Chapter Twelve—Liam
It's been four weeks and the pool deck is quiet on a Saturday afternoon, nothing but the soft slap of water against the tiles.
I spot Riley the second I step outside. She's stretched out on one of the lounge chairs in a simple pink bikini, laptop balanced on her thighs, sunglasses on, hair twisted up off her neck.
The Vegas sun is brutal, but she looks like she belongs here—legs crossed at the ankles, one foot bouncing slightly like she's trying to focus on work and failing.
I grab two iced coffees from the outdoor fridge and head her way.
“Figured you might want backup that doesn't come with red annotations,” I say, setting one cup on the small table beside her chair.
She doesn't look up right away. “I'm working.”
“Riley.” I drop into the lounge chair next to hers. “It's Saturday. In Vegas. There's a pool literally three feet away.” I gesture at it like it might be news to her. “Please. Take a break. Let's have some fun.”
“Some of us have deadlines.”
“Some of us have a perfectly good Saturday and absolutely no excuses.” I stretch my legs out, letting my knee almost brush hers. “How's the nightmare client?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Still delusional.”
“Still sending thumbs-up emojis?”
“He graduated to a smiley face. With sunglasses.”
I laugh, real and sudden, and for a second it feels easy again—the way it did weeks ago before the hot tub turned everything into a minefield. “You're too nice. I would have sent him a mirror.”
Riley finally glances over, sunglasses sliding down her nose just enough for me to see those hazel eyes. “Careful. That almost sounded like flirting.”
“Did it?” I press a hand to my chest. “I'm just deeply passionate about typography.”
She makes a sound that's almost a laugh. “You don't know anything about typography.”
“No,” I agree. “But I know you need someone to be annoyed at who isn't a client.”
That lands. She closes the laptop halfway. “You brought two coffees.”
“I did.”
“You came out here planning to stay.”
“I brought coffee,” I say again, like that answers it.
Her mouth curves, half amused, half warning. “You're a disaster, Liam.”
“Probably.” I lean back and let the sun hit my face. “But I'm a disaster with iced coffee on a Saturday, so you're stuck with me whether or not you want to be.”
She shakes her head but reaches for the cup. That's enough.
We sit without talking for a while. The good kind of quiet. She goes back to her laptop, but her foot stops bouncing. Somewhere in the last five minutes she started actually working instead of performing it.
“Nice bikini, by the way.”
She glances up over her sunglasses. “You shouldn't be checking me out.”
“That would be completely impossible.”
She holds my gaze for one beat, then shakes her head and looks back at the screen. She's working to keep the smile off her face. Not quite succeeding.
Then she says, still without looking up, “Stop smiling at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know how this ends.”
I turn toward her. “How does it end?”
She glances over the top of her sunglasses. “Badly. Obviously.”
“For who?”
She doesn't answer. The corner of her mouth does something complicated.
“We have rules, Liam,” she says, voice quieter now.
“Yeah.” I lean in, forearms on my knees. “We do.”
I know exactly what I'm doing. I've known since I picked up that second coffee. The rules still make sense. I believe in them about sixty percent of the time, which isn't enough to justify the way I keep looking for their edges.
My hand moves before I can stop it—slow enough that she could—and I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers rest at her jaw, thumb brushing the soft line there. Her breath catches. Mine does too.
“You make following them feel like the hardest thing I've ever done,” I murmur.
Her lips part. She doesn't move away. For one long second her eyes search mine like she's trying to find the version of this that makes sense.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” I say.
She opens her mouth.
The glass door slides open.
Andrew steps out carrying four hard seltzers, two in each hand, still cold enough that condensation is running down his fingers. Ethan is right behind him, shirt already off, sunglasses on, looking like he’s decided Saturday is happening whether the rest of us are ready or not.
“Spotted you two from the gym,” Andrew says, completely unbothered, setting the drinks on the table between our chairs. “Couldn't let you have all the fun without us.” He pops one open and holds it out to Riley with a grin. “Hard seltzer?”
I lean back. Riley glances at me—just for a second—then takes the can. “Sure.”
“Obviously,” Ethan says, dropping into a chair and tilting his face toward the sun like he's reintroducing himself to it, “It's a travesty we haven’t been able to enjoy this pool more.”
“I've been working,” Riley says.
“It's Saturday,” Andrew says.
“That's what Liam said.”
“Liam's right.” Andrew leans back in his chair and cracks his own can. “Rare, but it happens.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don't push it.”
Riley laughs and I stop waiting for the afternoon to go wrong.
Andrew takes one pull from his can and launches straight into a rant.
“Three hours late,” he says. “Shows up with the wrong materials and acts like I'm supposed to be impressed.”
Riley leans forward like this is the most fascinating story she's ever heard. “How wrong?”
