Page 24 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

Riley is asleep.

She went under fast, between one breath and the next, as exhausted people do when the body finally decides it's done. She's on her side, tucked against my chest, one hand loose near her chin. Her hair is still damp from the hot tub. I don't move. I don't want to be the reason she wakes up.

I stare at the ceiling and take stock of what I've done.

The deal is still on the table. Connor is still in the Maldives. The three of us still have weeks left living together. Riley still has a life in Portland she's planning to go back to.

None of that has changed. I keep staring at the ceiling like it might.

I went through fourteen houses before I was eighteen, one collapsed company, one moment in a hospital corridor where a doctor told me my father wasn't going to make it, and the night I looked Riley Monroe in the eye and burned the best thing I'd ever had to the ground. I know what fear feels like. How it moves into your chest and doesn't ask permission.

This is different.

Because with every other loss I could name what I was afraid of. Could build around it. This—Riley's breath against my chest, her hand an inch from mine, a calendar already running out of time— I can't build a plan around this. I don't know how to protect something I didn't admit I still wanted until forty minutes ago.

That's the lie I've been telling myself for eleven days.

Liam is out cold on her other side—the deep, uncomplicated sleep of someone with a cleaner conscience than mine. Lucky.

Ethan is on Liam's other side, and he's awake.

I can tell by his stillness—the held-back kind, like he's somewhere else inside his head. He's on his back, one arm behind his head, gaze on the ceiling. Or on her. Same bed. Same dark.

I keep my gaze forward.

He does the same.

Neither of us says it.

We don't have to.

Chapter ten

Chapter Ten—Riley

Day twelve. The first thing I notice is a chest against my back.

A heartbeat I shouldn't be able to count but can.

Awareness hits before my eyes even open.

I already know exactly where I am.

My body finished the inventory while my brain was still waking up—the deep ache in my thighs, the tenderness at my hips where fingers gripped too hard, skin that still feels hypersensitive from every touch.

The bedroom is grey with early light. Liam sleeps on my other side, face soft and unguarded in a way it never is when he's awake. Ethan is already gone—the sheets on his side noticeably cooler. Andrew's arm stays heavy around my waist, certain even in sleep.

Sixty seconds. That's all I allow myself. One slow breath after another.

Then I sit up carefully, trying not to wake the man I have no idea how to face in daylight. My feet hit the cold floor. A robe hangs on the back of the door. I pull it on and tie the belt with hands that don't quite feel like mine.

My bathroom is clean, white, and temporarily mine.

The shower is obscene—endless hot water, rain showerhead. I crank it as hot as it goes and stand under the steam until my lungs fill with nothing else.

Those thoughts still come anyway. Liam's laugh in my ear. Ethan's hands mapping my ribs. Andrew saying my name like it still meant something after seven years.

For eight straight minutes I insist I'm not thinking about any of it.