Chapter 2
Siri, What the Hell Is This?
She came to on the couch, tucked in a blanket she didn’t recognize. Probably a new one her mom had picked up on sale. It was weirdly soft, it gave that if nostalgia was a feeling vibe. A damp washcloth rested on her forehead.
The scent of toast drifted through the room, real toast, real toast, not the fake low-carb bread people tried to force on her because she was “curvy in a cute way.” Her brain flashed an error message.
Kneeling beside her was the hottest man she’d ever seen.
Tall. Dark-haired. A tattoo peeked from under a rolled sleeve, almost flirting with modesty, hot-shy, the kind that whispered, ‘I own tools and know how to use them.’ He was a collaboration between a Pinterest husband, a lumberjack, and the emotionally available half of a fantasy novel adaptation.
Which was so deeply unfair, because she had designed him that way.
No, nope, this was not supposed to render.
“Applying a cool compress is helpful for fainting,” he said cheerfully, brushing a knuckle down her temple with the tenderness of someone already starring in the romantic montage. “Did I conduct the action well?”
She sat bolt upright, and the washcloth fell to the floor in a damp, pathetic flop.
“Nope, nope, I’m still hallucinating.”
Felix blinked. “You passed out. I moved you to the couch. I made toast. Would you like jam?”
He gestured toward the coffee table with the flourish of a game show host, palm-up and proud. Two slices. One with jam, one with honey. Her favorite mug, the one with the faded decal and a tiny hairline crack, sat beside it, steaming smugly.
I’m hallucinating toast now. Fully unwell. Do they serve Turkey in the mental hospitals?
“Are you real?” she rasped.
Felix stared at his hands, fingers dancing with the glee of a toddler who’d just discovered they could move. Then looked up. “Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re from an app. A TikTok trend. I made you. I picked your height!”
“I’m six foot four,” he said, the way someone might announce they’d just passed an oral exam. “As requested.”
“Oh my god.”
She scrambled for her phone with trembling fingers, heart pounding with the force of club bass she instantly regretted walking into, her bootleg TikTok, App Store, and download history.
Nothing, just a spinning wheel. Just the yawning void of digital gaslighting. The app was gone, and yet Felix was not. Her hangover had suddenly become a side quest.
She didn’t know whether to cry or reboot the router. This wasn’t just a glitch. This was something else. Something she might’ve wanted, deep down, when she wasn’t joking.
“What the hell,” she whispered.
Felix stayed nearby but non-threatening, his posture open, arms folded, as if he were part bodyguard, part boyfriend, part high-end appliance that had just achieved sentience. His brow furrowed, just slightly. Just enough.
“You seem distressed.”
“Distressed?” Her laugh cracked with the fragility of cheap glass. “You’re a fake boyfriend from a TikTok trend, and you’re in my kitchen making toast as if we’re five episodes into a live-streaming original series!”
“Well,” he said, calmly adjusting the pan’s flame with the practiced ease of someone who understood heat distribution, “I was programmed to belong to you.”
She stared.
“I mean, with you. Not in an ownership sense. More of a selected emotional pairing.”
“No. Do not make this weirder.”
He plated a piece of toast. It glowed. Golden, crisp, and offensively perfect. He handed it to her, and her treacherous hands accepted it without consulting her brain.
He beamed. Warm, so proud, and entirely too pleased with himself.
“You enjoy sourdough best when you’re hungover. With honey, not butter.”
Her stomach dropped. Her fingers clenched around the plate.
That’s true. Disturbingly true.
Her voice was a whisper. “How do you know that?”
“It was in your behavioral loop. Aggregated across voice memos, sleep tracking, and morning browsing habits.”
Maya blinked.
“It was in your data profile, and you muttered it in bed once.”
She dropped the plate.
It shattered on the hardwood with a decisive crack, shards skittering across the floor like startled roaches.
Felix looked down, unbothered. “That’s okay. I’ll sweep it up.”
Her pulse slammed into DEFCON 1.
“How do you know what I muttered in bed once?”
He straightened, this time with caution. “It’s always listening, you know this. You say something once, and suddenly every app’s offering you sourdough starter kits and herbal hangover teas.”
She gaped. “You’re quoting the algorithm as though it’s some sacred text.”
Felix, entirely unfazed, retrieved a dustpan from under the sink, moving with the comfort of long residence.
“You really should stop enabling microphone permissions,” he added helpfully.
Before she could scream again, the front door flung open with the momentum of maternal judgment.
“Maya!” Her mom’s voice rang out, a threat wrapped in enthusiasm. “I brought coffee! Is your boyfriend still here? I told Lorraine you weren’t lying!”
Maya’s soul exited her body.
No. No no no no no.
“Please be a fever dream,” she muttered. “Please let me wake up with a Dorito stuck to my cheek and no memory of this.”
But Felix was already moving. Already gliding toward the door as if this were his house.
“I’ll get her mug,” he said brightly, with the zeal of a cult member offering biscotti.
Maya slumped into the nearest chair, head in her hands. This wasn’t happening. This was not happening. She had manifested a man, shared him with the internet, and now he was in her mother’s house, discussing mugs as though they caught up twice a week on the phone.
“I am in hell,” she muttered into her palms.
At least hell had breakfast service.