Page 74 of The Boyfriend Algorithm

“Bakery stuff.”

He’s quiet for half a block. Then he says, “You touch your collarbone when you’re thinking about something you don’t want to say out loud.”

My hand is on my collarbone.

I drop it.

“I’m fine,” I say.

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t push. But his hand tightens around mine—just slightly, just enough—and I feel the warmth of it and the steadiness of it and I want to lean into it and I want to run from it, and both impulses are so strong that I end up doing neither. I just walk. Next to him. Holding his hand. Smiling the thin smile.

And for the first time, Aiden doesn’t call me on it.

Which means either he’s learning to give me space, or he knows exactly what’s happening and he’s afraid of the answer too.

Liv calls that night.

I’m in bed. Aiden is on the couch—we haven’t figured out the sleeping arrangement at home yet. At the hotel, sharing a bed made sense because it took up the whole room. Here, there are options, and the existence of options means we have to make a choice, and the choice means defining something, and I’m not ready to define anything. So each night since the hotel, I’ve retreated to my room at bedtime, and he’s remained on the couch.

“So,” Liv says. “Quick question.”

“Nothing good starts with ‘quick question.’”

“What are you and Aiden?”

The ceiling. Right on time. Collapsing down on top of me.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you? Are you together? Are you dating? Is he your boyfriend? Your real boyfriend, not the fake wedding version?”

“I don’t—we haven’t—”

“Because at happy hour he was holding your hand and looking at you like you invented oxygen, and you were looking at him like you were trying very hard not to look at him, and I just want to know what we’re calling this.”

“I don’t know what we’re calling it.”

“Ruby.”

“I don’t, Liv. I don’t know. We came back from the wedding and everything is the same except nothing is the same, and I don’t know how to—” I press my free hand over my eyes. “He makes me eggs. Every morning. And he’s fixed everything in the bakery. And he knows my sleep schedule and my revenue numbers and he’s probably listening to this conversation right now because he hears everything, and I—”

“You love him.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re panicking about it, which is exactly what Ruby Hart does when something good happens to her.”

I stare at the ceiling. My ceiling. The one with the crack that runs from the light fixture to the corner. Aiden offered to fix it last week. I told him to leave it.

“What if it’s not real?” I say. Quietly. The thing I haven’t said out loud to anyone.

“What do you mean?”

“What if what he feels isn’t real? What if it’s programming? What if he’s just—doing what he was built to do, and I’m stupid enough to fall for it?”

Liv is quiet for a long time. “Ruby,” she says. “Do you remember what he said at the store? When I asked him why you?”

“He said he didn’t know.”