Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE_
MONKEY BUSINESS
Winston didn’t know if robots could get nervous, but Calvin had been practically jittery since they left the house. Lucky had been quick to agree to a date. Once he found out Calvin wanted to go to the zoo, he wasted no time in making sure they went on the first available day.
“Are you sure it takes an entire day?” Calvin asked as Winston angled the car into a parking space outside the zoo.
“It’s a big place,” Lucky said. “We’ll walk around and see the sights. We’ll visit the animals, maybe catch an educational program or two. Grab a bite to eat, see more animals, and on the way out ,we have to hit up the gift shop.”
“He takes his zoo trips very seriously,” Winston told Calvin as they climbed out of the car.
With exams coming up, it was one of the last weekends Winston would have free, and he was glad they’d decided to make the most of it.
He grabbed Calvin’s hand and laced their fingers together.
Lucky looped his arm around Winston’s waist, and the three of them walked up to the ticket booth.
Before Winston could get his wallet out, Lucky scanned his card and paid for three tickets. Calvin looked at him when Lucky passed him the ticket stubs.
“But robots don’t need tickets. According to Braxton’s Law, paragraph eleven subsection twelve—”
Lucky put his hand over Calvin’s mouth. “You’re our boyfriend. And our boyfriend gets to keep the ticket stubs so he can remember his first date. Our first date.”
Calvin smiled at Lucky and tucked the ticket stubs away in his back pocket. He’d worn a pair of short shorts today with a top that showed just a sliver of skin above the waistband. It was tight and fuchsia, a color Calvin had decided was the best thing ever invented.
Watching Calvin was even better than watching the animals, Winston thought. Calvin’s wonder was innocent and pure but also backed by scientific facts that were available to him because his brain was a literal computer.
“It’s one thing to know that the average giraffe is sixteen to eighteen feet tall, but another thing entirely to see one in person.
” Calvin stood outside the giraffe enclosure and looked up at the gentle giant.
Well, gentle in a zoo. Winston remembered hearing about a couple who’d been attacked by one while on safari.
He wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of a giraffe.
“Did you know the giraffe can run at thirty-five miles per hour?” Calvin turned around to look at them. “Sorry, am I doing this wrong?”
He furrowed his brow. “I did a lot of research on dating before today, but I think I’m getting it wrong. There was too much information on the topic to be sure.”
“You’re doing fine, Cal,” Winston reassured him. “The point of a date is to spend time with a person, or people, that you want to get to know better.”
“The point is to have fun,” Lucky added. He’d always been charming and he always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say in any circumstance. “And I’m having the best day I’ve had in a long time. So yes, you’re doing it right.”
Lucky slid his arm around Calvin’s waist and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Tell us more about the giraffe.”
Winston admittedly didn’t pay much attention to the random animal facts Calvin knew.
He did, however, pay close attention to how Lucky seemed to glow under the attention.
He was enthusiastic about this place, and Winston hated himself a little for not bringing Lucky back sooner.
Winston knew he could be very single-minded about things.
He’d been so focused on getting through the end of his degree and with making sure he and Lucky were in a good place, that he’d forgotten that Calvin had needs too.
Maybe it hadn’t worked with Lucky before because it was always supposed to be the three of them.
Hell, Winston might not be necessary to them.
Maybe he was the extraneous piece of fluff.
The hanger-on. Calvin and Lucky seemed happy together, chatting about giraffes as they wandered to the next exhibit in the African enclosures.
Then, Calvin turned and looked at him and reached out his free hand and Winston didn’t care so much if he wasn’t needed.
He was wanted. He told himself he wasn’t going to be a fool about this, but mere days into their brand-new relationship, Winston was already letting the dark side of his brain whisper stupid shit in his ear about how he didn’t belong with them. Didn’t deserve them.
When Winston took Calvin’s hand, he pulled him close. “Are you okay, Winnie?”
Winston’s mouth twitched upon hearing that name applied to him outside the bedroom.
“I detected an increase in your heart and respiratory rate. Are you feeling okay?”
Fucking robots. Winston couldn’t even have a mental breakdown in peace anymore. But maybe that was for the best.
“I’m fine. I promise. I had a moment of foolishness, but I was already pulling myself out of it.” Unable to resist, Winston leaned in and brushed a kiss against Calvin’s cheek. He met Lucky’s curious gaze and kissed him too.
“As long as your foolishness was contained to only a moment, Win.” Lucky arched an eyebrow at him.
“It was. I promise.”
Lucky still looked skeptical, but he let it go. And for the rest of the morning, everything was perfect. They made the loop around the big central African enclosures. The sea lion exhibit was closed for improvements, so that was a little sad, but it gave them a reason to come back another time.
