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“That won’t make you so different from most guys,” I say. It’s a smart-ass remark. A joke. Does he have a sense of humor? I gave him one. At least, I included the codes that would tend to allow him to develop a sense of humor, but does he have the experience to know a joke when he hears one?
“You made me different from most guys,” he says.
That might be a semi-witty comeback. I’m prepared to accept it as such because I don’t think I could ever have a relationship with a guy who has no sense of humor.
Relationship?
Back up there, girl.
Back right up against that … Okay, no. I’m now arguing with myself. Chiding myself. I’m in charge here, right? I shouldn’t even be thinking about him as anything other than a very interesting experiment. He’s my A-plus science project.
Some rational part of my brain points out that this—this person, this creation, whatever Adam is—is a walking crime. Real or unreal, living or fabricated, it doesn’t matter. Adam shouldn’t be here. Someone breathed life into him and sent him out into the world, and that was wrong.
But try as I might, I can’t stand here two feet away from him and not react. I don’t think there’s a person of any gender, or no gender, for that matter, who could stand here and not react to him.
He is a work of art.
If I do say so myself.
“Okay,” I say, mostly just to have something to say, because otherwise I’m just looking him up and down and up and down and it’s impolite to stare. “What did my mother tell you to do once you found me?”
“She wants me to ask you to come back.”
“That’s it? No excuses or explanations? Just ‘come back’? She didn’t say anything else?”
“She said some things which I don’t believe she wanted me to say to you. They were more in the nature of observations.”
Poor guy, he seems to think I’d leave that alone. “Observations?”
“Statements.”
I tilt my head quizzically. He starts to do the same, then stops himself. I inhibited his willingness to be influenced. I gave him that individualistic streak.
“Do you remember any of those statements? Her statements?”
“Yes. They were among the first things I ever heard.”
“Please tell me.”
“Okay.” He frowns slightly with the effort of recall. “She’s a headstrong little bitch, okay, well, so am I, she got that from me. She doesn’t think she owes me anything, she doesn’t think I gave her anything, it was always about her father. Well, too bad, honey, because he’s dead and I’m all that’s left. And now she’s off with Solo, that snake in the grass, I should have known better. I did, didn’t I? I knew I had to keep them separated and then like an idiot I let them meet. I will destroy that little monster, I swear, after all I’ve done for him, taking him in when his backstabbing, criminal parents … and who does Evening think cost her her father?”
I hold up my hand. “What?”
“Do you want me to repeat it? I probably missed a few words. I don’t have a photographic memory. But you know that already.”
“What did she say next?”
“That was it. She seemed agitated—”
“She’s more or less always agitated,” I interrupt.
“But then she stopped herself and said, ‘You don’t need to know any of that. And don’t tell Evening any of it.’”
“Then why did you tell me?”
He smiles. He hasn’t done that before. I gave him really good teeth. Perfect teeth. But I didn’t design that smile, not exactly. That smile, that’s some alchemy, some kind of magic interaction of, I don’t know, but oh yes. Shiver. And warmth. And a general all-over-body feeling like I really want to cut the distance between us and it’s suddenly very difficult to focus on my outrage.
I have to shake my head, hard, and replay his last statement to find my place again. “Why did you tell me if my mother said not to?”
