Chapter 8 #2
They walked on, but Rob tripped on an uneven paving stone. Chloe reached out to steady him. She had never seen him stumble before. As she shot him a questioning look, a voice called her name.
“Chloe? Chloe Fairway? Is that you?” Chloe turned to see a pregnant Katie Delafield, waving to her, then start bustling across the quad toward them. She was a petite redhead with freckles. She hadn’t changed a bit, bar the bump.
“Hi, Katie,” Chloe called back, feeling an unwelcome prickle of nerves.
Katie ran a chain of award-winning hotels, had more than one child, and still found time to work as a trustee for two international charities.
She was the epitome of a high-achieving Lincoln girl, and as such, someone who triggered in Chloe the feeling that she’d turned up to the marathon of life wearing flip-flops.
“I’m so glad you came.” Katie beamed, her face lighting up as she pulled Chloe into a bouncy hug. Chloe smiled, her nerves starting to dissipate. Katie wasn’t here to judge her. She knew it was her own voice doing that.
Katie looked expectantly at Rob, waiting to be introduced.
“This is my friend—my boyfriend—Rob,” Chloe said. “Rob, this is Katie. We studied English together.”
“Wow, nice to meet you,” Katie said, her eyes wide as she took Rob in. Rob reached for her hand and shook it up and down, a little too enthusiastically.
“I’ve brought a plus-one too this weekend,” Katie said, pulling her hand back and patting her bump. “So boring I can’t drink though, right?”
Rob blinked. “Because it is not recommended to consume alcohol when you have a fetus inside your uterus.”
Chloe looked at him askance. Why was he being weird? Then she clocked Katie’s small pert nose wrinkling in confusion, so she quickly laughed as though Rob had made a great joke.
“Sorry, Katie, we’ve got to run, I’m desperate for the loo, long journey—”
“The bus took one hour and thirty-eight minutes,” Rob said, his voice now a steady monotone.
“Really,” Katie said slowly, drawing back slightly, her eyes wide with consternation.
Chloe tried to laugh it off. “We’ll catch up with you later, yeah?” Then she grabbed Rob’s arm and tugged him away as fast as she could.
Katie stood, dumbfounded, watching them go. Chloe hurried through the stone doorway into college before turning to Rob.
“What was that? Why did you say that about Katie?” she asked sharply, her voice a hushed whisper.
“She was pregnant, wasn’t she?” Rob asked. But now he looked mortified.
“No, she was, but why were you talking about her fetus like that, about the bus journey being an hour and thirty-eight minutes?”
Rob looked confused. “It was not a normal thing to say?”
“No, it was not a normal thing to say,” she said, feeling a rising panic. Was he broken? Had she broken him when she kissed him?
“Sorry,” he said, blinking several times. “My social battery is low. My conversational cues start to suffer when I have insufficient charge.”
“Right,” she said warily. This was the first time anything like this had happened.
“Being out all day, talking to so many people on the bus, it was more draining than I appreciated. I must apologize.”
He looked so repentant, Chloe couldn’t be cross with him, but at the same time, she knew she couldn’t have him talking to anyone else like that. What would people think?
“Well, how do we fix you?” she asked, her voice coming out higher than usual. “Is it going to happen again?”
“I just need to recharge at the first opportunity, then I’ll be fine.”
Chloe hurried along the corridor, searching for their room, praying they wouldn’t run into anyone else on the way. When they found the right door, Chloe fumbled with the key.
“Did I embarrass you?” Rob asked quietly.
“No, don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just as long as you’ll be back to your usual charming self before tonight.” She thought of Cinderella turning into a pumpkin at midnight—everything had limits, even magic.
Once she’d opened the door, they found a small en suite room, with a double bed, a desk, and a leather chesterfield sofa.
She’d known there was only going to be one bed, but seeing it now, how small and insubstantial it looked, made her uneasy.
She trusted Rob, she knew she was in control.
But that kiss by the Cam had changed things; the boundaries between them felt blurred.
“I can sleep on the sofa,” he said, as though reading her mind.
“We’ll work it out,” she said, feeling flustered, pulling off her sunglasses and throwing them onto the bed. There were more pressing concerns to address. “What do you need? Do you want to sleep? Plug in? I can give you some privacy, come back in an hour?”
She didn’t know why, but she felt embarrassed by the idea of watching him recharge.
They hadn’t discussed his physical needs before.
His nonhuman status was not a secret between them, but as Avery had recommended, it wasn’t something they often talked about.
She did not question what he did when he went to the bathroom, what happened to the food he ate in her presence.
She was curious about how he worked but asking him about it felt rude, like asking someone to tell you about their bowel movements.
If she was being honest, perhaps she also wanted to preserve the illusion.
When you were charmed by the puppet, you didn’t want to be reminded of the puppeteer.
“I just need twenty-eight minutes and forty-two seconds,” he said, taking off his jacket and laying it on the bed. She felt herself blush. Was he about to take his clothes off?
“Okay, nice to have the specifics, I’ll, um, I’ll see you later, then.”
As she turned to go, Rob reached for her hand, pulled her toward him, and kissed her again, deeper this time, with more confidence. It took her by surprise. “I thought you were running on empty,” she murmured.
“Kissing you recharges me,” he said softly.
“Seriously?”
“No, sorry, I thought that might sound romantic. I will need an actual power source.”
“Okay, right, I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?” she said, staggering backward, tripping over the carpet, feeling her cheeks glow red as she hurried out the door.
