Page 39 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

The first version asks if she's okay. Too direct—she'll close up before she's finished reading it. The second says we should talk, the exact combination of words designed to make Riley Monroe evaporate into her room and not come out until Tuesday. The third is just:

Dinner tonight. Just us?

I read it twice. Hit send before I talk myself into a fourth draft.

I don't tell Ethan. I thought about it—stood in the hallway outside his office for about thirty seconds, listening to the click of his keyboard, running the math on whether two sets of eyes would help or whether he'd approach this how he approaches everything and she'd feel cornered before the appetizers arrived. Ethan is good at a lot of things. Getting people to lower their guard is not one of them.

This one needs to be easy. Dinner, just the two of us, the version of me she doesn't guard against.

It's not entirely a tactic. I want to take her to dinner. I've wanted to take her to dinner for weeks, which is its own problem I've been trying not to look at too closely.

My phone buzzes on the counter.

Three dots.

I watch them. They appear, disappear, appear again—she's typing and deleting, which tells me more than the message will.

Then.

Riley: Sure.

One word. No follow-up, no what are you thinking or are Ethan and Andrew coming?—she just said yes, which means either she wants the company or she's been waiting for someone to give her an opening she couldn't make herself.

I'm counting on the second one.

I set the phone down and look at the kitchen—the island where she sat an hour ago pushing crackers around, the water glass still there, the wine bottle untouched.

Six weeks ago she said yes on a rooftop and none of us have talked about what happened since. We agreed it was a mistake and we meant it, or we tried to mean it, and somewhere in the six weeks between that morning and this one Riley has been quietly falling apart and not telling anyone.

I'm not letting her do this alone.

Not the whole thing—I'm not naive enough to think one dinner fixes whatever this is. But she said sure, and she's sitting across a table from me in an hour, and by the time the check comes I'll know enough to figure out what comes next.

Chapter fifteen

Chapter Fifteen—Riley

Ispend eleven minutes deciding what to wear to a dinner that is not a date.

It's stupid. Liam has seen me in the same Portland State hoodie for six weeks and never once made it weird. The navy dress I finally choose is simple, but I still feel annoyed at myself for caring this much.

He's in the living room when I walk out. Button-down untucked, glass of water in his hand. At first he isn't looking for me. Then he is.

He stops completely.

His eyes drag down the length of me like he forgot how to blink. He doesn't even pretend otherwise.

“Jesus,” he mutters under his breath.

“Relax,” I say. “It's just a dress.”

He keeps staring anyway.

“Disappointing.” His mouth curves into a grin. “I was starting to get attached to the hoodie.”

I roll my eyes, but my stomach does a little flip anyway.

Five minutes later we're in the back of an Uber. He sits close enough that the car feels smaller than it should. I watch the Strip slide past the window. When the car turns, his leg presses against mine and stays there.