Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Owen
Stopping was a mistake. I should have lowered my head and kept walking. Now, I’m standing motionless on the opposite side of the street, staring at Faye’s coffee shop with a dullness in my chest.
However, I can’t exactly go in there now.
I want to. But I can’t.
I spot the silhouette of a worker moving around inside, but I can tell by her gait that it’s not Faye. An old man sits alone at the window, staring out at nothing.
A heavy feeling settles over me as I look around, trying to spot a second option. There’s a name-brand coffee shop a block away, but they’re not going to take care of me like Faye did.
Maybe she wouldn’t mind if I showed up…
But then I see her face again as I let her walk away. The held-back tears… The slumped shoulders… The quick breaths…
Yeah. Going in there would be a mistake.
This is why people say to never date your barista.
The lady with the giant pack of dogs arrives, tying them all to the bench outside.
I used to think she was crazy for taking a job where she was forced to interact with dogs, but now it seems kind of nice.
The way they’re all looking up at her like she’s a famous rock star.
Like she’s the most amazing person in the world. Newton looked at me that way.
The numb feelings I’ve been inexplicably dealing with for the past twenty-four hours return. I barely slept last night. My appetite has been nonexistent. I better make a doctor’s appointment. I may have contracted a fatal disease.
The pack of dogs whimper and whine as she disappears inside.
For a moment over the weekend, it felt like I had everything. A new outlook on life. A future I never thought was possible. It felt… nice.
I’m not sure I can ever get back to that place, so it’s best to just move on. Find a new coffee shop. Get back to work. Get back into my old routine. Focus on work, and that’s all.
I take one last long look at the coffee shop and head to the name brand cafe instead. It’s time to find a new barista who can do it like Faye.
Although, deep down, I know that she is irreplaceable. No one can do it like her.
Classical music hits my ears as I walk into the new coffee shop with all of the tacky plastic cups for sale and the obnoxious colorful mural painted on the wall.
It’s hideous. I hate it already. It’s packed with students on laptops and looks like it was decorated by people in a stuffy boardroom.
It has none of the unique charm Faye’s coffee shop has with all of the little personal touches she’s added over the years—the bookshelf, the happy plants in the colorful pots along the window, the bonsai tree with the tiny Christmas lights wrapped around it.
Compared to all that, this place is soulless.
“Hi, welcome to Urban Bean,” the barista says like a preprogrammed customer service robot. “I’m Wendy. How can I quench your thirst today?”
I swallow hard. Here goes nothing.
“Double ristretto, oat milk, sixty degrees, stirred for consistency, no foam, and the espresso needs to sit for ten seconds before combining.”
She stares at me for a full five seconds. “What?”
Oh, blast. Here we go again.
I won’t be returning there.
That unhelpful woman refused my order and then made me a caramel coffee monstrosity that tasted like pure liquid sugar. I took two sips before I threw it in the trash can on the street.
I just continue on to the office, but the whole ordeal with Faye and the coffee shop and the wretched drink has got me all jumbled up and I forget to keep a lookout for approaching women. Love Bot is still active after all and I have to be on my guard.
“Owen?” a feminine voice says.
I get chills as I turn around and see a woman in a pantsuit walking up the stairs of my building after me. She’s around my age with a shy, nervous smile on her face.
I get an urge to turn and flee, but Faye’s disapproving face suddenly pops into my mind. She’s looking at me with a furrowed brow and I know she wouldn’t approve of me running, so I don’t.
“Yes. Hello.”
“Hi,” she says, her face lighting up. She fidgets with her brown hair as she quickly looks me up and down. “I’m so glad to finally meet you after all the messages.”
That blasted Love Bot. It’s still up to its old tricks, I see.
The woman looks up at me with a hopeful smile. Oddly, I recognize the emotion. I believe that’s the way I was looking at Faye all weekend. I recognize it all—the excitement, the desire, the thrilling possibility of what could be.
I know how that feels.
Sadly, I know how it feels to lose it as well.
And nobody deserves that.
“I’m glad to meet you too,” I say softly. “But I have something unfortunate to tell you.”
She tilts her head. “Okay.”
“You weren’t conversing with me on FirstSpark,” I tell her gently.
“My phone was taken over by an AI program that has been communicating with women across the city without my knowledge or consent.” I take a breath.
“I’m truly sorry about this. I know what it’s like to have a connection fall through. It sucks.”
She pulls out her phone and opens the app. “This wasn’t you?” she asks, scrolling through the many, many messages.