Andrew lets out a breath through his nose. “Tile instead of stone. Beige Tile.”
She blinks. “That feels aggressively wrong.”
“That's what I said.”
“Like he just grabbed whatever was on sale and hoped for the best?”
Andrew points at her. “See, this is why designers don't get invited to job sites.”
She grins. “I'm just trying to understand how someone survives adulthood with that level of confidence.”
I’m enjoying all of this—the noise, the arguing, the way Riley fits into it like she’s always belonged with us.
Ethan snorts. “Dry heat's the real enemy anyway. Doesn't matter what materials you use if the sun is going to bleach them in a season.”
“The heat isn’t that bad,” I say immediately, because it's funnier to argue with him than agree.
Ethan turns his head toward me slowly. “You've lived here four weeks.”
“Exactly. I'm basically a local.”
Riley laughs, the sound bright and loose, and Andrew shakes his head like we're all idiots.
It's stupid. Pointless. Loud—Andrew arguing, Riley laughing, Ethan already shaking his head.
And it's the first time in weeks, it actually feels like a day off.
At some point Andrew says, “Whoever's been in the pool least since we got here has to jump in first.”
“That's Riley,” I say immediately.
“That's definitely Riley,” Ethan agrees.
“Absolutely not,” Riley says. “I've been in the pool.”
“When?” Andrew asks.
“I—the first week.”
“Once,” I say.
“Once counts.”
“It really doesn't,” Andrew says, already standing, already pulling his shirt off. “Come on.”
“You're in too,” Andrew says, already halfway to the edge.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Riley tilts her head. “Scared?”
That does it.
I drop my can on the table and step to the edge. The tile burns under my feet for half a second before I push off and dive.
Cold water closes over my head.
When I surface, Andrew is already grinning like he knew exactly how that would go.
Andrew and I race the length of it while Riley sits on the edge with her feet in the water, seltzer balanced in her hand like this is entertainment and not competition. Ethan times it on his phone and reads the result in his meeting voice. Riley laughs so hard she nearly drops the can.
Andrew wins. He surfaces and looks straight at her.
“Told you,” he says.
“You cheated.”
“How do you cheat at swimming in a straight line?”
“I don't know yet. I'm working on it.”
Ethan slips in during the second race. No announcement, no splash, just there. He does a lap, comes back, and hooks his arms over the edge of the pool right next to where Riley is sitting.
“You're still not in,” he says.
“I'm judging.”
“Judging is over. Andrew cheated somehow, Riley said so.” He tilts his head toward the water. “Come in.”
She looks at him. She slides in.
The water is cold. Cold enough that she sucks in a sharp breath, cold enough that it shows through the thin fabric of her bikini top when she breaks the surface.
I notice Andrew go very still.
Ethan is staring at a fixed point past the far end of the pool.
I look at the water.
Riley pushes her hair back, oblivious. “Okay,” she says, shaking her face dry. “That's cold.”
“Yeah,” I manage.
We play.
Ethan beats me in the second race by half a length and doesn't say a word about it, which is worse than if he'd gloated.
Andrew digs a pool ball out from under one of the deck chairs and the rules change entirely. He argues every call Riley makes.
“That was out,” she says.
“It wasn't even close to out,” Andrew fires back.
“It felt out.”
“That's not how rules work.”
She grins like she's doing it on purpose.
I stop keeping score. I let myself have it. All of it. The noise and the sun and the fact that nobody has said anything real in an hour.
We're midway through a third race—Riley and Andrew on one side, Ethan and me on the other, an argument building about whether kicking counts as cheating—when Andrew ducks under and comes up behind Riley, both hands at her waist, hauling her sideways.
She shrieks and goes under. Comes up spluttering, both palms flat against his chest. “That is absolutely cheating—”
“No rules about underwater contact,” he says.
“I'm making that a rule right now—”
His hands are still at her waist, fingers curved just above her bikini bottoms. She's still laughing. Then she isn't.
He isn't either.
I stop moving in the water.
She looks at Andrew. Then at me. Then at Ethan, who has drifted closer without seeming to. We're in a small pool in a city that makes you forget the rest of the world exists and we've been here for hours, and we've been here for weeks, and that's the problem.
“We can't,” she says. Not an accusation. Just true.
Andrew exhales. His hand drops. “I know.”
“Connor—” I start.
“And Harrington.” She says it quietly. “And everything that comes after this week. The deal, the dinners, all of it.” She looks at us. “It's not just us.”
Ethan doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to.
We stay in the water for another moment, the four of us close enough to touch, not touching. Then Riley moves toward the steps. Andrew follows. I pull myself out on the side.
Ethan holds the door. I'm the last one in.
I tell myself we're still following the rules.
The lie feels thinner every day.