Chapter 13
LAINE
My tree is drunk.
That's the only explanation for why I'm swaying like a palm in a hurricane while everyone else in class holds their poses with serene stillness.
My raised foot keeps sliding down my standing leg.
My arms, supposedly branches reaching toward the ceiling, are wobbling like they're caught in a windstorm.
Blake's hands on my waist. The rough wool of the blanket between us. The way he tasted like coffee and cold air.
I tip sideways.
Jamila's hand shoots out and grabs my elbow, steadying me. We both lose our poses completely, and a giggle escapes before I can stop it. She snorts, which makes me laugh harder, and suddenly we're both shaking with suppressed laughter while the instructor shoots us a glare.
"Sorry," Jamila whispers, not sounding sorry at all.
I press my lips together and try to find my center again. Root down through your standing foot. Engage your core. Find a focal point.
His mouth opening under mine. The sound he made—half groan, half protest.
My tree crashes again.
Jamila doesn't even try to catch me this time. She just watches me stumble with raised eyebrows, her own pose annoyingly perfect.
The rest of class is a disaster. My warrior two looks more like warrior-who-stayed-up-all-night. My downward dog keeps collapsing. By the time we reach savasana, I'm so grateful to lie flat on my back that I almost cry.
But even in corpse pose, my brain won't stop.
Why did you kiss me?
Because I had to know.
Know what?
If it was real.
God. What is wrong with me? Reid is trying. Really trying. He apologized. He's giving me space. He's doing everything right. There's a possibility there. And what do I do? I kiss his best friend. His brother. The man who spent months making me feel worthless.
I kissed Blake Moore.
And oh my god, I want to do it again. This is so wrong. I'm so wrong.
"Okay," Jamila says as we roll up our mats. "You're really off today. Like, spectacularly off. Even for you."
"Thanks."
"I mean it." She studies my face with concern. "Smoothie? Breakfast? Both?"
"Yes," I say, and the desperation in my voice surprises us both. "Please. I need—yes."
Twenty minutes later, we're tucked into a corner booth at the same place Reid took me on our first date. The irony isn't lost on me. Jamila orders pancakes. I order coffee and nothing else because my stomach is a knot of shame and confusion.
"So," Jamila says, wrapping her hands around her mug. "Talk to me."
I stare at the scratched tabletop. "I don't know where to start."
"The beginning usually works."
"The beginning was months ago."
She waits. Patient. The way good friends wait. I haven't actually had a lot of good friends, but I'm learning.
"You know Reid and I broke up," I finally say.
"You mentioned. Vaguely. Once." There's something in her voice—a slight edge I haven't heard before.
"I know. I'm sorry. I should have—"
"Laine." She sets down her mug. "We've been friends for months.
We do yoga together twice a week. We get smoothies.
We text about good books and terrible Netflix shows.
And when you went through what was clearly something huge, you just..
. disappeared. Said you and Reid split, and then changed the subject every time I tried to ask about it. "
The hurt in her eyes makes my chest ache.
"I didn't mean to shut you out."
"But you did."
"I know." I wrap my hands around my own mug, needing something to hold onto. "I'm not... I'm new at this. Having friends. Real ones. The kind you actually tell things to."
"What do you mean?"
"I moved every year growing up. Sometimes more.
I learned to keep things surface-level because what's the point of going deep with someone you'll never see again?
" The words come out rough. "And then I was a travel nurse for a decade, same thing.
I had work friends, sure. People to grab drinks with.
But not people I called when things fell apart. "
Jamila's expression softens slightly. "I'm not a work friend, Laine."
"I know that now. I think I knew it then too, I just..." I take a shaky breath. "I didn't know how to let you in. I'm out of practice. Or maybe I never learned in the first place."
The waitress arrives with Jamila's pancakes. The interruption gives me a moment to gather myself.
"Okay," Jamila says, cutting into her stack. "So teach me. What actually happened with Reid? And why are you shaking during tree pose like you've seen a ghost?"
I laugh, but it comes out strangled. "Because I kissed Blake last night."
Her fork freezes halfway to her mouth. "Blake. Reid's roommate Blake?"
"That's the one."
"Holy shit, Laine."
"Exactly."
"Start from the beginning. The real beginning."
So I do.
"That asshole!"
Turns out, friends have opinions. Strong ones.