I shake my head. “Sadly, no. It’s a very sophisticated algorithm with better social skills than I could ever hope to have.”
She laughs a little. Barely a laugh.
“You’re not that bad,” she says with a sigh. “I can’t believe it wasn’t real. It felt so… right.”
I catch myself as I’m about to launch into an intense explanation about the effects of love on brain chemistry—how phenylethylamine, dopamine, and raised norepinephrine levels create a chemical reaction that tricks the brain in order to get the subject to reproduce, but I keep my mouth shut instead.
I stay silent.
Maybe I don’t know everything about love and emotions. Maybe there is more to life than just chemistry. Maybe I still have a lot to learn.
“I’m sorry,” I simply say.
It doesn’t feel like those two words would be enough, but she nods and looks grateful for them. “It’s okay.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and for once I don’t freeze or wonder what I’m supposed to do. I remember that people don’t always need solutions. Sometimes they just need comfort.
“Would you like a hug?” I offer.
She nods and we hug. I force my body to relax, hoping the small comfort makes her feel a little bit better. It seems to.
“Thank you,” she says, smiling sadly at me as she wipes the corner of her eye. “I needed that. Dating can be hard.”
“It certainly can be,” I say as we both step back. “But once you have it right… magic.”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” she says, wiping the corner of her eye.
Me too.
“What’s your name?” I ask. It’s what Faye would do.
“Harper.”
“It was nice to meet you, Harper. I’m sure your soulmate will be right around the corner.”
She laughs as she gives me one last smile. “Let’s hope so. It was nice meeting you too, Owen.”
I’m kind of stunned as I watch her walk away. She even turns back and gives me a friendly wave before she turns the corner.
I feel better than I have all day as I walk into the building and head up to my office. Ryan is waiting at my desk when I arrive. I frown when I see his feet on my stack of files.
“How did the weekend go?” he asks before I can even lower my laptop bag. “Did you make a good impression on Edward?”
Surprisingly, I did. He was very understanding about the whole Scarlett/Faye debacle and I think he felt bad for me, which helped seal the deal. He said he would be thrilled to be an investor in our venture.
However, I was still feeling so muddled that I didn’t even feel any joy when he told me. It just seemed so unimportant after what had transpired with Faye.
“He’s going to invest,” I tell him.
“He is?” he says, perking up and dropping his feet onto the floor. “For real?”
“Yes.”
“You did it, bro!” he says, rushing around the desk and leaping on me. He squeezes me in a bear hug and lifts me off my feet.
“I had some help.”
“That girl? She was good?”
“She was fantastic,” I say, that heavy feeling returning.
“I can’t believe this,” he says, squeezing his hand into a fist. “We’re going to be billionaires. With a capital fucking B.”
He’s so happy, but I can’t reciprocate it. I just feel so… empty inside. There’s no amount of money that can take this feeling away.
“Love Bot is still at it,” I say, tossing him my phone. “It needs to be deleted.”
“I figured it out,” he says as he looks at it. “I’ll get rid of it immediately.”
He plugs some contraption into my phone and the app finally opens.
“Holy shit, bro,” he says as he cycles through all the women that Love Bot catfished. There are hundreds of them. Perhaps over a thousand. “I could sell this chatbot and make a fortune.”
“Delete it,” I say. “It’s only hurting people.”
He reluctantly deletes the blasted program and finally, Love Bot is dead. It’s off my phone forever.
Thank goodness.
“What about all those women?” I ask, wondering what Faye would do about them.
“We can just delete your profile,” he says with a shrug. “They’ll get the hint.”
I shake my head. “No, Ryan. Many of those women have real feelings involved.”
It may only be chemistry working in their brains, but those feelings are still real.
I know.
“And?” Ryan says, looking at me funny.
“And, it wouldn’t be right.”
He just stares at me. He’s looking at me like he’s wondering what I’ve done with his brother.
“Okay,” he finally says with a shrug. “I’ll set up another chatbot—with limited scope this time—to tell each one that it was a mistake.”
“Absolutely not. Don’t do anything. I’ll write each one individually.”
He laughs. “That’s going to take all week.”
“Then it takes all week,” I say, taking my phone back. “They each deserve a personal message.”
He just stares blankly. “What happened this weekend?”
I sigh as I sit down at my desk and open the first message thread. Lyla Clark. She’s been chatting with Love Bot for four days.
I think of what Faye would say to her and start typing.
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”