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Mom nods, grinning.

Henrik lets out a labored breath. “Fine. Fuck it. If it means you won’t destroy my lab, you can have him.”

He opens the door for me, and I race to Abe’s side.

“He will need time to charge. We’re almost done with the repairs, but his battery is empty.”

I pull up the nearest chair and plop myself down on it. “I’ll wait.”

It takes hours. Several hours. Not only because his battery is dead, but also because of the upload of his previous backup and the data from his most recent memories before his system shut down. I nod off in the chair. Mom and Morsa come in occasionally to check on me and offer me water and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Finally, I hear one of the technicians say, “He’s coming back online.”

I shoot to my feet, heart thumping so loud I worry it’ll burst through my chest.

The technician working on him doesn’t seem to have a sense of urgency to go with the news he just shared because he continues to work inside Abe’s open torso with his metal tweezer-looking tools.

Abe’s reptilian eyes blink open, and he immediately calls for me.

“Abe, I’m here,” I say, waving from my sectioned-off area a few feet from the table. They wouldn’t let me get any closer because they were worried I’d try to fix him myself.

His head lifts, and the second he spots me, he launches himself off the table, ripping through the restraints on his arms and legs, the compartment over his stomach still gaping as he races toward me and hauls me into his arms. He whirls me around in a circle.

“Emma,” he whispers, emotion thick in his voice. “I was so afraid. I thought he was going to take you from me. That I’d never be able to hold you again.”

He places me on my feet and pulls back to look at me, cupping my face in his hands.

Fat happy tears blur my vision and spill down my cheeks. “I’m okay,” I tell him, running my hands along his arms and up his neck. “We’re okay.”

He shakes his head in wonder, a shadow of fear still cast over his expression. “I–I thought I’d never again be able to get you pickle popcorn, or listen to you sing in the shower, or watch you paint rocks.”

I chuckle at his list of the things he finds so important. That he was so afraid to live without.

When his gaze turns serious, my heart lodges in my throat.

“Emma, I must ask, am I enough for you?”

It’s not what I expected to come out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Does it matter that I'm a machine and not a man? Will it matter eventually? That I lack a real beating heart? A soul?”

Hm. They are all fair questions, but when I look back over our time together, what I see is someone who consistently puts me first and who never bristled at my unapologetic ambition or the spotlight I hold as the mayor. My emotional needs were always equally as important to him as my physical ones. I never saw him come before I came twice. It was almost as if he didn’t allow himself to until I was properly sated. And most importantly, there wasn’t a single second during which I felt unsafe.

I pull his face down until I can press my forehead to his. “You have a bigger heart than any human man I’ve met. I don’t care if it pumps blood or if it exists in your head and not your chest. Everything you are, my love, is what all men should aspire to.”

Abe presses his lips to mine, and I’m home.

Epilogue

Emma

Four months later…

Heritage Day

“How’s it going?” Morsa asks over FaceTime. “Is there a line at the ride?”

I lift my gaze over my phone to show the queue of tourists and locals alike, practically bouncing on their feet as they wait their turn. “The line is massive,” I tell her.