"Yeah, it wasn't the nicest thing he could have done."
Jamila's eyes widen. "Not the nicest th— Laine! He was trying to destroy you. Call it what it is lady!"
"He did," I admit. The words feel heavy leaving my mouth. "Do some damage, I mean. I started second-guessing everything. Monitoring myself constantly—what I said, how I moved, whether I was being 'too much' in Reid's space. I stopped feeling like myself."
"And then you kissed him." Jamila's voice is carefully neutral. "The guy who made you feel worthless for months."
"When you say it like that, it sounds insane."
"Because it is insane, Laine." She sets down her fork. "Help me understand. Because right now I'm looking at my friend who just told me a man systematically tried to destroy her relationship and her sense of self, and that same friend kissed him last night. The math is not mathing."
I wrap my hands tighter around my coffee mug. The ceramic is barely warm now.
"There was something there. At the beginning." The confession feels like pulling splinters from under my skin. "Before he turned cruel. This... spark. Chemistry. Whatever you want to call it."
"With Blake."
"With Blake." I close my eyes. "The first time we met, he was covered in sawdust and barely said two words to me.
But when he looked at me—" I shake my head.
"I told myself I was imagining it. Reid was right there, and I was falling for Reid, and Blake was his best friend.
His brother. So I ignored it. But there were other moments when I saw it too. I felt it."
"And then he started being awful."
"And then he started being awful," I agree. "Which made it easy to forget that spark ever existed. It's hard to feel attracted to someone who's actively trying to make you feel like garbage."
Jamila nods slowly. "So what changed?"
"He confessed. The night before he left for Afghanistan.
" I stare at the scratched tabletop, tracing a groove with my fingernail.
"Showed up at my apartment with a bloody face—Reid had beaten the heck out of him—and told me he'd been in love with me since the beginning.
That all the cruelty was him trying to make us both hate him so he could leave. "
Her mouth drops open. "That's... fucked up. And kind of stupid. Men are so dumb. Thank god I'm into women."
"It is f-fucked up." I finally look up at her. "And I didn't know what to do with it. I was so angry. Still am, honestly. But also—" I struggle to find the words. "He was gone for three months. In a war zone. And I couldn't stop thinking about what he said."
"So last night...?"
"Last night we were at the homeless camp. Both volunteering. And he was different. Open. Real." I still remember the feel of him, how solid he was under my weight as we sat by the heat lamp. "He told me things. About his service, about a soldier who died in his arms. Personal things. And I just—"
One eyebrow wings up. "Lost your mind?"
"Had a moment of madness." I laugh, but it's manic. "I kissed him. Really kissed him. And he kissed me back for about three seconds before he pulled away and freaked out."
Jamila is quiet for a long moment. Then: "How did it feel?"
"The kiss?"
"The kiss. Him. All of it."
I think about Blake's hands on my face. The scratch of his stubble. The way he tasted like coffee and cold air. The sound he made—half groan, half protest—before he wrenched himself away.
"It felt like something," I whisper. "That's what I told him. He asked, and I said it felt like something."
"Something good?"
"Something real." I press my palms against my eyes. "Which makes me a terrible person, right? Because I still love Reid. I do. When I saw him last week, my heart actually hurt. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to go back to being us. Those feelings didn't go anywhere."
"But now you have feelings for Blake too."
"I don't know what I have for Blake." I drop my hands. "Attraction? Obviously. Some kind of connection? Maybe. But feelings? Real feelings? How can I have real feelings for someone who spent months being so horrible?"
Jamila reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist. "You can have both, you know. You can be angry at what he did and still feel something for who he is underneath. Humans are complicated like that."
"It feels like a betrayal. Of Reid. Of myself." My voice cracks. "I spent so long trying to make things work with Blake, trying to get him to accept me, and he just kept pushing me away. And now that I'm free—technically single—I kiss him? What does that say about me?"
"It says you're human." Jamila's grip tightens. "It says you had an impulse and you acted on it. Not the smartest move, maybe, but not unforgivable either."
"Reid would be devastated."
"Reid doesn't get a vote right now. You're not together.
" She releases my wrist and picks up her fork again.
"Look, I'm not saying what you did was a good idea.
Kissing your ex's best friend—who also happens to be the guy who tormented you—is objectively messy.
But you're allowed to be messy, Laine. You're allowed to not have all the answers. "