Page 52 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

“The doctor said eight weeks.”

The timeline runs through my mind quickly and it's obvious. Eight weeks gestational. Six weeks from conception—pregnancy is dated from the last menstrual period, not from the night it actually happened. I did three years of ER triage; the adjustment is automatic. Six weeks back is day eleven of our stay. The four of us. No way to assign probability without further information, and I'm not going to try. There's a version of this where the paternity question matters and a version where it doesn't.

“I don't know whose it is,” she says. “It could be any of you. I have no way to know.”

She watches me when she says it, waiting for the conclusion.

I don't move.

“I understand,” I say.

“That's it?” Her voice goes up.

“Yeah.” I lean my head back against the cabinet.

“Ethan. I just told you I'm pregnant and you might be the father and—”

“I heard you.”

“Then say something.”

“Give me a moment.”

She gives it to me.

I understand exactly how easy it would be to lose her if I say the wrong thing.

“I was wrong,” I say.

“About what.”

“Calling it a mistake. That morning.” I keep looking at the cabinet above us. “I gave you a verdict instead of an honest answer. I knew it was wrong the next day. I just didn't have a way to say it.”

Silence.

“You were scared,” she says.

“Yes.” My eyes stay on the cabinet. “Not of you. Of how right it felt—all four of us together. I've never had that before. Something that landed that fast, that completely. I've spent years keeping that kind of thing at a distance, and that night I didn't want the distance. I didn't know what to do with that. So I called it a mistake.”

“Me too.” A pause. “I kept thinking you'd all be relieved.”

“Not relieved,” I say. “Just looking for the version that caused the least damage.”

“For you.”

“For me.” I pause. “I'm done looking for easier.”

The quiet holds.

We stay leaning against the cabinets until the light shifts from grey to pale gold.

“I think Liam suspects,” I say.

Her hand tightens around mine.

“What?”

“A few days, maybe more. He's been running quiet interference. Ordering food you'll actually eat. Moving the wine glass away at dinner before you have to ask.”