Page 3 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

In one version she listened.

That was the lie I told myself most often.

She stood still while I explained—voice steady, hands open like that meant something. She didn’t interrupt. Didn’t turn away. Just watched me the way she used to when we were good.

“Why?” she asked in that version. Her voice wasn’t cold. Just tired.

I had an answer ready for that too. Always did.

Because I thought I was protecting you.

Because I thought leaving first would hurt less than watching you walk away.

Because I was too much of a coward to stay and let you see who I really was.

That version always ended the same way.

With forgiveness.

With her stepping closer instead of backing away.

Everything somehow still salvageable.

It was the cleanest version.

It was also the least realistic.

After a few minutes I walk back to the living room.

“So?” Liam questions behind me.

“It's fine.”

“I'm not sure it is.”

“We knew each other in college. It's been a while. She wasn't expecting me.”

Liam doesn't push, but I can feel him deciding how much to let slide. “Old friends,” he repeats, testing the words. I should have said something. Eighteen months since I put Connor’s last name together with Riley’s and I never brought it up. Not to Liam, not to Ethan and definitely not to Connor. I kept telling myself it might not matter. That she’d moved on. That I’d find a way to handle it quietly if it came up. That backfired.

“It's handled,” I say. Even I don't believe it anymore.

Ethan watches me with those steady blue eyes. He's already made his assessment. He doesn't offer advice or questions—just picks up his bag, finds his room, and disappears down the hall. Somehow that silence feels louder than anything he could have said.

Liam claps me once on the shoulder as he passes. “We'll give her some space.”

Then I'm alone in Connor's penthouse. Connor's business. Connor's sister behind a locked door because I'm here.

I drop my bag in the last bedroom, wash my face, and grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles go white. The man in the mirror has no good answers. Twenty-eight years old, a real partnership on the line, and the first thing I manage to do in this city is make the woman I once loved lock herself away from me.

She looked exactly the same. Plain shirt, tight ponytail, no effort—and still so damn beautiful it knocked the air out of me. That half-second before the armor slammed down… I saw it. The flash of recognition, the hurt, the anger. I still know every micro-expression she makes. Seven years, and my body still reacts to her like no time has passed.

I owe her more than words. I know that. This isn't just about getting her back. It's about proving I'm not the man who walked away. Because if I am, then losing her wasn't the worst thing I did. Walking away from who I could have been was.

The question is whether she'll ever let me close enough to prove it. I’ve been asking some version of that question my whole life. The answer has usually been no.

I could say so many things. The explanations I've rehearsed a thousand times. How I was twenty-one and convinced I was saving her from me. How I burned it down myself because I was terrified she'd leave first. How I've regretted it every single day since.

I hope she's furious. Furious means she still feels something. She locked the door. That’s not nothing.