Page 61 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

“Okay,” he says again. Firmer this time. This time it sounds like a decision.

Ethan meets his eyes across the table. Something passes between them—brief, wordless, settled.

Choosing us.

Nobody moves for a few seconds, like we're all waiting to see what just shifted.

My hand stays where he left it.

Warm.

Real.

I'm almost afraid to breathe.

Chapter twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-Two—Andrew

Ineed an hour. Just to process.

Nobody stops me. Liam steps back from his chair. Ethan says nothing. Riley watches me cross the kitchen and I don't look back. If I look back I won't go, and I need to go. I need some time to think.

The door closes behind me with a soft click that sounds too loud.

The Strip at this hour is a different city.

The clubs are dark, their lights still cycling on the wrong schedule, pulsing for no one. A woman in last night's dress crosses the intersection ahead of me, heels dangling from one hand, phone glowing in the other. A maintenance crew hoses down the concrete in front of a casino entrance, water running black into the gutters. The fountains are still going. Nobody there to watch them.

I walk. I’ve moved around a lot since college. No place really stuck. Vegas was supposed to be the same.

The heat is already rising, thick and dry, carrying that particular Vegas morning smell: sun-warmed concrete, stale beer, and cigarette smoke baked into the sidewalks. By noon this stretch will be packed with bodies and noise. Right now it's just me and the city running on maintenance.

I need to play out the scenarios.

Scenario one: it's mine.

I run it straight, no hedging. If this baby is mine, what does that mean to Riley? Does she want my name attached to this, the two of us permanently tangled in a way that can't be undone? Or does the idea of it being mine make everything harder? She spent weeks not telling me. Convinced I'd bolt the second things got real.

Maybe she's right.

I test that thought for half a block. It doesn't hold.

I met Connor Monroe at a networking event.

She never told him my name. Not once. Not when we were together. Not after I left.

Just another handshake. Another business card. He mentioned he was flying out to Portland that weekend to visit his sister. Said it offhandedly, the way people mention family when they’re killing time before the pitch.

Her name hit like a dropped weight.

I kept my face steady. Kept talking numbers. Like I hadn't spent years wondering where she ended up.

Hearing her name dragged every mistake I'd ever made straight back into the room.

I told myself it didn't mean anything.

That she probably lived halfway across the country from wherever I was at the time.