Page 72 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

I am aware that is a problem. I've decided to table it for now.

Liam drops into the chair across from me and picks up the menu. He looks at it for three seconds, sets it back down.

“Did you pre-read the menu?”

“The eggs Benedict has good reviews.”

Andrew sits. He's got the look of someone who didn't sleep a full night but doesn't want anyone to notice. Dark circles. He was wearing sunglasses when he came through the door. He takes them off when he sits down.

I respect that.

“How is she?” Liam asks.

Andrew considers it. “Okay. I think okay.”

Nobody says good. We all know the difference.

The server comes. Liam orders the eggs benedict. Andrew gets coffee and stares at the menu without reading it. I order a western omelet with bacon and wait.

“I'll start,” I say.

Liam raises an eyebrow. “You rehearsed this.”

“I thought through what needed to be said.”

“Same thing.”

“It's not.”

Andrew wraps both hands around his coffee mug. “Let him talk.”

I set my phone face-down on the table.

“We need to establish what we're doing. The part we can actually decide.”

Neither of them argues.

“No competition,” I say. “No one tracking who she spends more time with or what it means. That stops now, or we're already done before we start.”

Liam nods once.

Andrew nods once.

“No hierarchy. Not by how long you've known her. Not by who the test comes back for.”

Because hierarchy breaks teams.

I've seen it happen before. Men who think they rank above each other stop protecting the group. Start protecting position.

That gets people hurt.

We're not doing that here.

Andrew goes still. Just for a second. Like he hadn't expected to hear it said out loud.

“The baby is all of ours,” I say. “Whatever the test says. That's not a maybe. That's not something we revisit when the answer is inconvenient.”

A pause while it lands.