Page 151 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

I shake his hand. “You made it.”

“Barely. Chicago traffic appears to have become an act of aggression.”

“It always was.”

He laughs and gestures to the woman beside him. “This is Celeste.”

She stands. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

That statement could mean almost anything.

I incline my head. “Likewise.”

Bee grins. “You have not. I’ve been deliberately mysterious.”

“I assumed as much,” I say, taking my seat.

The server appeared with the kind of efficient silence expensive restaurants train into their staff with water.

Bee sits again and studies me for half a second. “You look tired.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, but on me it reads as interesting.”

Celeste laughs into her glass.

Bee points at me as though I’ve proven something. “See? This is why we got along. He’s incapable of being polite in a normal way.”

“I’m being perfectly polite.”

“No,” Bee says. “You’re being you. Different category.”

The menus are unnecessary. I’ve been here often enough to know what I’m ordering before the server returns, and apparently so has Bee, who asks for something not listed, receives it without question, and leans back again with the look of a man entirely at ease in every environment.

There was a time when we occupied the same rooms almost daily. We’d shared startup offices and airfields, late-night engineering calls and conference tables buried under printed system maps. Bee had built half our early logic structure, and Megan had improved it by forcing discipline onto his instincts. I’d spent most of that period translating both of them into something scalable.

We were very good together.

Until we weren’t.

At the time, I thought he was making a mistake.

I still do, occasionally.

Though not one I ever held against him.

“So,” Bee says once the order is gone, “show me the empire updates.”

I take out my phone, open the latest demo architecture sequence, and turn the screen toward him. “Not empire updates. Specific problem.”

He looks delighted by that. “Even better.”

Celeste glances between us. “Should I be concerned this lunch is about to become a work meeting?”

“Yes,” Bee says.

“No,” I say at the same time.