Page 128 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

Ethan's on the far side, flat on his back, dead asleep and somehow still looking like he's solving something. Andrew's got an arm thrown across the middle of the bed, reaching for her without being awake enough to know he's doing it.

Funny thing about those two. I spent most of my life sure that the guys who'd have my back in a bad situation were guys I'd meet in a bad situation. Turns out mine came from a poker game and a business deal and a decade of nobody letting anybody drift too far. I didn't pick this family so much as refuse, over and over, to leave it. First real thing I ever stuck around for.

And here I am in the hall. Keeping watch. Like always.

Except tonight it lands different, and I stand there long enough to work out why.

All those years, the counting was about knowing how to get out. Exits. Angles. The fastest clean line to the door. I could walk you through the escape route of any room I've ever stood in.

I've been in this house four days and I haven't clocked a single exit.

I've been counting other things. How long the coffee takes, so Riley's is ready the second the nausea lets her keep it down. Which stair creaks, so I don't wake her when she's finally out. The exact way her breathing changes right before she drops off, so I know when it's safe to stop watching and let myself go under too.

Same habit. Completely rewired. I'm not counting how to leave anymore.

I'm counting how to stay.

The last door down the hall is going to be the nursery. Right now it's where the boxes went to die. But the crib's in there, still flat-packed, leaning against the wall in a carton about the size of a coffin—which is a real cheerful thought at two a.m.

I go in and put my hand on the box. Just to do something with the feeling before it does something with me.

I could start it now. God knows I'm not sleeping, and I've built worse things in worse conditions with worse light. But some stubborn part of me wants the others up for this one. Wants Andrew swearing at the instructions and Ethan sorting the screws by size and Riley in the doorway telling all three of us we're doing it wrong. I don't want to put the kid's bed together alone in the dark and have it done by morning like a chore I got out of the way.

That's new too. The not-wanting-to-do-it-alone.

I leave the box where it is. It'll keep till daylight.

On the way back I stop at the bedroom door again. Riley's shifted; Andrew's arm found her. Nobody's cold, nobody's alone, nobody's keeping watch except the idiot in the hallway who's apparently decided that's his whole personality now.

I could go to bed. I probably should.

Instead I stand there another minute and let myself have it—the paint smell, the dead soldiers of cardboard, the three people breathing in the dark like it's the most ordinary thing in the world. A man who spent his whole life memorizing the way out, standing in the one room he has no intention of leaving.

“Go to sleep, Liam,” Ethan says, not opening his eyes.

“Wasn't tired,” I lie.

“You were counting again.”

I don't ask how he knows. He notices things. It's a gift.

I get in bed. Riley makes a small sound and settles back against me without waking, and I feel the exact second her breathing goes deep and even.

I stop counting.

For the first time in longer than I can remember, I don't need to know where the door is.

Chapter forty-seven

Chapter Forty-Seven—Riley

Istand in the middle of the living room and take it in.

Half-assembled crib leaning against the wall like it gave up halfway through. Liam on his knees in the corner, arguing with a screwdriver like it personally offended him. The nursery walls are yellow in a way that probably violates several agreements between human beings and color theory. Boxes everywhere. Sunlight through the glass doors onto actual grass.

I don’t trust it yet.

Liam looks up and spots me. “Ri! Come settle this. Andrew says the yellow is radioactive. I say it’s cheerful.”