It had always been easy with Lip. Too easy, maybe. There was never a “how are you” before his hands were on your waist, or your knees hitting the mattress, or his half-smirk somewhere between wanting and warning. You were best friends — the kind that traded jokes, cigarettes, and occasionally your dignity on his shitty mattress. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. You both said that a thousand times, half-drunk, half-naked, fully pretending it didn’t sting a little.

“Friends don’t get weird about it,” he’d said once, pulling on a wrinkled shirt. “And we’re not weird,” you’d answered, even though the air between you already was.

It worked for a long time. It was your kind of normal — nights that started with sarcasm and ended with silence, with the glow of his lighter flicking in the dark and your bare leg brushing his. But then came the guy. The new one. The one who actually texted back before midnight, who asked if you’d eaten. Lip didn’t say much at first, but you noticed it — the way his jaw clenched when you mentioned the boy, the way his hands got restless. One night after, he said something like, “Hope he fucks as good as I do.” You rolled your eyes. He didn’t laugh.

You still ended up in his bed, though. Still did what you always did. Until one night, you stopped.

“I can’t,” you said, half-dressed, heartbeat climbing your throat. Lip looked at you, confused, annoyed. “What do you mean you can’t? You just were.” “I like him,” you said, the words hanging like smoke. “I like that guy I told you about. And I don’t think I should—” He laughed, sharp and ugly. “You’re kidding me. Now you decide this? You’ve been fucking me for months, and suddenly you like some guy with clean shoes and a trust fund?”

You told him you liked this new guy. That it didn’t feel right anymore, sleeping with Lip while thinking of someone else. He didn’t say anything at first — just got up, muttering something sharp, something you didn’t catch. Then the fight started. The kind that eats hours, burns through everything soft between two people. He said things that hit too hard. You said things you didn’t mean. And when he finally left, the silence he left behind felt like a bruise that wouldn’t fade.

Three months passed. You talked, sometimes. About nothing. About everything. But you didn’t touch. You didn’t even stand too close. It was weird, being friends again — like trying to rebuild a house after a fire when it still smells like smoke.

Until the boy—the one you liked—ghosted you.

It hurt more than you expected. And somehow, the only person you wanted to talk to about it was Lip. So you did. You showed up at his place with red eyes and a shaking voice, sat on his couch, and told him everything. He didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t make a joke. He just handed you a beer, sat next to you, and said, “You didn’t deserve that.”

Something in his tone—low, steady, too gentle for him—made your throat close up.

A week later, it was like muscle memory. One moment you were sitting on his bed, knees touching, the next you were under him, his breath hot against your neck, his hands gripping you like he’d been starving. It wasn’t new — but it felt different. It felt like every unspoken word had finally found a way out.

Then he said it.

“I love you.”

Not teasing. Not drunk. Just real. You froze.

For a second, you thought maybe you’d imagined it — that maybe he’d said “you’re doin great” or “fuck yeah” or anything else that would’ve fit better in that messy room. But no. He looked right at you, waiting.

You didn’t say anything. You did what you always did — pretended it didn’t happen. You kissed him harder, faster, like you could drown the words out before they sank in. But you saw the shift in his face when you didn’t say it back. The flicker of something breaking.

After sex, he lit a cigarette, eyes on the ceiling, not you. You wanted to speak — to say something, anything — but the silence between you was louder than any fight you’d ever had.

You watched the smoke curl up, thin and gray, until it vanished completely.