Page 7 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

I press the back of my hand to my cheek and stare at the ceiling, mortified and still half-aroused.

There is a man in my doorway.

I sit up fast.

The door is half-open. Liam is leaning against the frame in a t-shirt and low-slung shorts, arms crossed, looking far too awake.

“Your door was open,” he says casually.

I glance at it. It definitely should be closed.

“I heard noise,” he continues. “Knocked first. You didn’t answer.”

“I’m fine,” I say, aiming for steady and missing badly.

“Sure.” His green eyes sparkle with quiet amusement. “Didn’t sound like a bad dream.”

“It was,” I insist. “Very bad. Terrifying, even.”

His mouth curves into that slow, knowing grin. “If you say so.”

He straightens, pulls the door closed behind him with a soft click, and leaves me alone with my racing heart and extremely unhelpful imagination.

I flop back onto the pillows and stare at the ceiling.

These men are not my problem.

This is rapidly becoming a problem.

I am so deeply, catastrophically screwed.

Chapter four

Chapter Four—Ethan

Day two, and she turns the kitchen into her command center at three-thirty. Laptop, second monitor, power strip, notebook bristling with sticky tabs. She claims the far end of the table without asking. This is her brother's penthouse and she arrived first. She simply takes the space.

I'm already seated when she walks in. I should keep my eyes on the spreadsheet. I'm trained for this—years of residency drilled into me how to compartmentalize, how to push aside anything that isn't the immediate task when focus is everything. Distraction costs lives. Distraction ends in regret that follows you into the next shift, the next year. I know that regret exactly. I made every right call too many times where the patient died anyway. Eventually, I handed in my badge. I rebuilt in LA. Four years in the same apartment in Los Feliz. The same clean white walls. The same route to the office every morning. A refrigerator stocked with identical meal-prep containers every Sunday night because it was easier not to think about food during the week. Real estate suited the part of my brain that liked systems and outcomes and numbers that stayed solved once you solved them. No trauma bays. No phone calls to families. No walking back into another room ten minutes later like your hands weren’t still shaking.

It works. Or it has so far.

Connor trusts me. He asked me to keep an eye on things, not to notice the exact way she moves through a room like she's claiming territory that wasn't built for her. Not to wonder what it would cost if that focus ever turned fully on me.

Don't look. Don't catalog. She's Connor's sister. This ends one way: badly.

I force my gaze back down before she even finishes plugging in.

“Is this okay?” she asks anyway, not quite meeting my eyes.

“It's fine.”

She glances up—quick, assessing—then nods and settles in with one earbud already in.

Work first. Always.

She types in fast bursts, then goes quiet for long stretches, leaning closer to the screen, lips moving faintly. She's efficient. Focused.

Liam drifts through around four, takes one look at us, raises an eyebrow, and leaves without comment. Wise.