Page 191 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Controlled, handsome, infuriating. But something is wrong underneath it. Not obvious to anyone who doesn’t know how to read the tiny fractures in him.

Unfortunately, I’m starting to.

His tie is gone, his shirtsleeves are rolled to his forearms, his hair is slightly messed, like he’s dragged his hand through it too many times and then resented the evidence.

The laptop is open in front of him, along with printed pages spread across the desk in precise, terrifying little piles.

“You’re back,” he says. “How was Sophie?”

“Loud. Invasive. Fed me against my will.”

“Good.”

“That isn't sympathy.”

I step into the office, glancing at the desk. “What is all this?”

His posture shifts. “Work.”

“Obviously. I wasn’t under the impression you were scrapbooking.”

He doesn’t answer, which means:not just work.

I move closer. The papers are dense with diagrams, code strings, timelines, and technical notes. Most of it might as well be ancient runes written by robots, but a few words jump out.

Stabilization, failsafe, telemetry, accident review.

“Is this about the gala demo?”

His silence answers before he does. “Partly.”

“Partly,” I repeat.

He exhales quietly through his nose. “The corruption in the demo code reminded me of something.”

My stomach tightens. “Something from Megan’s crash?”

“Yes.”

I forget, briefly, how to breathe. “Oh.”

He looks away first. “I compared the current corrupted stabilization sequence with old documentation from the accident investigation.”

“And?”

“They’re not identical.”

“Okay.”

“But the architecture is similar.”

I move to the chair across from him slowly and sit without asking. “Similar how?”

He studies me, like he’s deciding whether I’ll understand. Then, maybe remembering I once spotted things in his work documents because I’m nosy and annoyingly observant, he turns the laptop slightly toward me.

“The current system has a failsafe layer designed to prevent overcorrection. If the aircraft receives conflicting data, the system is supposed to slow itself down.”

I frown at the screen. “Slow itself down?”