Page 58 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

“High praise.”

I laugh against her mouth as she yanks the sweater over her head herself, the inside-out tag finally disappearing. Shorts next. Her hands are already working at my jeans, efficient and urgent, like she’s afraid the moment might slip away if she slows down.

I ease her back onto the mattress and take my time anyway. Hands dragging down her ribs, learning every inch before she can put the wall back up. I map the rest of her with my mouth—the hollow of her throat, the soft weight of her breasts, one nipple and then the other until she's arching off the sheets, then lower, over the flat of her stomach, until her fingers are already twisting in my hair.

I settle between her thighs and spread her open with my thumbs. She's slick and flushed and swollen, and the sound she makes when I drag my tongue up the length of her nearly finishes me right there. She tastes like salt and need and something that's only ever been hers. I work her slow at first, then filthy—circling her clit with the flat of my tongue while I slide two fingers deep and curl them until I find the spot that jerks her hips clean off the bed. Her thighs clamp around my shoulders. She's not quiet—never was, under all that control—and feeling her come apart against my mouth loud, shameless, one hand fisted tight in my hair is the best thing I've heard in years.

She's still trembling when her hands find me, reaching, pulling me up her body. She doesn't wait. She wraps a hand around me and guides me to her, and the heat of her against me drags a groan out of my chest I don't bother swallowing.

When I push inside her we both go still. She's tight and soaked and perfect, and for one heartbeat the weight of everything—the pregnancy, the secrets, the weeks of distance—settles over us both.

Her fingers tighten around my shoulders like she's bracing for something to break.

Not the sex. Everything that comes after.

Then she rolls her hips, and thinking stops being an option. I start to move—slow, deep, dragging almost all the way out before sinking back into her and swallowing the sound she makes. She pulls me closer, arms tight around my back, heels digging in, urging me faster, and I give her exactly what she wants. The headboard taps the wall. Her nails rake down my spine. I feel her start to tighten around me, clenching hard enough to wreck my rhythm. “Right there,” she gasps against my jaw. “Don't stop.” So I don't. I drive into her, chasing the edge with her, until she breaks apart a second time with a raw sound against my shoulder and takes me over with her. I bury myself deep, face pressed into her neck, and let go as everything else in the world goes quiet. Both of us unmistakably present.

We lie there afterward, her head on my chest, my hand moving slowly through her hair.

I keep stroking her hair, steady and slow, like stopping would let her start thinking again. Neither of us moves for a long time.

“Who else have you told?” I ask eventually.

The quiet holds the words for a few seconds.

“Just Ethan,” she says.

Her hand covers mine on top of the duvet and holds on.

Tomorrow we tell Andrew.

And whatever breaks after that—we face it together.

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-One—Riley

Yesterday there was a sleeve of crackers propped against the coffeemaker when I came out of my room. I asked Liam why the coffee needed a bodyguard.

“They're not guarding it,” he said, not looking up from his phone. “They're supportive. Big difference.”

Ethan made a grocery run and came back with ginger tea, three kinds of fruit, and the exact brand of saltines I'd been hiding in the closet. He unloaded all of it without a word, like the haul spoke for itself.

“You went shopping,” I said.

“We were low.”

“We had a full box.”

“You had a hidden box. Behind the towels, second shelf.” He folded the bag into a neat square. “There's more now.”

Liam grinned into his phone. “He alphabetized your snacks.”

“I did not alphabetize her snacks.”

Nobody expected anything from me all day. I answered emails from the couch. They left me alone. It was the least dramatic thing that could have happened, and I keep waiting for that to feel wrong.

It doesn't.