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Liv is the last one out because Liv is always the last one out. She’s got her boots on and her bag over her shoulder, and she’s almost through the door when she turns around.
“One more question.”
“Liv, no.”
She looks at Aiden. “You said you were built to be anatomically comprehensive.”
“That’s correct.”
“And proportional?”
He nods once. “My proportions are mathematically symmetrical. I was designed to a balanced ratio across all measurements.” He tilts his head. “Would you like the specific numbers?”
Liv’s mouth drops open. She turns to me with eyes the size of dinner plates.
“I would, actually.”
“GOODNIGHT, LIV.”
I push her through the door. She’s laughing in the hallway, and I can hear it all the way down the stairs, and I close the door and lean against it and press my hands over my face.
When I look up, Aiden is watching me, standing in my clean apartment, in borrowed clothes that fit him too well, head tilted, processing.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asks.
“No.” I push off the door. “No, Aiden. You didn’t say anything wrong.” Then I add under my breath, “My friends are just weirdo horndogs.”
He nods, accepts this, files it away in whatever invisible folder he keeps for things about humans he doesn’t understand yet.
The apartment is quiet. There are wine glasses on the counter and takeout containers on the floor and Liv’s lipstick on the rim of a mug, and I start cleaning up because my hands need something to do and because standing still with Aiden in a quiet room is starting to feel like a specific kind of dangerous that I am not equipped for tonight.
He helps without being asked. Gathers the takeout containers, stacks them, and carries them to the kitchen. We move around each other in the small space—him reaching for a glass, me reaching for the same one, our hands almost touching on the rim before I pull mine back. Him standing at the sink, me standing next to him, and the gap between us is about eight inches, and I’m aware of every single one of them.
“Your friends care about you,” he says, rinsing a glass with a precision that suggests he’s already optimized the most efficient water-to-soap ratio.
“Yeah.” I take the glass from him and dry it. “They’re a lot, but they’re mine.”
“Avery watches you when you’re not looking.”
“That’s just Avery.”
“She was monitoring your reactions all evening. Specifically when anyone mentioned Josh.”
My hand slows on the glass. “She does that.”
“You stopped smiling when they mentioned him.” He turns off the faucet and faces me, and his expression is the same one it always is—open, direct, completely without agenda. “You smiled eleven times tonight. Seven of them were genuine. Four were performed. All four of the performed smiles occurred in connection with Josh or the wedding.”
I stare at him.
“I don’t track these things intentionally,” he adds. “I just—”
“You just what?”
He pauses. Tilts his head. Looks at me with an expression I’m learning means he’s about to say something honest in a way that’s going to leave a mark.
“I notice you, Ruby. I can’t seem to stop.”
Chapter Four
