Instigator

Connections

"Good morning Jacob." Josh said, swinging open the door to their apartment.

"Y/n." Placing her coffee down in front of her nonchalantly.

Y/n looked up from her phone, watching as Josh walked away from her, handing Jake a coffee and walking into his bedroom. Her gaze switched to Jake, a confused look crossing her face.

"No idea." Jake said, picking up his coffee and taking a sip.

She turned to the coffee table, seeing her coffee steaming through the lid.

"Y/n, has Sadie texted you back at all? Any updates on if she's cleared out or not?"

"I was avoiding checking." She admitted, taking a sip of her drink, pleasantly surprised to find that it was her usual order.

Y/n reached down to grab her phone off of the pillow to her side and found a collection of texts and missed calls from Sadie.

Sadie: What the hell?

Sadie: Why are you kicking me out?

Sadie: It can't possibly be because you're that aggravated about seeing Josh with me is it? It's not like you matter to him anyways.

"She really has an inflated ego doesn't she?" Jake asked after Y/n had finished reading the texts out loud.

"Always has." She said, continuing to scroll through the seemingly endless texts.

"She really seems to think that Josh likes her more." Y/n said, standing from the couch and handing her phone to Jake.

"Have they ever actually done anything more than kiss?" Jake asked, taking the phone from her hand.

"Not to my knowledge. I'm sure if they did, that's all I would've heard about."

"Oh, look at this, she left a voicemail too." Jake said, clicking on the icon and listening as the audio began to play.

"We've been roommates for three years, and you're seriously kicking me out because I kissed a guy that I've been into this whole time? You're a bitch. I've been nothing but a good friend to you, and you fucked the one guy that I've wanted since first year." Sadie was borderline sobbing over the phone, but it didn't take a genius to know that she was playing it up in an attempt to gain sympathy and make Y/n feel bad.

It didn't work.

Y/n and Jake both started laughing as the voicemail came to an end.

"What the fuck was that supposed to be?" Jake said through broken laughter.

"A desperate attempt at making me feel bad for her maybe?"

"I hope to hell it didn't work. That was awful."

"God no, kinda made me want to burn her shit more."

"Let's hope she leaves a few things there so we can do that later today."

— 1 week later —

After a few more chance encounters between Josh and Y/n, both were feeling the little feelings they had developed begin to resurface. It started with little glances. Small mannerisms became more noticeable the more time they spent near each other. Not even Jake was oblivious to the new form of communication between the two, if you could call it that.

Josh's actions had become more subtle when he was around Y/n, almost as if he were scared that if he was too over the top, it would ignite another drift in the dynamic. He settled for lingering glances, soft, almost non-existent touches in passing. He would even drop off a coffee in passing if Jake was with her, probably to pass it off as a good deed towards his brother's best friend.