Page 125 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

He picks up his jacket from the back of the chair. He’s almost at the door when he stops.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says. He’s looking at the wall, not me. “Keep me in.”

“I know.”

“So why did you?”

I think about how to answer that honestly. “Because Riley would have known,” I say. “And I wasn’t willing to be the reason she had to choose.”

His hand stays on the doorframe.

“That’s not how I expected you to be,” he says.

“I know.”

He nods once, almost to himself, and lets himself out.

Riley crosses the room and puts her arms around me and doesn’t say anything. I hold on.

What I gave up was real.

What I kept was too.

Chapter forty-five

Chapter Forty-Five—Andrew

The deal is more or less done.

Ethan saying we'll be in touch in that voice that means we won.

Connor hugs Riley before he leaves. Longer than I expected.

“Come visit,” Riley tells him.

“You come visit,” he says.

He looks at me on his way out. Nods once. I nod back. That's enough.

Ethan and Liam take off to some restaurant Liam's been watching all week. Riley waves them off from the couch. Tells them to bring something back.

I clean up the coffee cups. Put the extra chairs back. Open the curtains all the way so the light comes in.

Then I walk out to the living room and stop.

Riley is on the couch. Laptop open. She doesn’t hear me come in.

She’s got three tabs going. I can see from here: a product page, a comparison spreadsheet, a registration form with fields half-filled. She clicks between them with the focus of someone who’s been at it for a while.

I get closer.

Baby registry.

Strollers. Car seats. A convertible crib in white. She’s built a whole comparison sheet—columns, check marks, a few question marks where she hasn’t decided yet. One tab has a notes field: needs to fit through a standard doorway. She thought about the doorway.

I pull a chair over and sit.

She startles. Closes the laptop halfway on instinct. Then she sees it’s me and goes still—deciding, I think, whether to explain herself.