Page 61 of Ideal Life

Please tell me ur gonna do a livestream baby shower!

im so happy 4 u Jacob and Libby i feel like i know u so it’s like im gonna b ur baby’s auntie omg

Eunice clapped her hands. “Congratulations! I did not know you were going to be parents!”

Shit, I’m sorry, Jacob mouthed to Libby, eyes wide.

She knew he hadn’t meant to let it slip. She was lucky that she had a husband who was so genuinely excited about being a daddy.

But fuck. Not only had they not figured out what to do about their business with a baby on the way, but now twenty-three million strangers knew.

And Libby hadn’t even told her parents or Talia yet.

Erin

Do you have to run with those things on?” Colette pointed at Erin’s Omni 3Ds. They were warming up on the Oval, the iconic expanse of lawn in front of Stanford’s sandstone buildings. During the school year, the Oval was full of students playing volleyball or studying. Now that it was summer, though, it was emptier, with only one group of high school summer camp kids at the far end playing Frisbee before going back to their dorms for the evening.

Erin stroked her Omni 3Ds melodramatically. “I am never taking these off—at least not until I have to return them at the end of my internship.” (The glasses were on loan from Ideal Life, along with a laptop and smartwatch. The Temple Dots, of course, were meant to be replaced after two weeks of use, so Erin wouldn’t have to return those. But she loyally had them on all the time, too.) “My date with Georgia was a disaster because you and Jackson stole my glasses, and therefore, I didn’t know what to do!”

“I’m really sorry that you ended up in anaphylactic shock,” Colette said.

Erin sighed. “I know. And I also know it’s not really your and Jackson’s fault. Stuff happens.”

“Welcome to dating like a normal person.”

“Ugh, it’s overrated. Why would anyone want to do that, when Ideal Life Athena knows exactly when I’m getting nervous or about to start spouting nonsensical verbal diarrhea, or when it knows that I’m going to eat something I’m allergic to and could have stopped me?”

“There are some of us who still manage to live with allergies without an app,” Colette said gently. She had a hard time digesting eggs and managed just fine on her own.

“It’s possible that I’ve outsourced part of my intelligence,” Erin said.

Colette snickered. “You are a hopeless human being.”

Erin tapped her glasses. “Exactly. So it’s actually a good thing I’ve got these to augment my mind. Okay, you ready to run?” She glanced down Palm Drive (lined with palm trees, no surprise) toward Campus Drive. It was a 4.3-mile loop all the way around the university and along the foothills. “If I warm up anymore, I’ll be dripping sweat before we even get going.”

“Almost—just let me get in my fence drills real quick.”

While Colette did the last of her stretches, a new notification popped up in Erin’s glasses. It wasn’t from Ideal Life, though. This one was from YouTube about one of the accounts she subscribed to.

Erin squealed. “Oh my god!”

“What?” Colette sprinted over.

“Libby and Jacob are pregnant!”

Talia

Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth: It has been four days since you have seen or communicated with Sam, even though he has texted you. I have analyzed your prior messages and his recent ones, and there does not seem to be any conflict between the two of you. However, your mood markers have been a bit lower recently. May I suggest that you reach out to him? I think it would be good for you.

Talia sighed and leaned back in her office chair as she dismissed the notification. But Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth was right; she usually was. After all, Talia and her team had worked tirelessly to improve the accuracy of Ideal Life’s brain-activity correlations with external indicators, as well as ongoing analysis of each user’s individual history. In Talia’s case, Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth knew that she and Sam were close and texted all the time, even if they only saw each other once a week for Sunday Lunch.

The current barrier, of course, was her own doing. In the last few days, she’d been able to move past replaying the kiss again and again in her head. But she hadn’t gotten over the guilt of erasing it, which is why she hadn’t responded to Sam’s texts, even though Sam himself had no memory of her horribly awkward mistake.

“Oh, fine.” She opened up her messaging app on her desktop.

Talia: Hey… sorry, been super busy at work. I know it’s only Thursday, but are you free tonight? I could come out to the coast. Miss you.

She hit Send and held her breath.