Wow. The last ten minutes had been a confusing cocktail of emotions. When he kissed her, Rob had never felt more real. Yet she’d also been reminded he had needs too, just different ones than her.
In the corridor, she did what she always did when she was feeling discombobulated.
She called Kiko. She had already told Kiko a little about Rob.
Well, a half-truth. She’d said he was from an agency that had been recommended to her by a friend, and that she was planning on taking him to the reunion as her fake date.
So basically, the truth, except she’d skipped the nonhuman part, for legal reasons.
In all honesty, even if she dared tell Kiko the truth, she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell Kiko would believe her.
“Are you in Oxford yet?” Kiko asked. “Turn on your camera, I want to see everything.”
“Yes, I’m here,” Chloe said, relieved to hear her friend’s voice. “It’s weird.” Then she switched to video call so she could show Kiko the quad.
“Oh look, it’s just the same!” Kiko cried. “Ah, there’s the bench where I had sex with Rocco Falconi. Good times.” Chloe swung the camera around. “And that window up there, second from the right, that was where I lost my virginity.”
“I’m taking you off video,” Chloe said. “This is not that kind of tour.”
“Spoilsport,” Kiko said, laughing. “So have you fallen for your fake date yet?”
“What makes you say that?” Chloe said, looking around to check she was alone.
“Everyone always falls for the fake date! Haven’t you seen The Wedding Date, The Proposal?
It’s a classic trope! You pretend to be in love, then bam!
” She paused. “Love city. Not ideal to fall for a male gigolo, though. Make sure you use protection, babe. You don’t know how many people he’s slept with. ”
“Kiko, he’s not a gigolo, he’s a professional companion, and it’s not like that.
” Chloe walked out through the porter’s lodge, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“And I’m not falling for him. It’s just…
complicated.” She sighed. “He’s such easy company.
It’s made me realize how much energy it took up, being with Peter.
I was always walking this tightrope with him, preempting his irritation in any situation. It made me jumpy.”
“I know,” Kiko said, her voice gentle now. “You shrank yourself so he could feel bigger.”
“Why did I do that?” Chloe asked quietly.
“I don’t know, why does anyone date a narcissist?”
Chloe exhaled. “I just, I forgot what it feels like to…to be around someone nice.”
“Oh, babe, I’m sorry. Welcome back to healthy relationship land.
It’s lovely and peaceful here, we just watch Netflix, get takeout, and procreate.
” Chloe smiled, while knowing full well that whatever she was feeling for Rob, it probably didn’t constitute a healthy relationship.
“Come on, spill,” Kiko went on, sounding excited now.
“Have you kissed him? Do you think he likes you back? Are you going to Pretty Woman him, make him leave the trade?”
“Kiko!”
Then Elodie started to wail, and Kiko groaned in frustration. “Ignore her, I have too much to ask you. Who’s there? Have you seen Sean yet? Did he get even hotter?”
“Not yet. I’m working up to being social, I just saw Katie Delafield. She’s pregnant again, looks incredible. Oh, and I saw John on the bus.”
“Oh, I always loved John,” Akiko said with a sigh. “I bet he’s just the same.”
“He is the same, but also different,” Chloe said, unsure how to describe the change in him.
Elodie’s wails escalated. “Okay, the little dictator needs to be appeased, but keep me updated. Say hi to everyone from me, and just remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said.”
“ ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent’?” Chloe offered.
“No, she said, ‘If you sleep with the man for hire, use protection.’ ” They both laughed, then Kiko rang off and the air felt suddenly empty.
Chloe doubled back toward college. Of course she wasn’t going to sleep with Rob.
Kissing him was one thing, but sex was an entirely different proposition.
Was she attracted to him? Sure. Would it be good?
If the kiss was anything to go by, then probably.
She felt her cheeks heat, imagining it. But what if he ran out of charge at the crucial moment?
Would there be bodily fluid? She rolled her shoulders, then looked up at the sky.
She needed to reset, stay focused on her goals for this weekend.
She was here to catch up with old friends, patch things up with Sean, then give him McKenzie’s script, all while trying to sidestep questions about her unimpressive life.
Then on Sunday, she would go home, she would give Rob back to the robot shop, and life would go back to how it had been before.
The thought made her feel a little sad, though perhaps that said more about her life than it did about her attachment to Rob.
When she got back to Lincoln, she strolled through to Chapel Quad, inhaling the familiar smell of cut grass.
Being here felt like opening the pages of a beloved book.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she almost expected to see her twenty-year-old self sitting on the cloister steps, watching her.
“You’re back,” the bright-eyed girl would say.
“So come on, tell me, how did it all turn out?” And Chloe would pinch her lips closed.
Better to say nothing than to ruin the girl’s hopes and dreams. What would she even tell her, if she could?
To give Sean a chance? To give up on acting sooner, not waste her time?
To beware of charming blond narcissists?
Knowing her younger self, she probably wouldn’t listen anyway.
Sitting down on the wooden bench outside chapel, Chloe twisted her Artemis ring straight on her finger.
Right here was where the Imp had started.
The Imp, who’d made her feel seen in a way no one else ever had—made her feel cherished.
He had set the bar for romantic gestures impossibly high.
And yet he had also been a source of quiet confusion.
Because when she was with Sean, she couldn’t see him that way.
There’d been a disconnect between her body and her head.
Why couldn’t she be attracted to someone so perfect for her, who had seen her, loved her, so fully?
Was it possible they’d just had the timing wrong?