Page 12 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

Day Five ends without incident. Mostly.

Andrew catches me in the kitchen doorway as I'm leaving. Says my name, just that. The way he's always said it, like it costs him something.

I keep walking. Don't stop. Don't look back. Get to my room and close the door and stand there for a second with my hand on the frame.

The system held.

Day Six. The balcony.

I go out at seven-thirty because it faces west and gets no direct sun until afternoon, which makes it the coolest forty square feet in Vegas. I bring my laptop. I have every intention of working outside for one productive, solitary hour.

I've been there eleven minutes (I check) when the balcony door opens and Liam comes out.

He has his own coffee. Comfortable in the world in a way he doesn't have to work at, and sees no reason to pretend otherwise. He looks at me, then at the view, forty floors of Vegas sprawling enormous under a sky that has no business being that shade of blue in March, and drops into the chair beside mine with the unhurried ease of someone who has decided this is the best spot and isn't going to apologize for knowing it.

“Morning,” he says.

“Mm,” I say. The minimum socially viable response I can produce before eight.

He looks at the city. Drinks his coffee. Doesn't say anything for two full minutes, which I find unexpectedly tolerable. I draft three sentences of client email.

“There's a man down there,” he says, “walking an iguana on a leash.”

I look up.

There is, in fact, a man forty floors below us on the strip, walking a very large iguana on a leash. The iguana is moving with the resigned dignity of a creature that has made its peace with its circumstances.

“That's Vegas,” I say.

“I've been here eight times. Never once come close to explaining it.”

“Nobody does. You just accept it.”

“The iguana looks like it's accepted it.”

“The iguana looks like it's thinking about its choices.”

He looks at me and then laughs. A real one, surprised out of him—one that escapes before you decide to let it. The fact that I made Liam laugh when he was clearly the one here to make me laugh cracks me open just a little. I laugh too.

And then, perfectly deadpan: “Do you think Connor factored the iguana into his investor pitch? Like, was that in the presentation? Family values. Vegas charm. Complimentary iguana.”

I laugh so hard I spill my coffee.

It goes on the arm of the chair and partly on my keyboard and I'm scrambling with my sleeve to wipe it down, still laughing, which is not the appropriate response to hot liquid on a device containing all my client files. Liam produces a napkin from somewhere—where did he get a napkin, nobody carries napkins, and I get it wiped down and sit back and breathe and realize it has been a long time since I laughed like that.

Forty minutes later, I'm still on the balcony. I forget why I came out here to work. No agenda on the surface, no apology tour running underneath, no careful maneuvering around the Andrew situation. A man who finds the same things funny as me and asks questions and actually listens to the answers.

“So Portland,” he says, after the iguana man has finally rounded the corner and taken his iguana with him.

“So Portland,” I agree.

“You like it.”

“I do.” I look at my coffee. “It's a good city for someone who needed the choice to feel intentional.”

He's quiet for a second. “That's an interesting way to put it. What were you running from?” he asks.

He looks back, not aggressively, just direct. Eyes that read ahead of what you're saying.