Page 34 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

The nausea is stress. The exhaustion is overwork; I've picked up three new clients since I got here and I've been working instead of sleeping, answering emails at midnight, anything to stay busy enough not to think. The Harrington dinners ran on schedule—three of them, every two weeks, exactly as Connor promised—and I smiled at the right people and said the right things and was very professional about all of it. The crying is a blip. A mood. Hormones, maybe, or the lingering side effects of a night I spent six weeks trying not to think about and thinking about constantly.

I have an answer for everything. I've been very thorough.

Then it's a Tuesday morning, and Andrew's coffee reaches me from across the kitchen before I've made it out of the hallway, and I get to the bathroom in about four seconds.

That's the end of the explaining.

* * *

The CVS is two miles from the penthouse and I take an Uber wearing sunglasses, which accomplishes nothing except making me feel like someone with a plan.

The pregnancy test aisle is short. I don't browse. I pick up the first box that looks authoritative—digital, not the line kind, because if this is happening I need a word, not an interpretive ink blot. I take it to the self-checkout, confirm my purchase three times because the machine has opinions about this too apparently, and walk out.

The Uber driver asks if I'm having a good day.

“Great,” I say. He doesn't ask again.

Back at the penthouse, the main room is empty. Liam is at a site visit. Andrew left at seven for the Harrington site. I know this because I've learned their schedules how you learn a weather system: not out of interest, just to know when it's safe to move through the house without consequence. Two of the three variables are accounted for.

Ethan's door was open when I passed this morning. He was on a call, back to the hallway, jacket off, one hand braced against the desk. He didn't see me.

I told myself that was lucky.

I go to the hallway bathroom. It's the closest. I can't wait any longer. I lock the door. Turn on the fan. Take the box out of the CVS bag with the same energy I'd give something with unstable components.

The instructions are, mercifully, brief.

I set the test face-down on the edge of the sink and look at the ceiling and listen to the fan run.

I turn it over.

Pregnant.

One word. The fan rattles overhead. My mouth tastes like metal.

The digital display is perfectly clear, no ambiguity, no interpretation required. Exactly what I asked for when I picked it up. Apparently the universe has decided to give me what I asked for today of all days.

I let it sit. Time does something unusual.

I sit down on the floor. Not a decision exactly. Just my body moving before my brain catches up. I pull my knees up and put my hands in my lap and look at the wall.

Okay.

Okay.

I do the math I haven't let myself do. The only math available. Six weeks ago was day eleven—eleven days into a stay that was supposed to be ten weeks of free rent and the occasional investor dinner. The rooftop. The hot tub. The bedroom. All three of them.

It could be Ethan.

It could be Liam.

It could be Andrew—Andrew, who has seven years of wreckage between us and who I've been cautiously, methodically, catastrophically falling back toward ever since he walked through that door.

It could be any of them.

I don't know.

Air in. Out. The wall offers nothing.