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“Maybe…what?” Abe asks with a patient grin, bringing me back to the issue at hand.

“I think it might be a good idea to maintain a level of professionalism between us,” I end up saying. “Not that I didn’t enjoy what we did.” Oh, boy did I. “It was great, but this, you, um,” I lose track of what I wanted to say while I attempt to soften the blow, “whatever this is between us feels like a lot, and at present I might only be capable of a little. Does that make sense?”

He remains perfectly still. Blinking occasionally but not doing much else. The smile has faded into a flat line. “Yes, I understand.” He gets to his feet, straightening to his full, impressive height. Then he gestures for me to take the empty chair. “Here. Eat. I shall get started on the dishes.”

My heart sinks. It’s the level of detached iciness I deserve after this afternoon, but I feel like shit all the same for making him feel rejected. I feel my throat tighten as panic sets in. There’s got to be a way to fix this. “I don’t want you to think––”

“Emma.” He holds up a hand. “Say no more. I crossed a line and won’t do it again. My apologies.”

“No, that’s not it.” He gave me everything I asked for today, which was a lot. I don’t want him thinking this has anything to do with a violation of my boundaries. “I just didn’t expect you to be so…”

“So…?”

What word am I looking for? What word can I use to describe his behavior that won’t offend him? It’s not that I don’t appreciate an openly affectionate man, and I certainly don’t need the guys I date to act like macho idiots whose fathers didn’t hug them enough. I love a man who’s in touch with his emotions. The world needs a million more of them.

It’s the smothering I don’t care for. I’m used to being independent. I cook my own meals. I run the town. I don’t really date. Having him as my bodyguard was already an upheaval of my comfort zone, but to add a romantic element to that, one that turns him into the kind of partner who wants me to sit on his lap while he feeds me? Yeah, I’m not interested in that.

I didn’t realize Abe was capable of romantic emotional bonds because, hello, he’s a machine. “Designed to protect you,” Uncle Henrik said. And Abe repeated it, multiple times.

Even hearing that he’d been originally designed as a pleasure bot didn’t tip me off to this being a possibility. Pleasure I was down for. I was excited to experience it again after so long. If I had any idea I’d be leading Abe on or he’d end up looking at me the way he is right now, like a puppy who’s just been kicked, I wouldn’t have let things progress the way they had.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, unable to come up with something better. “I’m truly sorry.”

“No apologies needed,” he says stiffly, zipping his suit all the way back up. “My battery is getting low. I will need to charge overnight.”

“Oh, okay.”

“In order to protect you while I’m charging, tonight you’ll need to sleep in the bedroom where my pod is located. Should an intruder choose to attempt a break-in while you’re asleep, I’ll hear it and wake you up. You’ll need to unplug me from the charging pod before I can apprehend the perpetrator.”

“Oh, okay,” I say again.

“Splendid.”

I go to sleep that night in the same bed where I had the best orgasm of my life only a few hours earlier. Ziggy doesn’t come down to snuggle. Abe remains across the room in his pod.

I consider myself a rational person who can hold my own in a conversation or debate fraught with even atomic levels of tension. Those anxious thoughts a person gets in the middle of the night or in the shower hours after an argument where they suddenly realize what they should’ve said? Yeah, I’ve never experienced that because I can think on my feet and say precisely what I want to say in the moment I want to say it.

But tonight with Abe, I fucked that up. It’s going to haunt me for a long time.

“Oh shit. I needed this,” I moan as Grace massages a lovely rose-scented cream into my skin. My nails are freshly painted, and my hair is in sleek new knotless braids that end in curls around my shoulders.

This kind of appointment, where Grace does my hair and nails, typically takes six hours start to finish. It’s why I don’t get my hair done as often as my nails. It’s also why I poached Grace from a salon in Hemlock Hollow, Michigan, when I visited a few years ago. I needed a polish change before a meeting with the town mayor, and Grace, a nail tech at the salon I entered, blew me away. We got to talking, and she told me she also did hair on the side and wanted to do more of that, and I encouraged her to open a salon here in Mapletown.

It’s such a comfort knowing we have residents who know how to cut and style natural Black hair. Once Grace opened her doors, she gave other stylists here a place to practice their craft besides their garages. Her talent and the culture she’s built within the walls of this place is a gift not only to me, but to everyone in town. I also love being able to spend a day of pampering with another person who looks like me, even if I’m paying her.

“I can tell,” Grace says with a chuckle as she wipes a cotton ball soaked in alcohol over the fresh gel on my nails. “You okay, sis?”

What a question. I’m not about to dump my planet-sized pile of woes on her though. Especially with Abe standing two feet behind me. “Just ready for this investigation to be over.”

“You and me both,” she says with a shiver. “I hope they catch the guy soon. Makes me nervous thinking of some bomber running around town, planning their next attack.”

“Don’t worry.” I put my hand over hers. “We’ll get him.”

After I pay, Abe guides me outside with a grave expression on his face. “What is it?”

He hands me my phone. The screen is unlocked, and it shows a text message from an unknown number. It says, “Your robot boyfriend can’t protect you.”

“It came in four minutes ago,” he says quietly.