It hadn’t been that long since you and Lip ended things—three months, maybe four—but it felt like a lifetime. You’d been together almost a year, long enough to have your anniversary dinner already half-planned before it all fell apart. You’d booked the restaurant on one of those rare nights where you weren’t fighting, when he wasn’t shutting down for reasons he couldn’t explain, and you were pretending like love alone was going to keep the cracks from growing. It didn’t.

The breakup wasn’t about not caring. That was the problem—you did care. Too much. And you knew he did too, which made the silence afterwards feel even heavier. Nights blurred into weeks where you fought the urge to text him, your thumb hovering over his name. Other nights you’d scroll dating apps without even seeing the faces, closing them the second someone messaged you.

So when Ian begged you to come out—“Just a few drinks, everyone’ll be there”—you said yes. You told yourself Lip might not even show, and if he did, you’d survive it. But of course, there he was, at the far end of the bar, half-listening to Kev and V rant about God knows what, nursing a beer like nothing had ever touched him.

You ended up in the last open seat. Right beside him. Neither of you spoke for a while, just nodded, pretended the air wasn’t thick with the weight of everything unsaid. But after a few drinks, the wall cracked. The jokes came easy, the memories even easier. And then somehow, you woke up tangled in his sheets, your clothes half on the floor, your heart caught between past and maybe.

Now you’re on his couch, sipping coffee, sweatshirt draped over your bare legs. Lip’s beside you, quiet. Thinking too much, just like always.

“So… uh…” he starts, voice gravelled and careful. His eyes don’t leave yours. “I missed wakin’ up next to you like that.”

You blink. He means it. You can tell. But meaning it was never the problem, was it?