Page 154 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Bee and Celeste follow me out into the cold afternoon light. The city is bright in that winter clear way Chicago occasionally manages, all sharp edges and reflective surfaces. Bee glances up at the tower when we pull up outside it and lets out a low whistle.

“Well,” he says. “You really did become intolerably legitimate.”

I look at the building, then at him. “You say that like it’s a disease.”

“For me, it might be.”

Celeste tips her head back to take in the full height. “You worked on this from the beginning?”

He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “A very scrappy, deeply underfunded beginning, yes.”

“Underfunded,” I say, “is one way to describe it.”

“Character building,” Bee counters.

“Financially negligent,” I correct.

He grins. “And yet. Glass tower.”

The afternoon at the office goes better than expected. Bee falls into technical conversation with the same dangerous ease he always had, walking through the revised sequence with my engineers as though he never left, spotting two interface inefficiencies and one redundancy in under twenty minutes. Sara regards him the way she regards unexpected weather: with immediate suspicion and reluctant acknowledgment when it proves useful.

Celeste lasts an hour before the combination of screens, code, and three men arguing about stabilization thresholds drives her toward the executive lounge with the expression of someone making a long-term decision about whether this relationship is worth developing.

By five thirty, Bee has confirmed what I already suspected. The threshold adjustment should resolve the hesitation. The demo sequence can be simplified without losing authority. And the old instincts he brought into the room, however insane in delivery, remain intact in substance.

As I walk him and Celeste back toward the elevators, he says, “You should feed me for this.”

“I fed you at lunch.”

“That was transactional. I mean socially.”

“That sounds worse.”

He smirks. “Then say no.”

I consider it for less than a second. “Come to dinner this weekend.”

Bee looks pleased with himself immediately. “There it is.”

“Don’t make me retract it.”

“I won’t. What night?”

“Saturday.”

He glances at Celeste. “We’re free.”

She smiles politely. “I assume this will be less code-heavy than today.”

“No,” Bee says.

“Yes,” I say at the same time.

She laughs. “One of you is lying.”

“Statistically,” I tell her, “it’s him.”

The elevator arrives. Bee steps inside, then turns back before the doors close. “Looking forward to seeing the domestic side of the empire, Strong.”