27. Darcy
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
darcy
The windows are open for the first time since I moved in, and every few minutes a cool breeze moves through the apartment carrying that sharp early spring Boston air that somehow still smells a little like winter.
The curtains lift softly when it comes through, and the whole place feels different with sunlight stretching across the floors instead of the permanent gray radiator haze I’ve apparently been living in since February.
I’ve already made the bed twice, reorganized the fruit bowl for absolutely no reason, and straightened the towels hanging on the bathroom rack three separate times.
Bex is the one person who’s known every version of me since I was eight years old.
She knew me before Brett. She knew me during Brett, which honestly feels more incriminating.
And now she’s about to meet whatever version of me exists here in Boston—the one who goes to farmers markets on Saturdays, willingly attends Pilates, and sleeps with her two ridiculously hot landlords.
I’d tried getting ahead of this over the phone. Three separate conversations’ worth of strategic vagueness before she started dismantling every defense mechanism I’ve developed since the third grade.
“So you’re in a soft-launch throuple with your landlords.”
“Bex! Definitely not calling it that.”
“I’m not calling it anything.”
She’d paused just long enough for me to think I’d won.
“I’m observing it.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Darcy…the situation you just described is the opposite of complicated. You know exactly what’s happening. You just don’t want to say it out loud yet.”
Which, unfortunately, is still one of the rudest things anyone has ever said to me because she wasn’t wrong.
Giving up on the kitchen before I find another completely unnecessary thing to straighten, I change outfits for the second time instead, eventually landing on light-wash jeans, a cream ribbed top, and white sneakers worn in enough that they look intentional instead of suburban-adjacent.
Close enough.
Bex’s flight should be arriving in the next fifteen minutes.
Keys in hand, I head for the airport.
I spot Bex before she spots me, which almost never happens.
She’s already acquired an iced coffee somewhere between baggage claim and the curb and is standing outside Terminal B scanning the pickup lane like she’s conducting a security assessment instead of waiting for her best friend.
The weekender hangs off one shoulder, sunglasses are on despite the clouds, and the heel on her boots has absolutely no business in an airport.
The sunglasses slide down her nose as she spots me.
“Oh my God!”
She closes the distance in about four strides and pulls me into a hug hard enough to rock me back on my heels, my arms wrapping around her automatically.
She leans back, hands still on my shoulders, and studies my face, her eyes widening.
“You’re glowing.”
“I’m not—”
“You look like a before-and-after ad for good therapy and orgasms.”
An older couple walking past slows just enough to stare.
“Bex!”
“What?” she says, genuinely confused. “I’m speaking at a perfectly reasonable volume.” She glances toward them. “It’s not my fault people in this city are nosy.”
I grab her arm, laughing despite myself.
“Shhh—”
She snags her weekender off the ground and falls into step beside me like the conversation never paused.
“You’ve been laid.”
“Bex.”
“Recently.”
“Oh my God.”
“Multiple times,” she says matter-of-factly. “By people who clearly knew what they were doing.”
I feel my face start to flush.
“We are absolutely not doing this in the pickup lane.”
“Then take me to the apartment,” she says without missing a beat, “because I need to see where all your bad decisions live.”
Bex drops her weekender just inside the door and slowly turns in a circle.
“Ohhh.”
“What?”
“It’s even cuter in person.”
I laugh.
“You’ve seen pictures.”
“Pictures don’t do it justice...”
Her eyes travel around the room, taking everything in.
“The blue couch. The exposed brick…there are actual colors in here.”
“I know.”
She looks back at me.
“This is so you.”
“It is?”
“Darcy.” She gestures around the apartment. “There’s texture, there’s personality. Brett would’ve had a heart attack.”
The smile slips before I can stop it.
“He probably would’ve hated the couch.”
“He would’ve hated all of it.”
She smiles.
“Which is exactly how I know you picked it.”
She moves further into the kitchen, opening the fridge.
“You have actual food in here.”
“I’ve always had food.”
“No, you’ve always had Lactaid and an assortment of prepared foods that were deemed appropriate by your former housemate.”
“I resent how accurate that is.”
Bex keeps looking.
“…Is that parsley?”
“It’s cilantro.”
She gasps dramatically.
“Oh my God. She knows the difference.”
I roll my eyes.
“I go to the farmer’s market now.”
Her head snaps toward me.
“They dick you down and show you where to buy the best heirloom tomatoes. Fascinating.”
I say nothing, which is its own answer and we both know it.
“Thought so.”
Coffee still in hand, Bex wanders toward the bedroom before I can stop her.
“Bex—”
“Relax. I’m sightseeing.”
She disappears around the corner, and a second later I hear a soft, thoughtful hum.
“Wow.”
I find her standing just inside the doorway, slowly looking around.
“This…feels like you.”
