Page 150 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Our bodies stutter together, then align, and the heat between my legs is nothing compared to the fire racing every circuit of my body. I want to die like this, my neurons shorting out, dying little perfect deaths with every hungry drag of his hips.

He growls my name, and the sound punches straight through every last defense I have. I bite his shoulder, without warning, and he makes a sound that’s half laugh, half threat, and fuck if that isn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.

My brain picks right now to perform an emergency factory reset.

For a heartbeat, I think I might cry, or scream, or burn the world down, but my mouth is full of his name as I shatter, completely, every muscle igniting then dissolving, and there's nothing but stars.

He's right behind me. I can feel it: the tension, the trembling, the blind need to lose control.

He doesn’t fight it.

He never stops moving, not even as he falls apart above me, hips stuttering and hands digging into my shoulders, grounding himself even as he comes undone.

Our bodies lock together, fused at the points of greatest need, and when he collapses, breathless and shaking, I laugh in pure animal amazement.

My legs are trembling and refuse to uncurl. My spine feels like it’s been scooped out and replaced with light and static.

For a long moment, the only sound is our hearts frantically trying to reconcile the physics and chemistry of what we just did.

I feel found, and I feel ruined. I feel like someone took an entire life’s worth of loneliness and squeezed it out of me.

It’s too much. It’s not enough.

Somewhere along the edges of my vision, reality seeps in. My pulse is finally calm enough for me to notice the long strokes of Ethan’s fingers along my thighs, the way he tries to soften the landing after the free fall. He huffs against my collarbone, a laugh or a sigh, and holds me like a secret. I don’t know what to do with my hands.

All I know is that I don’t want to let go of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ethan

Lunch,in theory, exists to interrupt work.

In practice, it’s usually where other work disguises itself as a meal.

By twelve forty, I’ve already had two calls with Zurich, one with legal, and a fifteen-minute conversation with Sara in which she informed me, with the tact of a surgical blade, that if I continue revising the gala demonstration notes at one in the morning, she’ll begin having my access credentials suspended after ten p.m. for the good of the company.

She wasn’t entirely joking.

The architecture issue with the demo has narrowed, but not enough to satisfy me. The adaptive correction layer is performing within acceptable thresholds in simulation, yet there’s still a timing inconsistency in one of the failover sequences that I don’t enjoy. Not because it’s catastrophic; it isn’t. Because it’s inelegant.

Systems tend to fail first in the places people dismiss as inelegant.

Which is why, when Bee texted this morning to say he’d made it into the city early and was free for lunch near the river, I agreed, because another mind on the problem is useful.

The fact that Bee’s mind has, on occasion, bordered on infuriating brilliance is simply relevant context.

The restaurant is discreet and expensive. It sits on a corner with a partial view of the river and just enough distance from the financial district foot traffic to feel private.

I’m shown to the table before I see them.

Bee's already seated, one arm slung over the back of his chair as if the room belongs to him. He stands when I approach, smiling with the same easy confidence he had ten years ago, though time has sharpened him in less useful ways. Still handsome, still charming, still dressed to make a point of some kind.

Across from him sits the new girlfriend.

She’s pretty and composed, younger than him, though not absurdly so. Long hair, expensive blouse, the watch of someone trying to signal taste instead of money. Her smile is pleasant, though there’s a caution behind it that suggests she's either smarter than Bee prefers or already tired in ways she’s not prepared to admit.

“Ethan,” Bee says, rising fully and reaching out.