Page 64 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

If she tells me to leave now, I will.

Once was enough to break something in me.

I don't think there’s anything left that could survive it twice.

Chapter twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-Three—Riley

Istep back from the door.

Andrew takes it for the invitation it is and comes in. He doesn't sit on the bed—he notices the space I need and chooses the chair at the desk instead, turning it slightly so he's facing me but not crowding. Forearms on his knees. The same gentle posture he uses when he's trying not to be overwhelming.

I take a seat on the edge of the bed.

It feels like I've been awake for three days.

“Okay,” I say. Not permission. More like: I'm here. I'm listening. Don't make me regret it.

He doesn't speak right away. He just sits there, turning whatever he's about to say over in his hands like it might break.

“I never slept with anyone,” he says finally. “There was no one. I need you to hear that before anything else.”

The words don't fit anywhere. I stare at him. “What?"

“I lied. Seven years ago, in your kitchen. I told you I'd cheated and it wasn't true.”

I've been carrying that night for seven years. The floor of it just moved. “Then why?” I start, and can't finish it.

“You kept trying to forgive me.” His voice isn't steady now. “Every time I pulled back, you pulled me closer. You'd have worked through anything. I knew it. And I knew I'd let you, and I'd spend years watching it cost you everything you were.” He stops. “So I panicked. I said the worst thing I could think of. The one thing you'd never negotiate. And then it was out. Taking it back meant staying. And staying meant ruining you slow instead of fast.”

I hold very still.

“I aged out of foster care at eighteen,” he continues. “Third family. I'd been in the system since I was six.”

I didn't know that.

The words land between us and sit there. All the times I imagined why he left—another woman, boredom, someone better—and never once thought: fear. That's what he's actually saying.

“I never told you when we were together,” he says. “I had this whole constructed story about my parents being out of state, not close, distant but fine. And you never pushed because you were polite and I was grateful. I kept waiting for you to figure it out anyway.” He pauses. “That's the thing you have to understand about growing up the way I did. You learn early that people size you up. Decide whether you're worth the trouble. And most of the time, the answer is no.”

“Andrew—”

“I'm not saying this for sympathy.” His voice stays level. “I'm saying it because you deserve to know why. By the time I was twenty-one, I had a talent for spotting the exact moment someone was about to decide I wasn't worth keeping. So I got very good at leaving first.”

I look at my hands.

“You were...” He stops. Tries again. “You knew exactly who you were. Where you were going. What you wanted. And I kept waiting for the day you'd turn around and see the gap. Between who you deserved and what you actually had. I was so sure it was coming.” A pause. “So I made it happen myself. On my own terms, before you could. And I told myself that was rational. Protective.”

“Protective,” I repeat, and the word lands wrong. “You didn't protect me. You hurt me first.”

“I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds insane.”

“Yeah.” He doesn't argue. “It was.”

I stand up because I can't sit still anymore. I go to the window. The city is fully awake now, moving at its usual relentless pace. I press my hand against the glass, cool against my palm.