“That’s alarmingly sincere.”
“I know. Hate that for both of us.”
Her eyes drift across the room again.
“But seriously, Darce. You feel settled.”
I look around after she says it, taking it all in—Gerald reaching toward the window. The half-finished book on my nightstand with the bookmark sticking out crooked because I’d actually planned on coming back to it.
None of it feels temporary anymore.
She lets me sit with that for exactly one second before clapping her hands together.
“Okay.” She settles into the couch. “Now tell me everything about the firefighters.”
I groan softly and drop onto the opposite end of the couch, pulling one leg underneath me while Bex watches like she already knows I’m about to incriminate myself.
“I hate that you know me this well.”
“You love it.”
For a second I just stare at the condensation sliding down the side of my water glass, trying to figure out where to even start, because the problem with Tyler and Mack is that there isn’t actually one story.
It’s a hundred small moments layered on top of each other until suddenly I’m here, sitting on my couch trying to explain how two men somehow worked their way under my skin before I noticed it happening.
Or before I admitted it.
And because it’s Bex—and because I’ve been carrying all of this around in my own head long enough that it’s started swelling against my chest—I tell her anyway.
She starts piecing it together almost immediately. The timeline, the overlap, the places where my voice betrays me slightly when I talk about them. When I finally stop talking, she’s looking at me like none of this is news.
“So,” she says eventually. “Let me make sure I understand.”
“That sentence has literally never improved my life.”
“You moved to Boston, met two hot firefighters who are also your landlords, and accidentally developed feelings for both of them.”
“We’re not calling it that.”
“Fine.” She shifts further into the couch. “We’ll revisit terminology later.”
I narrow my eyes at her while she watches me with entirely too much satisfaction.
Then she tilts her head slightly.
“Which one do you think about when you’re alone?”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
Bex crosses one leg over the other.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I was literally about to answer.”
“You hesitated, Darcy.”
“I was thinking.”
“You were stalling.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh.
“It’s different with both of them.”
“So I’ve gathered.”
“It is.”
“I believe you.”
Her voice softens slightly when she says it, and I realize she’s being sincere instead of just enjoying my psychological collapse.
“You’re being weirdly reasonable about all of this.”
“I’m always reasonable…”
“Bex.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I roll my eyes while she takes another sip of iced coffee and adds casually, “Also, I looked them both up online.”
I stare at her.
“You what?”
“There’s a Station 37 community outreach page.”
She shrugs one shoulder.
“They post crew photos.”
“You internet stalked my landlords?”
“Wrong.” She lifts a finger. “I background-checked my best friend’s new fuck buddies like any responsible adult.”
“Oh my God…”
“Did you know they have cousins in Colorado?”
“Please stop talking…”
“I needed context,” she says, completely unapologetic. “And the photos did not disappoint.”
She’s not wrong. The photos somehow managed to undersell how unfairly attractive all of them are in person and still made me put my phone face down afterward like I’d accidentally opened something NSFW.
“We’re not discussing this.”
“Fine,” Bex says easily. “Then we can discuss the text you got while I was in the bathroom.”
My stomach drops instantly.
She’s already leaning across the couch reading my screen by the time I reach for my phone. She stopped respecting my privacy somewhere around middle school and honestly never looked back.
Tyler
Bex make it to Boston?
Darcy
Made it? She’s practically moved in already.
Tyler
Boston does that to you ;)
Darcy
Don’t get her started. She has strong opinions about New England sports.
Mack
Bring her to the Bell tonight.
Darcy
Who said we’re going to the Bell?
Mack
You are now.
Tyler
Yeah, let’s hear these opinions in person.
Tyler
Plus, it’s Ladies’ Night.
Bex’s eyebrows climb higher with each line as she reads the message out loud, while I sit there feeling weirdly defensive despite having done nothing wrong.
“They insisted,” I say immediately. “To be clear, I did not arrange this.”
“Ahh.” She grins. “So that’s the dynamic.”
“There is no dynamic.”
“Darcy.” She taps the screen lightly. “One of them invited us out, and the other one told you that you’re going.”
She hands my phone back and leans back against the couch.
“Darcy.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying, men who think something is casual don’t demand to meet your best friend within twenty-four business hours.”
“That feels made up.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We’re going,” I tell her before I can spiral any further. “But you need to behave.”
“I always behave.”
I glance at her sideways.
“I behave in ways that feel authentic to me.”
I drop my head back against the couch cushion with a groan while she smiles over her cup.
“Wear something hot,” she says. “I want to watch them look at you.”
“Oh my God.”
“What?” She shrugs. “I support women.”
I roll my eyes and reach for my phone.
Darcy
See you boys tonight.
Tyler
Can’t wait.
Mack
Wasn’t so hard, was it?
Ridiculous.
And somehow I’m smiling at my phone anyway.