Page 166 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

She says nothing, still staring out at the city. Then she presses a hand briefly against her forehead.

“I know,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yes, I do.” She finally turns toward me, eyes bright with frustrated tears. “You looked just as confused as I felt, and I still acted like you’d set me up or something.”

“I understand why.”

“No, you really don’t.”

Her voice cracks slightly on the last word, and I feel emotion dangerously close to anger stir low in my chest, not directed at her, but at the situation. At Bryce. At myself for somehow missing this entirely.

I move closer carefully this time. “Then explain it to me.”

Addy lets out a shaky breath and leans back against the glass. “He never told you about me?”

“No.”

“Not even once?”

“No.”

A bitter laugh escapes her. “Wow. That’s actually kind of impressive.”

I study her face. The humiliation there bothers me. “I haven’t called him Bryce in years. He was going by Bee when I first met him. I guess it was his persona at the time, and I’ve always just kept that up.”

“I know,” she mutters. “I figured that out approximately thirty seconds before my nervous system left my body.”

I almost smile at that, but the expression dies quickly. “What happened between you?”

She looks away again immediately. That alone tells me enough to dislike the answer.

“Addy.”

“He dumped me,” she says flatly. “At the airport. Right before we were supposed to move to Chicago together.”

My jaw tightens.

“You know that part already.”

“No,” I say quietly. “I didn’t. Not really. I mean, you mentioned something on the plane, but…”

“Hedidn’t tell you?”

“Bryce told me almost nothing about his personal life besides vague references to girlfriends and increasingly questionable choices.”

She stares at me, then shakes her head slowly because the entire thing has become too absurd to process rationally.

“He asked me to move here with him,” she says. “I gave up my apartment, my job, basically my entire life because he wanted a fresh start in Chicago. Then we got to the airport, and he suddenly decided he was in love with someone else, and I was too much work.”

Every word lands harder than the last. Ice cold settles into place beneath my ribs. “He said that?”

“Oh, it gets worse.” She laughs again, quieter now, exhausted around the edges. “Apparently, I’m emotionally unstable and dramatic. Which was interesting feedback to receive while standing in Terminal B trying not to commit homicide.”

I close my eyes briefly.

Bryce has always had a talent for detonating his own life and acting surprised by the explosion afterward. But this…