How to tell friends we’re dating?

Hey everyone, I really need some advice. So, I’ve been seeing this guy who is in my friend group and we have been “fwb” for awhile but we realized we do have feelings for each other...

We kind of had a fling that ended badly last year and resulted in us not being friends for awhile but we were able to resolve that and move into this “fwb” title that now we want to integrate into a relationship.

But there’s one problem.

We’re scared to tell the rest of our friends after what happened last year. We want to be with each other and we care about each other a lot. Our friend group kind of split up last year after our incident, and everyone on his “side” has this hatred toward me and I know they would either:

1.) try to talk him out of it, or

2.) quit talking to him

I don’t want to lose him because of his friends and I don’t want him to lose his friends because of me.

How should we tell our friends about us that won’t end badly?

*****PLEASE don’t say anything rude or hurtful. This is only the gist of the story, you don’t know everything, and it seems that whenever I have posted on here, I do get hurtful comments and it makes me feel not so great. This is supposed to be a loving community where we can ask each other for help and I really need some help.