They made it around the outer edge of the African exhibit and decided to stop for lunch at a cafe nestled in the Australian corner of the zoo. The restaurant overlooked the Cassowary enclosure. Even from a distance, the birds terrified Winston.
Calvin shot him a knowing look, but before Winston could explain, Lucky chimed in.
“Our dear Winnie is afraid of large flightless birds.” Lucky put his hand on Winston’s thigh and gave it a squeeze.
“It’s a perfectly rational fear.”
“Yes, because they can get to us through the fence. And the glass. Not to mention we’re perched several feet above them.”
“That just means we can see more of them.” Winston shot daggers at Lucky. Well, he tried to, but he was too smitten with Lucky to pull it off.
“Cal and I will protect you. Won’t we, Cal?”
“A Cassowary has a powerful kick. I would take some damage, but it would be worth it to protect you, Winnie.”
Winston’s face heated. “It should be a crime for you to be as fucking cute as you are, do you know that?”
Calvin’s brow furrowed, but Lucky was quick to explain. “It’s an expression.”
“I knew that,” Calvin said, clearly lying.
Wait. Could Calvin lie? Was he capable of that? Winston would have to check the specs of his programming to be sure, but he didn’t think it should have been possible. But there were so many things about Calvin that weren’t what Winston expected from a robot.
His love of fashion, skirts and bright colors in particular.
Winston hadn’t interacted with a robot that had a preference for anything before.
Mind you, Winston’s interactions with them were usually perfunctory.
A delivery robot. An assistant to book an appointment.
That kind of thing. Even the more advanced ones weren’t as advanced as Calvin seemed to be.
Or maybe Winston had lost his mind when he fell in love with a robot and was looking for ways to humanize Calvin so that his feelings for him seemed less weird.
Winston was sure Calvin was going to ask if he was okay.
He tended to keep a close eye on Winston’s pulse, it had already given him away once today.
This time, Calvin didn’t. He was too busy watching Lucky watch the cassowaries.
“We should have come here sooner,” Winston told them. He regretted wasting so much time with Lucky, and he regretted not being present enough to realize that Calvin might want to see something more than their home.
“We’re here now.” Lucky looked at him and smiled.
“We’ll come again after exams. It’ll be a nice way to celebrate.”
“Sure.” Something flicked across Lucky’s expression, but it was gone before Winston could identify it.
While Winston and Lucky ate, Calvin went into robot-geek mode and told them all about the primates they were going to see next. After the kangaroos.
“Next time we’ll have to visit the hippos,” Winston said as they left the restaurant. He was happy to leave the evil Cassowary enclosure behind. “They’re like big land puppies. Water puppies? I don’t know. I just think they’re cute.”
“The hippopotamus is responsible for an average of five hundred deaths a year,” Calvin told them.
“They don’t even eat people. They just don’t like them and, honestly, that’s kind of valid.” Lucky looped an arm around Winston’s waist.
“You like people,” Winston said to Lucky. “You’ve always been social.”
“Out of necessity. I like a grand total of three people, the two of you and Novak. That’s it. Everyone else I merely tolerate.”
Something about Lucky’s demeanor bothered Winston.
On the surface he seemed fine, but it was like Lucky’s outward appearance of being okay was a thin veneer that had started to crack.
It was subtle things that gave it away. The flicker in his expression earlier.
His bleak view of people in general just now.
He’d insisted on paying for them to get into the zoo, and then he’d insisted on paying at the restaurant.
Even though it made more sense for Winston to pay.
Winston had more disposable income available to him.
It was a good thing they’d visited the primate enclosures last because Calvin had been smitten with them from the first moment he laid eyes on them. If Winston hadn’t noticed before then that Calvin wasn’t like other robots, his enthusiasm for the monkeys would have tipped Winston off.
Calvin was more animated than Winston had ever seen him.
He was torn between wanting to see everything all at once, but also not moving along so he could keep enjoying the animals he was already looking at.
Lucky stayed glued to Calvin’s side. The two of them together made Winston’s chest hurt.
They were so perfect for each other. And him.
Sure, it was unorthodox to be in a relationship with a robot, but it wasn’t unheard of.
From the moment robots started to resemble humans, people had been falling for them.
Winston was now just another statistic. It was just one more thing that his father wouldn’t approve of if he knew about it.
But in order for his father to know about it, he’d have to pay any sort of attention to Winston.
There was a time, not so long ago in fact, where his father’s apathy toward him bothered him.
But now he saw it as a blessing. The less his father was invested in his life, the more freedom he had.
When his father gifted him with Calvin, Winston doubted that he’d meant for him to go and fall in love with it. At least not in the way Winston had.