Page 28 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

Ethan doesn't flinch, but his fingers tighten around his stylus. “Focus,” he says, the single word enough to pull the room back in line. “Harrington is obsessed with stability. Any hint of friction and they'll start asking questions we don't want to answer. We present as a united front. No cracks.”

Andrew gives one short nod. “Copy that.”

Ethan clicks to my section.

I keep my voice easy. The talking points come out clean—Connor's vision, family values, the kind of optics the Harrington group actually responds to. I've said these things enough times now that they sit in my mouth like they're mine.

Liam picks up the thread without being cued. He makes the rezoning timeline sound like common sense, like the only reasonable conclusion. I watch it land on the right faces.

Andrew moves into the acquisition numbers without looking up. He's steady with figures—confident in a way that has nothing to do with performance—until he says the words “long-term commitment” and his eyes come up to mine for half a second.

He catches himself. Looks back down.

I write something in the margin I'll never read again.

We're on slide nine when my pen dies. I reach for the one sitting between us at the same moment Andrew does. Our hands nearly collide. He pulls back first.

Too fast. Like touching me would break whatever fragile truce we’ve built.

I pretend not to notice, even though my pulse is spiking.

His breath hitches before he covers it.

Without looking up, I annotate the slide.

Two slides later I spot a discrepancy in his projected figures and correct it out loud.

Andrew goes still.

“You're right,” he says after a beat, voice quiet. “As usual.”

The way he says it isn't about the numbers. It's about everything we're not saying. Liam studies the ceiling. Ethan makes a note on his tablet with the kind of focus that means he heard every syllable.

“Let's wrap this,” Ethan says. “We run the same play Friday. Professional. Controlled. No surprises.” His eyes find mine. “That includes all of us.”

Chairs scrape. Laptops close. Liam takes his time with the papers, shuffling them into a neat stack without any particular hurry. Andrew stands too fast and heads for the gym without looking back. Ethan stays seated, watching me gather my things.

“You caught every appendix point again,” he says quietly once the others are gone. “Even the ones Connor buried on page twelve.”

I shrug, trying to keep it light. “Someone has to.”

He nods once, the smallest hint of a smile touching his mouth. “It's useful. Makes the meetings sharper.” He pauses. “You make all of us better in there.”

It's not a line. He means it clinically, the way he means most things. That lands even harder.

He leaves without pressing. I stay at the table another ten minutes, pretending to review notes while my chest refuses to settle.

My phone buzzes on the table—Jules. I silence it without reading the message. She’s been texting more frequently since I told her the guys moved in. Her last one was blunt: “You are playing with fire and you know it.” She watched the whole Andrew implosion in college. She knows exactly how that story ended and what I promised myself after. I’m not ready to explain any of this to her yet.

At some point Liam comes back through to grab his keys. He stops in the doorway, looks at me for a second, then says, “You okay?”

“Great,” I say.

He doesn't believe me. He leaves anyway, which is the right call.

That evening I sit on my bed with my planner open. The cursor blinks in a half-drafted email to Connor's assistant. I close it and open the calendar instead. Block the client calls. I type the venue confirmation, delete it, type it again. Answer two of the three emails I've been avoiding. The third one I close without reading.

Professional distance. That's all this is.