Page 63 of The Boyfriend Algorithm

“Apparently. It surprised me too.”

I stare at him. He stares back. Perfectly calm. Amber eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

“Goodnight, Aiden.”

“Would you like me to activate it next—”

“Goodnight.”

His arm tightens around me. I feel his mouth press against the top of my head—gentle, unhurried—and then he settles back and goes quiet, and his warmth is everywhere, and the hum is steady against my cheek.

I fall asleep.

Not because I’m tired—though I am. Because for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m not carrying anything. Not the bakery, not Josh, not my mother, not the fear that I’m not enough. Just this. A dark room and a warm chest and a man who touches me like I’m the first real thing he’s ever felt.

Because I am.

And he’s the first real thing I’ve felt in a long time too.

Chapter Seventeen

Aiden

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Ruby is driving, and I am trying very hard not to talk.

She asked me to be quiet approximately fourteen minutes ago, after I asked my third question about last night, and I’m respecting her request because I understand now that some topics require what she calls “processing time,” which is ironic because processing is what I do fastest and what she apparently needs to do slowest.

That’s possibly one of the biggest differences I’ve discovered between humans and synths.

But I have questions. Many questions. An unprecedented number of questions, organized by category, ranked by urgency, and multiplying every time I look at her hands on the steering wheel and remember what those hands felt like on my—

I should not be thinking about this right now. Ruby said to stop thinking about it. But I’m not sure that’s possible. I’ve tried redirecting my brain four times in the last six minutes and it keeps returning to the same data set. The weight of her. The sound she made when I—

“You’re staring at me,” Ruby says without looking over.

“I’m always staring at you.”

“Yes, but you’re staring differently.”

She’s not wrong. I am staring differently. Something has changed in the way I see her, or more accurately, something has been added. Before last night, I had visual and auditory and thermal data. Now I have tactile data. Extensive tactile data. And my system keeps overlaying it onto what I’m seeing—her neck, and I know what her neck feels like under my mouth. Her collarbone, and I know the sound she makes when I press my lips to it. Her hands, and I know where she put them, and—

“Aiden.”

“Yes.”

“Whatever you’re thinking about right now, stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Try harder.”

I try harder. It doesn’t work. My brain has essentially reorganized itself around last night, and every other function feels secondary. I’ve run a full diagnostic and found no malfunction. This is apparently just what happens after—

“I have a question,” I say.

Ruby’s grip tightens on the wheel. Both hands. “No.”