ALL
The story
I slept with my ex’s best friend on his wedding night—only to learn he’d wanted me for years, and my ex still hasn’t forgotten what it was like to have me.
Prologue
Daniel got married on a Saturday in June, and I sat in the fourth row and clapped like a normal person.
We dated three years. We ended it eight months ago, badly, at two in the morning in a parking garage.
By eleven, the reception had thinned to the people too drunk or too stubborn to leave.
I was outside on the hotel terrace with my shoes in my hand when Adrian found me.
Adrian Marchetti. Daniel's best friend since they were nine. Best man tonight.
He had spent the entire wedding not looking at me.
He was looking now.
His jacket was gone, his sleeves pushed past his forearms, two stolen glasses of champagne in one hand.
Adrian|“You survived.”
Protagonist|“Barely.”
He handed me one and leaned against the railing beside me.
One glass became another.
At some point the music behind the terrace doors softened into something distant and indistinct. The cold air felt good against skin made warm by champagne.
Neither of us was drunk enough not to know who the other was.
Just drunk enough that the reasons not to do this had started to feel very far away.
Adrian was saying something when I looked up at him.
He stopped halfway through the sentence.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then his hand found my waist.
I don't know who closed the distance first.
His mouth was on mine, warm and slightly unsteady, the taste of champagne still between us. I caught at the front of his shirt and he kissed me again, deeper this time, like whatever hesitation had survived the first kiss hadn't survived the second.
Somewhere inside, people cheered.
Adrian pulled back only far enough to breathe.
His forehead rested against mine, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused from the alcohol.
Adrian|“This is a terrible idea.”
His hand tightened at my waist.
Then he kissed me again.
