Chapter Nine
Nine
Josie
“My disposition?” I ask, completely confused by whatever nonsense Axe is spouting. But this isn’t some weird Scottish-to-English translation issue.
I cross my arms and wait. When it comes to handling Axe, silence is my superpower.
“Yes, because I think…the team thinks you’d be an ideal AI girlfriend.
I mean, not you you, because, obviously, you’re not an AI girlfriend.
You’re, you know, human.” Axe is flustered, and I’m thoroughly enjoying this new side of him.
Usually, it’s me scrambling to recover from whatever casual insult he’s lobbed my way, my face burning red.
“Can you try that again? In English this time?”
“We want to model our prototype AI girlfriend on you,” he says. “See, you’re an interesting case, Josie. Take the other night—your impulses, your reactions, or even the next morning.”
“The next morning?”
“Aye, it’s not the usual girl who takes her coffee at five a.m. With milk and honey.
These quirks, the little idiosyncrasies, can’t be pulled from a thousand women and add up to create one person.
” He looks me in the eye. “What can I say? You’re a curious mix of contradictions, Josie.
And the model has advanced to the point where it does better with what it can’t predict. ”
Could I be hearing this correctly? This man, who has made it very clear from the first time we met that he thinks I’m an absolute idiot, believes my curious mix of contradictions is worth copying? For a technological advancement that has an eight-figure investment?
I feel a little faint.
“What would that entail, exactly? What would I have to do?” I ask.
“For our research, you’d spend time with me. Date me, but not really date me. My team would then collect data on what you do or say on dates, who you really are—”
“Let me get this straight,” I cut him off.
He wants to pay me to date him? Does he think I’m a sex worker?
(Not that there’s anything wrong with being a sex worker, but that is most definitely not my jam.) “You brought me up to this…this man veranda, which doesn’t even have an extra chair, to stand here while I listen to you proposition me to be…
your fake, paid girlfriend? Like your personal toy? ”
He frowns. “Man veranda? I prefer guy grove.”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
“And why would I have two chairs up here?” he asks, fuming a little. “This is my space. I don’t want anyone else to get too comfortable and think about hanging out.”
“On your douche deck.” I smirk. He is not going to charm his way out of this.
“My bro orchard,” he replies.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You wouldn’t be my girlfriend, Josie,” Axe says. “My team at SynthoTech would have access to any data our interactions produce. And we aren’t using you as a toy. We’re using you as our model for the prototype.”
“This is the most bullshit proposition I’ve ever heard,” I say. Why would Axe want me, of all people, for his dating simulator? I’ve seen the way women throw themselves at him—he could find an actual model to be his model.
“You’d go on the payroll as a full-time employee of SynthoTech. Even though it’s at most a quarter-time job.”
“Hmm,” I say, not biting.
“And there’s premium health insurance.”
Something inside me takes pause at this, but I’m already shaking my head.
“Sorry, hard pass. I don’t want to be connected in any way with some sad app for lonely guys.
Maybe this is tricky for you to understand, but those dudes can be uber-creepy.
I don’t want to be someone’s digital fantasy, and I’m not your manic pixie tech-bro dream girl. I’m a human being.”
“It’s not like that,” Axe says, raising his hands in protest. “I assure you, we’re looking for something genuine. Someone real, kind. Who folks can actually find a proper connection with. And it’s not as if anyone would actually know it’s you.”
“Nope,” I snap quicker than a mousetrap. Why does Axe always manage to turn me into such a spiky porcupine? It’s like he’s my personal drill sergeant for conflict—getting me all this practice in standing up for myself. Which, come to think, I probably need.
“Just hear me out,” Axe says.
“I really don’t think—”
“Fake dating me couldn’t be any worse than actually dating that arsewipe Bryan.” It hits like a bomb. And, honestly, he’s not wrong. Every day I’m free of my ex-fiancé, it’s like a fog lifts further, and I realize just how much time I wasted on a guy who never deserved it.
But here’s the thing: I get to say that. Not Axe.
I’m not about to make the same mistake twice, and I’m definitely not wasting one more second on another asshole.
His one chair up here says it all, really.
Axe is just another selfish rich boy who thinks the sun shines out of his ass.
Too in love with himself to share even this space with another human being.
No wonder he’s creating an AI partner to fawn all over him.
“I’m sorry,” Axe says. “I didn’t mean—”
But he’s too late. I’m already in the old freight elevator. I refuse to look back as the doors slowly clunk shut behind me. Not at the ridiculously perfect garden, and definitely not at Axe’s shame-filled face.