My Best Friend Stole Him. So I Stole Better. Chapter 02
My family had money. After college I bought myself an apartment in the West Village and landed an editorial job at a magazine under Condé Nast.
Sienna hadn’t had it as easy. Her parents divorced when we were in high school. Her mother walked out. She got frozen out by her classmates. Then my father’s work took us briefly to a high school in Alabama, and suddenly she wasn’t alone anymore.
Back then, she lived on eggshells, terrified I might one day stop eating lunch with her, stop talking to her.
I felt for her. I listened. Over time, we became best friends.
After graduation, I brought her home for the entire summer. Her father didn’t want her going to college. He wanted her to come home and get married the second she got her diploma.
It was me and my parents who pushed her to apply for the full scholarship, who helped her escape that little Southern town.
Later, we ended up at the same university—Columbia.
I caught sight of Julian Reid, the cold, brilliant golden boy of her department.
A few campus run-ins finally got me his contact info, and along the way I met his roommate, Ethan Beaumont.
Ethan fell for Sienna at first sight. He said he loved the fragility in her, the sort of brokenness that made you want to shield her.
At first I didn’t like Ethan much—his face looked too much like the kind of trust-fund playboy who worked his way through a whole rolodex of girls. I was worried Sienna would get hurt.
It took a lot of effort on his part before I finally came around.
I promised to help him with Sienna. He promised to help me with Julian.
Through college, the four of us ate together, went out together.
I told Sienna everything—from my first accidental sighting of Julian to the slow, dizzy fall into loving that aloof genius.
Sienna always listened attentively. Then she’d smile and cheer me on.
“You’re beautiful, you come from a good family—how could anyone not love you? Anyone who sees you would call you a lucky girl. If you like him, go get him!”
She wasn’t wrong. Growing up, I’d never really faced setbacks.
Julian was the first.
I’d wanted to give up so many times, and every time Sienna talked me out of it.
She said Julian just couldn’t lose face. He couldn’t see what was in his own heart.
But she never told me the truth—that Julian was the one who was actually in love with her.
And they’d quietly gotten together, in some corner of my life I never noticed.
Ethan drove me home. Neither of us spoke on the way. Neither of us mentioned them.
Only when I got out did he finally say something, his voice low and heavy.
“I’ve thought of Julian as my best friend for years. He knew how I felt about Sienna. How could he do this?”
“If he’d just told me from the start that they liked each other, do you think I would’ve kept chasing her? Was watching us make fools of ourselves really that entertaining?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Actually, the reason doesn’t matter. What matters is that they never once considered how we felt.”
Ethan didn’t say anything after that.
I went upstairs and answered Sienna’s message.
“He didn’t show.”
“A relative of mine is coming to stay for a while. It won’t be convenient for you to come back—you’ll need to find your own place…”
Before I finished typing, Sienna’s reply appeared.
“It’s okay, babe, something must’ve come up. Don’t overthink it. Ask him out again. Brave girls get to love first!”
“Oh, by the way, I’m not coming back tonight. I’m seeing someone! I’ll bring him to meet you when I get a chance!”