Page 15 of Shared by my Ex’s Best Friends (Twisted Desires #2)
Chapter fifteen
LIAM
T he reception hall smells like eucalyptus and wood polish, soft golden light filtering in through the wide windows. There’s a low hum of distant thunder still grumbling beyond the hills, but inside, it’s warm and dry.
String lights are already half-strung across the rafters, white folding chairs stacked in the corner waiting to be placed. We’re two days away from the wedding, the dress is clean and saved, and everything seems to be falling into place.
There are no more issues to deal with, it seems.
That is until the door creaks open.
Maya steps in first, soaked to the skin, curls dark and clinging to her cheeks. Her dress is plastered to her legs, and water drips off her elbows as she closes the door behind her with a quiet thunk.
Jake’s right behind her, equally drenched, his shirt nearly see-through where it clings to his chest, hair dripping into his eyes. They’re both flushed, breathing a little harder than they probably should be from a short run through the rain.
But it’s not the water that gives them away. It’s the silence.
Jake, normally cracking jokes within ten seconds of entering a room, doesn’t say a word. And Maya—God, Maya—she doesn’t even glance at the clipboard that’s been glued to her hand for the last forty-eight hours. Instead, she keeps her eyes down.
I clock it instantly.
Not because I’m nosy, but because I know them. All too well.
Jake’s always performing, charming, teasing, needling Maya just to make her roll her eyes. And Maya never looks disoriented. Not like this. She looks like someone dropped her in a place she doesn’t recognize.
I don’t say anything.
Just mark it down in my head. A red flag on the mental playbook.
Something happened.
I duck my head and go back to my clipboard, pretending to double-check the rental list. My pen scratches against the paper, but I’m not seeing any of it.
Not when Jake’s standing by the supply table like it might explode. Not when Maya’s unfolding and refolding the same damn linen napkin like it insulted her ancestors.
A few minutes later, Ethan sidles up next to me, drying his arms with a frayed white towel. He smells like lavender and wire cutters, a combo only Ethan could make seem normal. He nods toward the soggy pair near the entry.
“Did the rain catch them?” he asks.
I don’t look up from my clipboard. “Caught something .”
Ethan raises a brow, towel draped over his shoulder now. “Like what?”
“Don’t know yet,” I lie smoothly. “But Jake hasn’t said a single word in fifteen minutes, and Maya just folded the same napkin three times. That’s either stress or post-makeout daze. Possibly both.”
We both glance their way again.
Jake’s currently tangled in a strand of fairy lights, pretending to wrestle with a stubborn knot, but his hands keep missing the obvious loop. Maya’s at the far end of the table, lining up votives like she’s building a tiny city, then shifting them an inch left. Then back.
“You think they—” Ethan starts, then cuts himself off, eyes flicking to me. “Again?”
I don’t answer right away. Not because I don’t have a theory. But because I have several.
And they’re all variations of well, shit .
I don’t know when it started. When something so easy, so chaotic and fun and full of sarcasm turned into this—this electric, untethered, thing . But I feel it every time we pass too close to each other.
Every time Jake’s fingers brush Maya’s and linger a second too long. Every time Ethan glances up mid-conversation like he’s checking to see if anyone else noticed the way Maya smiled at him just then.
Every time Maya looks at me like she’s searching for an answer I haven’t given yet.
It should feel wrong. Or at the very least confusing.
But the weirdest part?
It doesn’t.
It just feels… undecided . Like something not quite written yet. Like a story paused between chapters, all of us waiting for the next page.
I shift in my seat and murmur, “Let’s just keep our eyes open. See where this goes.”
Ethan nods slowly. “You ever think this was going to get so complicated?”
I snort softly. “You mean this fucking wedding, or everything else?”
His grin is small. “Take your pick.”
Before I can reply, the clatter of ceramic cuts through the quiet.
Maya drops a candle.
It doesn’t break, but it hits the wooden table with a sharp, hollow clink that makes all three of us jolt. Her hand freezes where it hovers above the table, her shoulders stiff.
“Sorry,” she mutters, not looking at any of us as she scoops it up and sets it back into its holder.
Jake’s head snaps up from across the room. His eyes flick to Maya like he felt the sound in his chest, but she’s already turned her back, moving toward the next table.
Yeah.
Something happened. And not just in that rainstorm.
It’s still there, between them. Still burning .
I rise slowly and cross the floor under the pretense of checking the extension cords near Jake’s crate. The boards creak beneath my boots.
He doesn’t acknowledge me at first. Just keeps fiddling with the same knot in the lights he’s been pretending to untie for the last fifteen minutes.
“You good?” I ask, keeping my voice low, private.
He doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”
“You sure?” I crouch beside him, keeping my gaze angled down. “Because you’re rewinding that cord like it slept with your girlfriend.”
Jake’s jaw ticks. His hands pause mid-loop. “Drop it, Liam.”
I nod once. Calm. Easy. Not because I’m letting it go, but because I know him. Know that pushing now will only shut him down.
“Okay,” I say, standing.
As I walk back toward the table, I feel the room shift again. Maya’s standing by the stack of votives, lining them up in a straight row, though they were already straight to begin with.
Her fingers linger on the last one longer than necessary.
Our eyes meet.
Her gaze holds for just a second too long.
That tug pulls through me again. Not sharp, not jealous. Just aware . Like a door half-open somewhere inside me I haven’t had the nerve to walk through.
***
The sky above us has softened into a deepening twilight—shadows stretching long and slow, the first stars flickering like shy witnesses to the night’s quiet arrival.
The rain has washed the earth clean, leaving the grass a rich, almost luminescent green beneath the warm glow of the string lights we managed to hang just in time. They dangle overhead in imperfect rows, tiny orbs of light that seem to pulse gently with the rhythm of the evening.
We’re sprawled out on mismatched blankets—some thick wool, some lightweight cotton—spread across the grass near the edge of the garden.
A picnic of sorts, if you count the empty thermos in Maya’s hands and the faint scent of earth and cedar floating in the cool air as we munch on potato chips and a half-eaten veggie tray.
Jake’s lying flat on his back, arms folded behind his head, looking up at the soft twinkle lights. His usual smirk is gone, replaced by a quiet calm that feels like he’s absorbing the moment, trying to make sense of something he hasn’t found words for yet.
Maya’s curled up on one side, knees drawn close to her chest, sipping from her thermos with sips. Her hair is still damp, a few stray curls sticking to her forehead.
She’s silent now—quiet in a way that makes the space between us feel full, as if her thoughts are a song we can almost hear but not quite understand.
Ethan’s next to me, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine every so often, a soft, accidental connection that neither of us pulls away from. His gaze is fixed somewhere just beyond the garden wall, distant but steady.
No one speaks much.
No one shifts.
Just a shared stillness that settles around us like a soft blanket.
And yet, I can feel it—underneath the calm, beneath the quiet.
A hum of curiosity, electric and alive.
Wondering where we’re headed if none of us pull away.
If the thing that sparked between Jake and Maya earlier is just a part of something bigger—something we’ve all been circling, afraid to name but unable to ignore.
The air tastes of possibility, fragile and raw, like standing on the edge of a cliff just before the leap.