Page 53 of Her Three Tech Bros

I have no idea what to say to her. What could I possibly say after everything that just happened?

I wish I could promise her that it’ll never happen again. That the three of us won’t fight each other ever again. That all our energy and passion will be directed at her, treating her the way she deserves to be treated.

But I simply can’t do that right now. Even before we were all sharing a girlfriend, the three of us would get into fights. Nothing this bad but still. This is likely to happen again.

Judging by Logan and Ethan’s silence, they’re probably in the same place as me. Wanting to reassure her that we could make it work, but not being sure we can.

“Jade.” Ethan steps forward and tries to find the right words. “This was regrettable, for sure. I think we can all agree on that. You never should’ve seen any of that.”

“Call me old fashioned,” I chime in. “But I think you should only see my penis under happy occasions.” I look down at my still nude form with a wink at Jade.

“Really?” Logan speaks up. “A joke? Right now? Are you being fucking serious? Ryan, you –”

“Stop!” Ethan yells.

Logan and I both fall silent once again. Now really isn’t the time to resume this fight.

All three of us turn to face Jade again. The expression on her face is heartbreaking. She looks so destroyed by what she’s witnessing. I can see tears starting to well up in her eyes. They glisten in the early morning light shining through the window.

“Boys, this isn’t good. The way you’re all acting. It’s not healthy,” she says.

“Sunshine,” I say. As a last-ditch effort, maybe the little nickname I gave her will help smooth things over for the moment.

“Don’t,” she snaps back quickly. “It’ll take a lot more than kind words from all of you to fix this.”

“Jade,” Ethan tries to interject. “Listen.”

“No,” Jade says. Now the tears start to fall from her face. “No, you three need to listen to me. I’m not joking. The three of you need to work this out. Whatever it is, I need you to just deal with it. I don’t want to be wrapped up in all of this needless drama.”

Jade is right, of course. We have gotten her mixed up in our own bullshit. She deserves better.

“Come to some sort of understanding or fix it,” she continues. “It just needs to not be an issue anymore. And if that seems too hard, or not worth the trouble, or would compromise the cool, tough guy look you have… Who fucking cares? You guys need to leave and have a good long think about what it is that actually matters to you and what you want. And if it's to be with me, you need to work your shit out with each other before you come back. Understand?”

All three of us simply nod in agreement. I don’t know about the other two, but I’m too worried to say anything else to her. I don’t think I trust myself to say anything helpful.

One wrong word, and I could make all of this so much worse. One wrong word, and I could close the door on a relationship with Jade forever. So it’s probably best to just stay quiet for now. Ethan and Logan clearly think the same thing.

“Now I’m leaving,” Jade says. “I have some thinking of my own to do. Don’t follow me.”

We’re all silent as Jade grabs her clothes and throws them on. She picks up her phone, stuffs it in her purse, and breezes out of the room. After a moment, I hear the front door of my apartment slam shut, and I flinch at the sound.

Once a few minutes have gone by, giving Jade enough time to be out of the building, Logan slowly starts to leave the bedroom. Meanwhile, Ethan and I quickly gather our clothes from the night before and get dressed.

Once fully clothed, Ethan and I hurry out of Ryan’s bedroom and catch up to Logan. He’s standing by the front door, looking at us, face perfectly unreadable.

Seemingly, none of us want to be the first to say something. The first to break the silence. The first to probably reignite the fight that went unfinished.

All three of us just look at each other. It’s like some sort of stand-off. One of us is going to act first, and there will probably never be a silent moment between the three of us ever again. But I know I don’t want it to be me. I already feel bad about getting into it with Logan.

The worst part is that we missed out on whatever morning fun we might’ve gotten up to if we’d gotten to peacefully wake up next to Jade.

Ethan doesn’t seem to be the calm one anymore, I can see it in his eyes. He kept his cool for the most part in front of Jade, but that control is quickly fading now, and Logan is clearly his target. He turns to look at him.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Ethan snaps. “We had a good thing going with Jade, and you had to go and fuck it up. You couldn’t keep it together for one fucking –”

“Enough!” I interrupt. Now it’s my turn to get in the middle. I stand between the pair of them. “Knock it the fuck off before everything is ruined for good. Let’s all just go our separate ways and do what she asked. Think about what we want. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ethan says with anger still in his voice.

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