What if he was Mine - Part Two: The New Guy

Drew’s never questioned how he feels about Jamie—until Jamie starts dating someone else. Suddenly, every laugh, every look, every touch that isn’t his feels like a warning sign he never saw coming. And when Drew sees Jamie through someone else’s eyes, he realizes the truth might have been right in front of him all along.

A slow-burn best-friends-to-lovers moment of jealousy, confusion, and the kind of ache that refuses to be ignored.

What if he was Mine 

He thought he’d always be the one beside Jamie—until someone else took his place.

Drew

I hear him before I see him.

His voice carries down the hall, light and teasing, the way it gets when he’s flirting. I pause with a spoon halfway to my mouth, listening without meaning to.

“Yeah, I’d be down. Just let me know when. Cool. Sounds good.”

A laugh. A pause. “No, you didn’t ruin anything. I was just… okay. Yeah. I’ll text you.”

The door creaks open a second later. Jamie steps into the kitchen, still smiling as he sets his phone on the counter and opens the fridge like nothing’s different.

But something is.

“You going out?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound casual.

He glances over. “Maybe. Got asked out, so… we’ll see.”

“With who?” I don’t know why I ask. I already hate the answer.

“Matt. Guy I met at the bookstore a couple weeks ago.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Bookstore guy, huh? That the one who knocked over the plant display trying to get your number?”

Jamie laughs. “The very one. At least he’s memorable.”

“Bold move,” I say, shoveling cereal into my mouth before something worse slips out.

He grabs a yogurt and leans against the counter, facing me. “You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re making that face like someone poured orange juice in your cereal.”

I smirk, swallowing. “That happened once. And I was betrayed.”

Jamie just shakes his head and opens his yogurt. Like everything’s normal. Like he’s not about to go out with some guy who makes him laugh like that.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. He’s my best friend. He should be dating.

So why does it feel like someone’s tightening a screw in the center of my chest?

I tell myself it’s not a big deal. Just brunch.

We meet up at our usual spot, me, Jamie, a few friends from college, and apparently… Matt.

He’s exactly what I expected: clean-cut, soft-spoken, smart. He talks about working in publishing and how he’s writing a novel on the side, which earns him instant points with the table. Even Jamie looks impressed.

Everyone seems to like him. Of course they do.

Matt’s polite and humble and casually good-looking in that quiet, artsy way. The kind of guy who reads poetry for fun and somehow pulls it off.

I try to focus on my coffee, but every time I glance up, Jamie’s smiling again. Leaning in. Laughing like it’s easy.

It gets harder to swallow my food.

“So, how’d you two meet?” one of our friends asks.

Matt chuckles. “He helped me pick up the entire romance section I knocked over in a bookstore.”

“Smooth,” I say, biting into a piece of toast a little harder than necessary. “Was that part of your strategy, or just bonus chaos?”

Jamie’s eyes cut toward me, not amused. “It was cute.”

Right. Cute.

“I think it’s sweet,” someone else adds. “Romantic meet-cutes are making a comeback.”

I force a laugh. “Guess I’ll have to start knocking over shelves more often.”

The conversation moves on, but my head doesn’t. I’m not listening to what Matt says next. I’m watching how Jamie looks at him when he says it.

Not just amused. Not just polite.

But interested.

I stab my fork into a pancake and try not to think about why it bothers me so much.

Because it shouldn’t.

He’s my best friend.

That’s all.

Right?

By the time I get home, I’ve got a headache I can’t shake and a stomach that still feels weirdly full, even though I barely ate.

I stretch out on the couch and let the TV play something I’m not watching. All I can see is Jamie, his eyes crinkling when Matt made that dumb joke about his writing process, the way his hand brushed Matt’s arm when he got up to pay for his coffee. Little things. Stupid things.

I tell myself it’s not a big deal. Jamie’s allowed to date. I want him to be happy.

Right?

So why does it feel like I’m stuck in the backseat of a car I didn’t realize I wasn’t driving?

I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the cushion.

Jamie’s attractive. Objectively. Always has been. Even my ex once asked if we’d ever hooked up. I laughed it off, told her she had nothing to worry about.

And I believed that.

I think.

But this feels different. This isn’t about Jamie being attractive. It’s about someone else seeing it. About watching someone else slide into the spot I didn’t even realize I was holding.

And maybe that’s the part that really messes me up—because when I picture Jamie laughing like that, leaning in, letting someone else close… I don’t want it to be anyone else.

I never did.

I just didn’t know it until now.

And maybe it’s not about losing a friend.

Maybe it’s about losing something I didn’t even know I had.

…………

I’m not trying to eavesdrop.

I just got back from grabbing takeout and walked in at the wrong moment, or maybe the right one, depending on how cruel the universe is feeling tonight.

Jamie and Matt are on the couch, a half-empty pizza box between them. There’s some random show playing on mute and an open beer in Jamie’s hand. He looks completely at ease. Relaxed in a way I don’t think I’ve seen in a while.

Matt says something I don’t catch.

Jamie throws his head back, laughing, loud and unfiltered and so real it knocks the breath out of me.

And Matt just watches him.

Like he’s already fallen. Like Jamie’s a sunrise he didn’t expect to get.

I freeze in the doorway.

It’s a look I’ve never seen on someone else’s face before. A kind of awe. A kind of wanting that goes way deeper than surface attraction.

Jamie doesn’t notice me standing there. He’s still laughing, nudging Matt with his knee like the two of them are in their own little world. And I’m not even part of it.

And that’s when it hits me.

I don’t want him to look at Matt like that. I don’t want Matt to get that version of Jamie. The soft, bright, unguarded one.

I want it. I want him.

Not someday. Not maybe. Not if we’re still single at forty.

Now.

I turn away before they see me.

Because I’m not ready to deal with what it means. Not yet.

But in my chest, the words land hard, sharp, and undeniable:

Don’t look at him like that. You don’t even know what you’re looking at.

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

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: September 2025

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