
The problem was everyone else.
Nico. Tyler. The guy whose name I’d saved as “Gym Shoulders” because I’d never learned his real one. Dex, whom I’d hooked up with twice in January and who texted every few weeks like clockwork. A handful of numbers I didn’t recognize anymore, probably from nights I barely remembered.
They kept texting. Because, of course they did. I hadn’t told any of them I was seeing someone. Hadn’t changed my profile on the apps. Hadn’t done any of the administrative work of actually being unavailable. Because unavailable meant real.
It was a Thursday night. Ellis was at his apartment in Brooklyn, working late on some server migration that had the whole IT department pulling overtime. I sat on my couch scrolling through messages I should’ve answered weeks ago.
Dex: hey stranger. free this weekend?
I stared at the text. Six weeks ago, I would’ve already been typing back. Dex was easy. Fun. No expectations, no feelings, no morning-after awkwardness because we’d perfected the art of the clean exit.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Then I thought about Ellis. About waking up next to him three mornings in a row last week because neither of us could think of a good reason to sleep apart.
About the toothbrush he’d left in my bathroom without asking, like it belonged there.
About the way he said my name when he was half-asleep, soft and certain, like I was the first thing his brain reached for.
I deleted the entire conversation with Dex. Then Nico. Then Tyler. Then Gym Shoulders and the nameless numbers and every last thread that belonged to the version of me that existed before Ellis walked into Foundation Fitness.
My phone sat lighter when I was done.
I called Sierra.
She picked up on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong?”
“You called instead of texted, and the last time you called me, your apartment flooded.” A pause. The click of a camera shutter in the background. “Talk to me.”
“I deleted every hookup in my phone.”
The shutter stopped. “Oh my god.”
“All of them. I just wiped them all out.”
“That’s growth.”
“It feels like jumping off a building and hoping there’s a net.”
“There’s a net. His name is Ellis.”
The question pressed heavy into the silence. Outside my window, a siren wailed and faded. The fairy lights buzzed with their low electric hum.
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin it. That I’ll get bored and hurt him.” My voice came out raw. “He’s too good for someone like me, Sierra.”
“You’re not that person anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that person wouldn’t have deleted those contacts. That person wouldn’t be calling me at ten o’clock on a Thursday night spiraling over this.” Her voice softened. “You’re changing, Jett. It’s terrifying. But it’s not trouble.”
I leaned back and pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes. The apartment swallowed sound without Ellis in it. When had that changed?
“I miss him, and he’s a few miles away. What kind of pathetic is that?”
Sierra laughed, soft and low. “The best kind.”
Movie night at Sierra’s apartment.
I showed up forty minutes late with a bag of microwave popcorn and a guilty conscience.
I’d been at Ellis’ place until five, tangled up in his sheets while he read code documentation and I scrolled through vendor quotes for an upcoming wedding.
Domestic. Boring. The kind of afternoon I never thought I’d choose over anything.
I’d almost bailed on movie night entirely.
The text I’d drafted to the group chat sat unsent in my phone: “Can’t make it tonight, feeling off.” Which was a lie. I was great. Better than I’d been in months. I just wanted to stay in Ellis’ bed, listening to him mutter at his laptop while his free hand rested on my thigh.
But I’d missed the last two movie nights. And the brunch before that. And Calliope’s birthday drinks. Missing again, would’ve crossed a line.
“He lives!” Calliope threw a pillow at me as I walked through Sierra’s door. “I was starting to think you’d been kidnapped.”
“Traffic.” Another lie. The subway ran fine.
Raven sat cross-legged on the floor, tarot cards spread in front of her. She glanced up. “You smell like cologne that isn’t yours.”
“I do not.”
“Cedar and citrus. That’s Ellis.” She returned to her cards. “At least shower before you lie to us.”
Sierra emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of actual popcorn, the stove-popped kind, because Sierra did everything the right way. She took one look at me and something crossed her face that I couldn’t untangle.
“Glad you made it.” She set the bowl on the coffee table. “We saved you a spot.”
I dropped onto the couch between Calliope and the armrest. The apartment was warm, cluttered with Sierra’s framed photographs and the stacks of photography books she kept meaning to organize.
Raven’s tarot deck occupied the coffee table.
Calliope had brought wine. The whole scene was so familiar it ached.
“So.” Calliope poured me a glass without asking. “When do we get to meet him?”
