Emma has an unbreakable bond with her roommates and lifelong best friends, yet struggles to create a romantic connection that comes even close to their friendship. That’s why Emma accepts her stoic boyfriend keeping her at a distance. All of her fantasies about romance and relationships, however, come tumbling down when she witnesses said boyfriend cheating on her.
Following her recent breakup and her evolving bond with her best friend, Noah, Emma begins to question everything she ever knew about relationships, romantic and platonic. When Emma suggests the possibility of a queerplatonic relationship to Noah, the two must navigate their feelings, unveiling secrets they’ve kept from each other… but as confusing it can be, at least they’re doing it together.
(The book includes a bisexual protagonist, an aromantic protagonist, PCOS and autism representation, and plus size and nonbinary side characters)
Genre: FICTION / LGBT / GeneralThe book was previously published as By Your Side: A Queerplatonic Short Story in June 2023. Since then I had close to 400 sales on amazon alone, plus more on other platforms.
In may 2024 I published this new edition, which has rewritten and additional content.
(from chapter 11)
The arcade was not as crowded as Emma originally thought, and she was silently thankful that it was a weeknight.
Choosing what to do for Dawson’s twentieth birthday had been harder than anticipated. Dawson had initially proposed a normal night home all together, but both Emma and Noah told him that they did that all the time, and a different activity would be better for a special day. They wanted to do something great enough to not even make him think of his parents.
Noah proposed a dinner at a fancy restaurant, but he was already skeptical at the idea. They all agreed it wasn’t their style of outing. Emma then suggested a variation of the previous idea—in a pub instead of a restaurant—but Dawson reminded her it wasn’t exactly his scene. A few more ideas later, they proposed some sort of game night, since doing an activity would be more fun.
They had to run a few ideas by Roan, since out of the four of them they tended to be the most sensitive to that kind of environment, and the three wanted to make sure Roan would be comfortable in crowded areas with lots of noise. In the end, they all agreed on a bowling night.
The four of them gathered at the apartment to eat a late afternoon snack together before heading out. They gave Dawson his birthday gifts and made him blow a small candle on a single cupcake. After the small house celebration, they headed to their real destination.
The bowling alley was part of their local arcade, but thankfully most of the people seemed to be playing the machine games.
“Is this okay?” Dawson quietly asked Roan.
They had their noise canceling headphones on, and they looked generally okay—just curious about their surroundings.
“I’m okay. I’ll let you know if it gets overwhelming,” Roan replied, smiling at their boyfriend.
