Page 177 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

“Yeah, I figured,” he says, tone lighter than the situation warrants. “You’ve been ignoring me.”

“I’ve been occupied.”

“With her?”

Irritation flashes hot beneath my ribs because of the way he says it.

Casual. Dismissive. Like Addy is temporary.

I don’t respond.

“Look, about last night?—”

“I don’t have time for this.”

“Ethan—”

“There’s an issue with the system.”

That stops him. “What kind of issue?”

“More corruption in the demo sequence. In the core loop.”

“Huh.”

It’s not the response I expect. “What?”

“Just interesting timing.”

I don’t engage with that. “If you called to discuss dinner, this isn’t the moment.”

“I didn’t.” Another pause. “You said corruption in the core loop?”

I’m barely hearing him because my eyes are so fixed on the screen. “Yes.”

“Failsafe still intact?”

“For now.”

“Rollback not holding?”

My attention sharpens slightly.

That’s a specific guess.

But Bryce worked on early stabilization architecture with me for years. He knows how these systems fail under pressure.

“No,” I say.

A breath on the other end. “Okay. I might have an idea.”

That grabs me. Bryce does know his stuff. “Go on.”

“There’s a patch you can apply. Temporary, but it should stabilize the sequence long enough for the demo.”

“We don’t do temporary fixes.”

“You do if the alternative is a public failure.” I don’t respond immediately. “Ethan, I built part of that system. I know how itbehaves under stress. If the corruption’s sitting where I think it is, you’re not going to isolate it in time.”