“Meet who?”
“Ellis. The famous Ellis who’s apparently replaced us as your entire social life.”
“He hasn’t replaced anyone.”
“You missed Raven’s tarot night.”
“I was working.”
“My birthday drinks.”
“I sent you flowers.”
“Two movie nights.” Calliope held up fingers. “Two. That’s unprecedented. Eight years you’ve never missed two in a row.”
She was right. Eight years. Four kids who’d kept each other alive since that cafeteria table.
And here I was, letting something come between them.
“I’m sorry.” Not enough. Not close. “I’ve been consumed.”
“We know.” Sierra’s voice carried no accusation. “We’re happy for you. But we miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” I took a sip of the wine Calliope had poured. Cheap and sweet, the kind she’d been buying since we were nineteen with fake IDs. “I’ll do better.”
“Bring him to meet us,” Raven said from the floor. “If he’s going to steal all your time, the least he can do is pass the vibe check.”
“I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“You’ve been dating for over a month.” Calliope’s eyebrows climbed. “How are you not there yet?”
Bringing Ellis here would mean merging two versions of me. The Jett who existed with these three women, unguarded and raw, and the Jett who existed with Ellis, still becoming someone new. Those two people in the same room terrified me.
If it went wrong, I’d lose everything.
If it went right, I’d have no walls left.
“It’s complicated.” The non-answer tasted bitter.
“It’s not, though.” Sierra picked at the edge of a popcorn kernel. “You’re keeping him separate because you’re scared. The same way you kept every hookup separate. The same way you keep anything that matters at arm’s length.”
That one landed.
“Can we watch the movie?” My voice came out tighter than I wanted. “Please?”
They let it go. Calliope pressed play on some horror film that had them screaming within fifteen minutes.
Raven provided running commentary about the “obvious” tarot symbolism in the set design.
Sierra photographed our reactions to the jump scares, her camera flash making everything feel documented and permanent.
I laughed at the right moments. Threw popcorn at the screen during the bad parts. Topped off everyone’s wine. Played my part. The loud one. The fun one.
But underneath, my phone sat heavy in my pocket. Ellis had texted an hour ago.
Ellis: How’s movie night?
I hadn’t answered yet. Not because I didn’t want to. Because answering meant existing in both places at once, and I couldn’t figure out how.
Around eleven, the movie ended. Calliope and Raven left first, arguing about whether the villain was “hot in a problematic way” or “problematic in a hot way.” Sierra walked them to the door, then came back and sat next to me on the couch.
“You’re not okay.” Not a question.
“I’m fine.”
“Jett.”
I stared at the blank TV screen. My reflection stared back, distorted by the curve. “What if I bring him around and you guys don’t like him?”
“We’ll like him.”
“But what if you don’t? What if he’s weird around you, or you’re weird around him, or it changes the group?”
“Then we figure it out.” She pulled her legs up underneath her. “But that’s not what you’re scared of.”
No. It wasn’t.
“I’m scared that if he sees me with you guys, he’ll see the real me. Not the confident version. Not the charming version. The messy, insecure, terrified version who needs his friends to tell him he’s not a disaster.”
Sierra didn’t answer right away. She reached over and squeezed my hand. Her fingers carried the chill of the wineglass, but her grip stayed steady.
“That’s the version worth loving, you idiot.”
My throat closed. I squeezed back.
“Give it time.” Her voice went gentle. “But don’t wait so long he thinks you’re ashamed of him. Because that’s what it looks like from the outside, Jett. It looks like hiding.”
Hiding.
“I’m not hiding him.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I didn’t have an answer. Not one that made sense outside my own head.
I texted Ellis back on the subway home.
Jett: Movie night was good. Sorry for the late reply.
Ellis: No worries. Is everything okay?
Jett: Yeah. Just thinking.
Ellis: About?
The cursor blinked and held. The subway car rattled through a tunnel, fluorescent lights stuttering.
Jett: My friends want to meet you.
Three dots. A pause that lasted two stops.
Ellis: I’d like that. Whenever you’re ready.
Whenever I was ready. He was patient and steady about it, which was somehow worse than impatience would have been.
I leaned my head against the cold subway window and closed my eyes.
Jett: Soon. I promise.
Ellis: No rush, Jett. I’m not going anywhere.
His words cracked something open inside me.
I rode the rest of the way home with my phone pressed against my chest, the screen dark.