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Ruby’s eyes narrow. “Liv.”
“Calm down. Normal questions.” She looks at me. “So, Aiden. You’re doing all this for Ruby. The wedding, the clothes, the whole fake boyfriend thing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she needs help, and I’m able to provide it.”
“Okay, but like—” She tilts her head. “You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”
I consider this. “Yes.”
“Why, though? What is it about Ruby specifically? Is it because she was the first person you met? Because she was nice to you?”
“She was not the first. I’ve interacted with other humans. The technicians at the lab. The person who built me. I observed them. I cooperated with them. I felt nothing.”
Liv’s eyebrows rise. Ruby has gone still on the bench.
“Nothing?” Liv asks.
“Nothing. They spoke to me, tested me, maintained me. There was no pull. No shift. They existed in my awareness, and then they didn’t, and it made no difference.”
“So were you, like, programmed to feel this way about Ruby? Is this a companion thing? A bonding protocol or whatever?”
“No.” I say it with more force than I intend, and both of them notice. “There’s no protocol for this. My companion functions are general—designed for assisting with household chores, regular maintenance. Not for this.”
Liv is quiet for a moment, which is unusual. Ruby is looking at her hands.
“So if it’s not programming,” Liv says, softer now, “and it’s not because she was first… why Ruby?”
The store is bright around us. Music from the ceiling. A woman with a stroller walks past.
I don’t have an answer.
I’ve tried. I’ve tried to isolate the variable—what is it about Ruby that causes everything in me to orient around her? Is it her voice? Her kindness? The way she talks to herself when she thinks no one can hear? The humming? The way she carries everything alone? The way she handed me a towel when I was muddy and lost and not even human, and her first impulse was to help?
It’s all of those things. And it’s none of them. Because someone else could have those qualities and it wouldn’t be the same. I’m not responding to a list of attributes. I’m responding to her. The whole, specific, irreducible fact of Ruby.
“I don’t know,” I say.
Liv stares at me. Then she looks at Ruby, who is looking at the floor with the expression she wears when her defenses are trying to do their job and failing.
Liv turns back to me. Her eyes are shiny, and she blinks fast. “Okay,” she says, and clears her throat. “Okay, well. You’re wearing the blazer. Ruby, he’s wearing the blazer. I’m not taking arguments.”
Ruby nods without looking up. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “The blazer works.”
We buy the blazer. And the henley. And the jeans. And the underwear, which I’m told is non-negotiable. Liv pays for everything before Ruby can argue, and when Ruby protests, Liv says, “Consider it my investment in the best thing that’s happened to this friend group in years.”
In the car on the way home, Liv catches my eye in the rearview mirror and says, “For what it’s worth, Aiden, that was the best answer I’ve ever heard to that question. And I’ve asked it to a lot of men.”
Ruby stares out the window and doesn’t say anything, but her reflection in the glass is smiling. The real smile. The one I’d do anything to keep.
Later that evening, the apartment is warm and Ruby is at the kitchen table with her laptop and a notebook, writing notes. They appear to be for Caroline. Talking points. What to say when the food festival comes up at the wedding. Her capacity numbers, her ingredient sourcing, her customer base. She’s trying to frame her business as something worth believing in, and I can see her struggling with the language because selling herself is the one thing she’s never been able to do.
She’s been at it for two hours. I notice that she hasn’t eaten.
This is a pattern I’ve observed enough times to categorize as a problem. When Ruby is stressed, food drops off her priority list entirely. She’ll make a hundred pastries for strangers and forget to feed herself, and the irony of this is not lost on me, even though I’m still learning the concept of irony.
