Page 22 of Garbage

Evan sighed. Ben was being a twpsyn—an idiot—but this might be the first time he’d approved of one of Evan’s crushes. So… there was that.

Not that Quincy was a crush. Or at least not in the way that Evan was going to do something about.

God damn that sexy wiggle of Quincy’s ass. How could such a huge man be so fucking cute? Evan really hoped Quincy didn’t change too much when he had full access to his own memory and an entire planet’s knowledge at his fingertips.

There would obviously come a time when refrigerator magnets and old towels weren’t as enchanting. Likely around the time when Quincy was going to grow out of his adoration of the dweeby, shy guy who’d been at the right place at the right time, and move on with the rest of his life.

Evan had been left by a lot of guys. But he didn’t want to think about that right now.

It was kind of hard to, anyway, when Quincy was watching him with such wiggly excitement and inherent trust.

“Alright, Quincy,” Ben called across the room. “E2J and E2M ports for these two.”

Two claw arms unfurled, thin and shining darkly as they scrabbled over the seam of his pants and pulled the corner back.

It turned out that Quincy had a deep and very human cleft between the two meaty lobes of his ass.

That was not information that Evan needed.

Two squares of skin popped up, hovering over their places, but Quincy just folded his pincer arms back up. One port sat on top of his curved butt cheek. The other was, just as intimately, nestled just below it.

Ben handed Evan the two circuit boards.

“Quincy?” Evan asked. “You ready?”

“Yes, please!”

Evan set the boards down on the coffee table, glad that his cleaning bot kept it immaculately dust-free. The little thing wasn’t so good at corners and sometimes went in funny loops, but the coffee table rarely collected a crumb.

And… that thought wasn’t nearly enough to distract him from Quincy.

He carefully lifted each square away, trying not to linger over the satiny texture of Quincy’s skin. It was much too smooth to be human, but there was a texture to it that just invited contact.

Which he did not have permission for. He flipped each square onto the table, revealing the black frame and series of latches on the other side.

“I’m going to add the first one,” he said. He tried not to touch anything but… okay, his fingers were shaking a little, and he had to brace himself somewhere.

Quincy, his touch-starved little sensation-seeker, hummed in pleasure.

Evan could hear Ben holding back a cackle behind them.

It was just a butt. Not a big deal. He’d touched dozens of butts.

It was just that, not all of them were this thick and smooth and…

He popped in the first circuit board, applying the balance of pressure that his fingers finally knew how to do. He might not be the genius designer that Ben was, but they’d graduated from the same program. He could install basic hardware.

He drew back quickly. Better not to linger. “That working?”

Quincy’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “Yep. What’s it… Oh! Uh, it’s like my communicator? Or…”

“It comes with a software pack,” said Ben. “Let it install. You’ll have full communications and wireless access. Contact anyone you like. Humanity’s entire repository of knowledge, or sixteen million kitten videos if you prefer, now belongs to you.”

“I can call Evan?” Quincy asked. “I could only call Mo and the dispatcher before.”

God, how tiny and sad his little world had been.

“Yeah, you can call me.” Evan held up his watch and clicked through the menus. “Here’s my contact info. Just save it and call me any time. You can control the screen, too, if you want to.” He passed over the info with the encrypted access.