Within the first week Jed Montgomery and I had moved in together freshman year at Notre Dame, he'd put two pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in our tiny mini fridge in the corner of our dorm room, and on a post-it note wrote IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. He had impressively neat handwriting for someone who could palm a god damn basketball.

Freshman housing generally stuck athletes together, even if they didn't play the same sport, and before I actually got to know Jed, I had to admit I was afraid he'd snap me in half one day. I was on the upper end of the roster in terms of size on the baseball team at 6'2" and 215 pounds, and yet he and his offensive lineman size dwarfed me.

But after I'd spent the first semester fucking around with a volleyball player named Kara only to find out she'd also been fucking around with my teammate, Jed sat me down in our dorm room and gave me his carton of emergency ice cream - cookie dough flavor. I'd decided that night that Jed was alright, and most likely not capable of snapping me in half. I also decided that night I was done fucking around, and I'd spent the rest of my college life getting good grades and hitting home runs.

Jed and I had lived together ever since, and nowadays he still stocked the fridge in our downtown Chicago apartment with emergency Ben & Jerry's and used his still neat handwriting to write out my Christmas cards to my business tax clients, since my chicken scratch might as well be a foreign language.

"What the hell was Em thinking?" I sighed as I dropped sideways into the black leather armchair in the corner of our open floor plan apartment. Over the back of the chair, I could see his hulking body rummaging through the freezer in the kitchen for his ice cream. A few colored pencil drawings of the sun and rainbows and our dog Rudy done by Jed's cohort of third graders were stuck to the fridge with random alphabet magnets. In a free spot on the chrome surface of the fridge, the letters were arranged to say DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT. The first thing I did when we got back from Jed's date was change the number next to it to 0. Speaks for itself.

"It's alright," Jed grumbled. "I just feel really bad about leaving. You didn't have to be such a jerk at the end, you know."

"I wasn't being a jerk," I insisted. I swung my legs over the arm of the chair and sat up, swiveling around to glare at him over the back of the chair. "I was doing you a favor, Josiah. You were one political blunder away from being skinned alive." I paused and slapped my phone against my palm. "Do you really not know there's a state Senate?"

Jed shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like I don't know before flipping the lid of the ice cream carton open. I loved him to death, and we'd seen each other through a whole manner of bullshit over the years, but he'd taken a few too many hits to the head during his illustrious college football career. All the scuffs and dents on the shiny gold Notre Dame helmet he kept next to the trophies in his room were proof enough of that.

The sound of Jed scraping through the ice cream carton seemed to activate our English Mastiff Rudy, who'd been asleep in his giant plush bed we got from Costco at the other corner of the living room. He was only two years old, but he had the soul and temperament of an old man. My mom thought we were batshit crazy for keeping a 200 pound dog in our 900 square foot apartment, but he was perfect for us. Low energy, high affection.

I watched as he trudged across the living room and into the kitchen, his nails clacking against the wooden flooring, before sitting sloppily beside Jed, who was perched on one of the metal barstools at our kitchen island.

"I love you, but no," Jed said to Rudy. There was a pause, and even though I'd slumped back into the armchair and reverted to dissociation scrolling through my Instagram, I knew Jed's next words were directed at me. "You know, Em should have actually set her up with you, but we both know why she didn't."

I snorted. "Don't go there."

Jed and I had met Emelia sophomore year after she'd punched one of Jed's teammates at a party for putting his hand up her skirt, and we'd been a Midwestern, Fightin' Irish version of the Three Musketeers since then. Jed was convinced Em had a thing for me, but if she did, she'd never made it known to me, and I don't act on impulse or instinct.

"I'm serious," Jed insisted, and I heard him scraping the spoon along the side of the ice cream carton. "When you came over, I genuinely thought you were hitting on her."

I sighed, sliding back down into the slick leather of the chair. "You really think I'd hit on some girl you were mid-date with?"

She was attractive in an effortless and classic kind of way - the kind of girl I might have been inclined to flirt with if she was a stranger at the bar, but I never took it past flirting anyway. Besides, I wouldn't do that to Jed. I might have been an asshole, but not that kind of asshole.

