“Then can we get back to the question you’ve been avoiding since yesterday and admit the truth already?”
“What truth?”
Raina fixed Rowan with a stern stare. “Is heyour boyfriend? Are you dating your bot now like some normal couple?”
Rowan hadn’t realized he’d been avoiding labelling them officially, but… well, maybe hehadrealized. The truth was he didn’t have an answer. “We haven’t named this yet,” he admitted. “What we are. What we’re doing. He only awakened a few days ago, thrust into an unfamiliar world, and now he’s been outed to several more people, which is only the tip of a gigantic iceberg beneath the surface. It’s a lot.”
Raina hadn’t changed her expression or shifted her eyes from his yet.
She hadn’t blinked either.
But as much as that stare would have gotten Rowan to admit when they were children that he’d been the one to eat the last cookie without first asking if everyone else had gotten one, he was an adult now!
And he still didn’t have an answer.
He liked Milo. A lot. Not only did he find him attractive, like he always had, but now he also liked Milo’s personality—because Milo finally had one that extended beyond a nice voice and programmed good manners. He wasn’t just smart, since as a bot he had access to whatever information he wanted—then again, so did most humans—he was also clever. And thoughtful. Unexpectedly funny. Refreshingly blunt. He was the best partner Rowan could have imagined for himself, even if he’d… built him himself.
Which he basically had.
“There it is,” Raina said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“You’re having doubts too that you haven’t addressed yet.”
“We’ve been talking things out!” Rowan argued. Of course that didn’t change that there were still several factors that made this weird.
And maybe wrong.
But mostly weird.
To Raina’s credit, much as she could be chiding and even overbearing as the protective oldest of the family, it was all because she loved Rowan. The way her expression finally melted into one of sympathy said that plenty. “Be careful, okay?Becauseno one else has ever experienced this before, there’s no way to know how many ways it might hurt you if things go sour.”
“I know that,” Rowan said softly. “But honestly? I’m more worried about Milo getting hurt, not me. His intentions are as pure as anyone with their first… um…”
“Love?” Raina finished pointedly.
That thought definitely amped up the weird.
And wrong.
But mostly weird.
“It’s only been a few days!” Rowan said again.
“Actually, it’s been a few months of you pining after your sentient toaster. Well,beforehe was sentient. Only now he is, so that’s… better? But this is still so totally fucked!”
Now Rowan fixed her with a stern stare. “Milo is more than a sentient toaster.”
Raina snorted. “Yeah, and you’re Pygmalion falling in love with his creation.”
“I didn’t make Milo.”
“Didn’t you? You customized him. Molded him. Sounds like Pygmalion to me.” She grinned.
Rowan wanted to argue, but then… Pygmalion was one of the few happy endings for a mortal in Greek mythology. Because his love had been deemed pure, his creation had been made real so she could love freely, and they lived happily ever—
“Disaster.”
