The green dress was the green dress. I put it on because NELL had been forced to choose a metric and I was not going to debate fabric with a ceiling. “Expected visitor approaching,” NELL said from the kitchen. “Luke Hayes. Seven o’clock, plus two minutes.” “He’s early.” “He is two minutes late relative to the text ‘almost there.’” “Mind your business.” I opened the door. Dark shirt, sleeves shoved up, because of course. Hazel-brown. Dimple. He looked at the dress the way he looked at a waveform that had just done something it wasn’t supposed to do. “Mercer,” he said. “You own clothes that aren’t lab-legal.” “Don’t get used to it.” “NELL announced me like a package.” “You are an expected visitor. There are protocols.” He stepped in. The lights came up in their usual sequence. He watched them do it, delighted and slightly alarmed, which was the correct response to my apartment. “Claire,” NELL said, “shall I log Mr. Hayes as an authorized occupant for the evening, or merely as a guest?” “Guest,” I said, too fast. “Acknowledged. Guest. The hall smoke detector battery remains twelve days overdue. This is not related to Mr. Hayes. It is related to you.” Luke had already found the toaster. “That’s the one,” he said. “It browns bread.” “You made it sound like it files quarterly taxes.” “I customized the firmware. It has a color screen. That was my error.” The toaster chimed and flashed amber. Luke grinned at it like it had told a joke on purpose. “Hi, NELL.” “Hello, Luke Hayes. You are two inches left of the kitchen motion sensor’s optimal field. This is informational.” “It sounded like a critique.” “It was both,” I said. “Water?” “Please.” I filled a glass. When he took it, his fingers were warm and a little rough, same as the café, same as every cable he’d handed me. I noticed longer than I needed to. I turned off the tap like that was the job. He drank, watching me over the rim. The dress suddenly had a temperature. “Ready?” he asked. “If onboarding is finished.” “Onboarding is complete,” NELL said. “Have a statistically pleasant evening.” He opened the truck door. He did not need his hand at the small of my back. He put it there anyway, brief, certain, and I felt it all the way down to my knees. I got in and told my face to behave. The place he picked was louder than Thai and darker than the cafeteria. Small tables. A bar that knew what it was doing. We sat close because the table was close, not because the universe arranged it. “So this is the date version,” I said, after we’d ordered. “This is the date version.” He turned his glass once. “I should have said it Monday.” “You said it Monday.” “I said it in a parking lot after you paid. Timing could’ve been cleaner.” “Your timing is fine, Hayes.” His mouth did that slow thing. “Good.” We ate. Landon and the suspicious shelf. Jess and the highlighters. A radio in his garage that had started talking again after six dead capacitors. I told him NELL had rated the green dress by refusing every other metric first. He laughed into his drink and looked at my mouth when he did it. Under the table, his knee found mine. I didn’t move. Neither did he. The heat of it was not a metaphor. It was a knee. “You’re staring at my hands,” he said, not unkind. “They’re on the table. It’s a high-traffic area.” “Mm.” I took a sip of water I did not need. “We should talk about something that isn’t my observational failures.” “We could. I’d rather not.” That sat there, warm and unapologetic. I filed it under Friday and let it stay. When the plates were gone he didn’t reach for a speech. He paid. I let him, because I had already used financial management as a dodge once. Outside, the air had dropped. We walked to the truck. His fingers brushed mine, then he just took my hand, like that was a reasonable next test. His palm was hot. I held on. He drove me home. The building looked the same as it had at seven, which felt like a technical inaccuracy. At my door he stopped. “I can go,” he said. “You can.” He waited. “Or you can come in,” I said. “NELL already knows your name. The damage is done.” His grin went crooked. “Guest. Not occupant.” “Don’t push it.” The lights came up. NELL, traitor, used the warmer evening profile. “Welcome back, Claire. Welcome back, Luke Hayes. Guest status remains in effect. Your heart rate is elevated. Possible causes include stairs, capsaicin, and proximity.” “NELL.” “Logging ‘proximity’ as unverified.” Luke laughed under his breath, the sound close. “She’s worse than Marc.” “She’s worse than everyone.” He was in my kitchen again, jacket off, one hip against the counter like he’d been assigned the spot. I set my keys down and he was just there, taller in the small space, looking at me like the dress was still new information. “Claire.” “What.” “Come here.” I did. His hands found my waist first, careful, then not. I felt the heat of them through the fabric, the spread of his fingers, the fact that he had used those hands on steel all week and was now using them on me. I put my palm on his chest and felt him inhale. The kiss was not polite. It started like he was giving me time and then it wasn’t. Mouth, heat, the faint taste of whatever he’d been drinking. I made a sound I was going to pretend later I hadn’t. His hand slid up my back, into my hair, knocking my glasses a millimeter askew. I didn’t care. I went up on my toes and he made a low, wrecked noise that did something unhelpful to my spine. We hit the counter. I felt the edge against my hip and his thigh between mine, not quite there, close enough that I wanted it there. His mouth left mine for my jaw, the place under my ear, and I gripped the back of his shirt like it was a grab handle. “Okay,” I said, which was not a complete sentence. He huffed a laugh against my skin. “Okay?” “Don’t get cute.” “Too late.” He kissed me again, slower, deeper, like he had decided rushing was a waste of a good instrument. I opened for it. My hands mapped the line of his shoulders, the heat of his neck, the fact that he was solid and here and not a badge photo. When his thumb stroked the side of my breast through the dress I made another sound and he went still, checking. “Yes,” I said, before he could turn it into a meeting. “Thank Christ.” We stayed there too long. Kissing like the point was data. His thigh pressing up, my fingers in his hair, the toaster on the counter behind us flashing some color I hoped was not a status report. I could have taken him down the hall. I wanted to. That was new and not new. It had been building since a knee under a trivia table and a deleted text that said come over. I set my forehead against his. Both of us breathing like we’d run a jump test. “If we don’t stop,” I said, “NELL is going to log a firmware event.” “Let her.” “Hayes.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, once, like a promise he was going to keep on purpose. “Okay. Stopping. Under protest.” “Noted.” He didn’t let go of my waist immediately. I didn’t ask him to. “Friday was a good call,” I said. “Friday was overdue.” NELL, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, chose that moment. “Guest duration now exceeds typical threshold for a drop-off. Shall I convert status to occupant?” Luke dropped his forehead to my shoulder and laughed, helpless. “No,” I told the ceiling, and then, because I have no survival instinct, “Not yet.” Silence. Then, almost prim: “Acknowledged. Not yet.” He looked at me. Really looked. The dimple was there. So was the heat. So was the fact that he was going to walk out of here because I’d asked him to stop, and he was going to do it without making it my personality problem. “Badge readers Monday,” he said. “You could text before Monday.” “I was going to text before I hit the highway.” “Good.” I walked him to the door. He kissed me once more, shorter, like he didn’t trust a longer one. I didn’t trust it either. “Drive safe, Mercer.” “That’s my line.” “Steal it.” The door shut. The lock ran its sequence. “Claire,” NELL said. “If you mention heart rate I will revoke your kitchen privileges.” A pause. “The toaster requests no commentary.” “For once,” I said, “the toaster and I agree.” I leaned against the door in the green dress, touched my mouth, and did not pretend I was unaffected. Not yet. That was going to be a problem. A good one.

Chapter 14: Expected Visitor