Jed cleared his throat before answering. "...well, I mean there was that time at CJ's Pub-"

"That was one time." I held up my hand. "I was underage and stupid. I've evolved."

"Right," Jed chuckled. "You're not underage anymore."

I finally got up from the chair with a groan and made my way over to the kitchen island. I gave Rudy a quick pat before grabbing another spoon from the drawer and digging into our emergency cookie dough. A silence settled between us, but that was normal. We'd become the kind of friends that didn't really need to talk or converse all the time. Sometimes just being in the same room was enough.

Our phones buzzed simultaneously on the kitchen counter with a text notification from THREE'S A CROWD lighting up both of our screens.

EMELIA KING: how goes it??

I sighed and dropped the spoon into the carton. "Do you wanna answer her?"

"Me?" Jed choked out. "I'm embarrassed and not in an emotional position to relive what just happened."

I tapped my hand on the counter, the silver ring I always wore on my pointer finger clacking against the marble. "And while I am sympathetic of that, Emelia would string me up by my fucking balls if she found out I was actually at your date. So clearly I can't answer her."

"Better you than me," Jed shrugged. "I'm wounded."

I surrendered with a groan before opening our group chat. This response had to be strategic.

MONTANA BENNETT: jed's already home eating ice cream.

"There." I dropped my phone to the countertop. "Happy?"

Jed shot me a victorious smirk. "You love me."

"Sure, sure, whatever."

Em replied almost immediately.

EMELIA KING: oh shit

EMELIA KING: i'm on the L, can facetime for a full debrief in 30

EMELIA KING: i'm going to need ACTUAL details! i work with her and she's cool

"And that's on you." I pushed myself away from the counter. "I gotta pack and get going."

"Now?" I could hear the pout in Jed's voice.

"Yeah now," I called over my shoulder as I retreated back across the living room to my bedroom. "My mom wants to do brunch for Aspen's eighth grade graduation even though it was two freakin' months ago."

I'd taken the larger of the two rooms when Jed and I had moved in so I had space to put my generic black Ikea desk for the instances I worked from home or put in extra time outside of work hours. Although more often than not, I was just staying at the office later.

I haphazardly made my bed, tucking the gray comforter underneath my mattress before dropping to my knees to slide my Nike duffle out from under my bed. "And I gotta vet this new guy Aspen is seeing," I called back to Jed. "Because god knows my mother just lets my sister hang out with whoever nowadays."

Jed's voice carried from the kitchen to my room. "You should cut them both some slack. Sometimes I think you forget that not everybody is as independent as you, Montana."

I dug through my matching black Ikea dresser for a few clean t-shirts and underwear before shoving them into my bag, then slung it over my shoulder and meandered back into the living room. "No I don't, because I live with the most codependent person I know."

Jed arched an eyebrow at me. "Rudy?"

I made an aggressive attempt to slip on my On Clouds. "No, you."

Jed held a finger up. "That's false. I independently run a classroom. I leave my codependency for you only."

"Great," I rolled my eyes, but allowed a little smirk to grace my lips. "I'm honored."

I had one hand on the doorknob when Jed called out, "Drive safe. Text me when you get there!"

Despite the fact that our days without incident count had gone back to zero, this had become a pretty standard Friday. Go to work, grab a happy hour drink (recently with the addition of Jed's blind dates), pack my shit and drive home. Every week, almost without fail.

But maybe that was inadvertently why we even kept out days without incident count, even though it started as a joke. I liked it when it reset to zero.

･:*˚:✧｡｡✧:˚*:･

hiya, it's me ~

now that you've met both our kids, it's time to buckle up for your new fav unconventional rom-com featuring 20-somethings just trying to navigate city life, friendships, lovers, and the illinois state senate.

anyway welcome to montana's pov! he's my snarky sarcastic finance bro and head of the jed protection squad. i am very attached to him already and i hope y'all grow to love my boys, i promise they mean well. most of the time <3

also if you get the reason why they named their dog rudy, you're my bff