What if he was Mine - Part Three: He Asks Me How It Went

What if your best friend finally said the thing you’ve been waiting years to hear—right when someone else already did?

Jamie’s trying to move on, and for one night, it almost feels easy. But Drew’s silence says more than words ever could… until the words finally come. Too late, too messy—and too close to everything Jamie ever wanted.

Part Three: He Asks Me How It Went

He waited too long to say it—now Jamie’s not sure he wants to hear it.

Jamie

I’m still smiling when I unlock the door.

Not the big, stupid kind that gives everything away, just a quiet tug at the corners of my mouth. The kind you get after a good night. A better-than-you-expected date. The kind of night that reminds you maybe you’re not as hard to love as you thought.

I try to push it down before I step inside, but the second I see Drew on the couch, barefoot, hoodie on, half-watching some rerun I’ve seen a hundred times, I feel it creep back up.

He glances over when the door shuts. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

I toss my keys into the bowl by the door and head toward the kitchen. The smile’s still there. I don’t mean for it to be.

“Are you just getting back?” he asks.

I nod, grabbing a glass of water. “Yeah.”

“How’d it go?”

His tone’s light. A little too light. Like he’s asking about the weather or what I ordered for dinner, nothing important. But we both know it is.

I lean against the counter, watching him. “It was good.”

He hums, like that’s all he needed to hear, then turns back to the screen. “Cool.”

That’s it. No teasing. No follow-up questions. Not even a smirk.

Just cool.

I study the way he holds the remote, the tightness in his jaw, the way his foot taps once against the floor before he catches himself.

There’s a shift in the air I can’t name, but it lands heavy, like something unsaid just took up space between us.

And it doesn’t feel cool at all.

It’s not just tonight.

I’ve been noticing it more and more lately, little shifts I try to ignore. The way Drew cut in at brunch when Matt was talking. The way he barely looked at me when I got home from that first date. The weird pauses, the short replies, the way his eyes linger just a second too long.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m imagining it.

God knows I’ve done that before, read into every laugh, every look, every stupid “what if” moment I tucked into the corners of my chest and told myself to stop thinking about.

But something’s different now. I can feel it. And it’s messing with my head.

I try to rationalize it. Drew’s just protective. That’s always been his thing. Big brother energy. He doesn’t trust easily, and I’m his person. Of course he’s going to be skeptical of anyone new.

Right?

But it doesn’t feel like skepticism anymore. It feels like something else. Something sharper.

And the worst part?

It makes me hope.

After all this time, after I’ve spent years convincing myself it could never be more, that I’d rather have him as a friend than lose him altogether. It still stings in a very specific way when he gets quiet after I talk about someone else.

Because a part of me has always wished he’d be jealous.

And now that it almost feels like he is?

I grip the glass a little harder, knuckles tight… I clench the glass in my hand a little tighter, jaw locked. Because I’ve spent years keeping quiet—trying not to need anything more than friendship. And now he shows up in the margins of something real, acting like he’s owed the middle? No. You don’t get to show up now and act like I’m still yours.

It just makes me angry.

I clench the glass in my hand a little tighter, jaw locked. It’s the kind of anger that simmers just beneath wanting—sharp and stupid and still not enough.

You don’t get to be jealous. Not if you were never going to choose me.

We’re both back on the couch now, pretending to watch some mindless show neither of us picked. It’s the kind of quiet that isn’t uncomfortable, but it’s not easy, either.

I need something real. Something that doesn’t feel like a game we’re both too afraid to lose.

So I say it.

“Tonight was good,” I offer, eyes on the screen. “Matt’s… nice.”

Drew doesn’t say anything.

“I think what I liked most was that he saw me.” I pause. “Like—not just the surface stuff. Not just the fact that I’m loud or sarcastic or good at pretending I’m fine when I’m not. But all of it.”

He looked at me like I wasn’t too much. Like the way I talk with my hands, the way I get too passionate about dumb things like horror movies or queer theory, wasn’t exhausting. It was the first time I didn’t feel like I had to tone myself down to be worth staying for.

And when I told him about my family—about the mess and the distance and all the things I usually leave out—he didn’t flinch. He didn’t make it feel like something he had to fix or tiptoe around. Just… listened. Like I wasn’t hard work. Like I was enough.

I can feel Drew’s stillness beside me. He’s not looking at me, but he’s not moving either.

“It’s harder than people think,” I continue, voice soft. “Letting someone in when you’re used to being too much for everyone else. Too intense. Too open. Too… whatever.”

I shrug, as if it doesn’t matter. As if I haven’t been carrying this around for years.

“Anyway. It was nice not having to explain myself.”

Drew shifts slightly, just enough for me to notice, but not enough to say anything.

I don’t push. I could. God knows I want to. But I’ve learned to live in the quiet. To take what I’m given and pretend it’s enough.

Even if it isn’t.

Because sometimes silence says more than anything else ever could.

And I wonder, not for the first time, if Drew’s ever really seen me that way.

And if he has… maybe that’s worse.

…………

I’m brushing my teeth when my phone buzzes on the bathroom counter.

I glance down, expecting a text.

It’s not.

It’s Drew. Calling. At 12:42 a.m.

I hesitate just long enough for it to almost go to voicemail before I pick up.

“Hello?”

There’s a beat of silence, then a shaky exhale. “You answered.”

His voice is low. Slurred. Like he’s been drinking, but not enough to completely lose control. Just enough to let things slip.

“Yeah,” I say slowly, wiping my mouth with a towel. “What’s going on?”

“You’re not supposed to fall for someone else.”

My breath catches and I go completely still.

“Drew…”

“I was here first.” His voice cracks on the last word. “I’ve been here the whole time, Jamie. You’re not supposed to leave me behind.”

That last part is whispered, cracking at the edges. I sit down on the edge of the tub. My hand gripping the phone tighter than I probably should.

“I see you. I always have. I just—” He trails off, breath ragged. “I didn’t know how to want you without ruining everything.”

And there it is. The thing I’ve wanted to hear more than anything… and the one thing I don’t know how to believe.

Because it’s not sober. It’s not clean.

It’s messy and late and breaking him open.

And it’s breaking me, too.

“Drew,” I whisper, throat tight. “You can’t say this now. Not like this.”

He doesn’t respond. I hear him breathing, hear the weight of it all on the other end of the line.

And I hate that it still feels like too little, too late.

Because if he really saw me all this time…

Then why did you wait until someone else saw me first?

I waited, Drew. For years, I waited for you to see me the way I saw you. And now you call me after midnight, drunk and breaking, like I’m still supposed to be yours?

                    To be continued… Come back tomorrow for Part Four..

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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Published by LS Phoenix

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First Edition: September 2025

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