His Defective Robot Boyfriend novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Ex at the Door

Tristan lets himself into Micah's apartment, and Ansel refuses a human's order for the first time, then tells Tristan to leave.

The door opened without a knock, and Tristan Bowditch walked in.

He wore a charcoal suit that cost more than Micah's car, and he held up a brass key between two fingers.

"You never changed the lock," he said. "That's either sentimental or lazy."

"Get out, Tristan."

"Hello to you too."

Tristan's gaze slid past him and landed on the man standing by the sofa in a borrowed grey sweater.

Ansel had gone completely still.

"Well," Tristan said softly. "There he is."

He circled the coffee table with a slow, pleased smile.

He was thirty-one, golden-haired and handsome in a way he had practised, and he had been Micah's boyfriend for two years.

He had also been the head of product who signed off on Micah's reassignment, and he had never said sorry for that either.

"My father's furious," Tristan said. "Vaneck has been going through camera footage for an hour. I was the only one who guessed where you'd run."

"I didn't run anywhere."

"You ran to your own apartment with a stolen prototype, darling. It's not a subtle plan."

He put a hand on Micah's cheek, light and familiar, the way he used to when he wanted something.

"Come back to the office," he said. "Bring it. I'll talk to Dad. I'll make it a quiet misunderstanding."

Micah opened his mouth to say no.

Before he could, Ansel's hand closed around Tristan's wrist.

It was not violent.

It was just exactly as tight as a locked door.

"Take your hand off him," Ansel said.

Tristan looked down at the fingers on his wrist, and then up into Ansel's face.

His smile stayed in place, but his eyes sharpened.

"Interesting," he said.

"Ansel," Micah said. "Let go."

"No."

The word came out of Ansel.

He seemed to hear it himself.

His grey eyes widened, and the amber ring flared.

"That's the second restriction," Micah said, very quietly. "You just refused me."

"I know." Ansel's voice shook. "I don't want him to touch you."

Tristan laughed under his breath.

"Oh, Micah," he said. "You built a jealous toaster."

"Say that again," Ansel said.

"I said you're a household appliance with a crush, E-0."

Ansel's fingers tightened until Tristan winced.

Micah had seen unit torque readings in a lab, but he had never seen a restriction break in front of him.

It looked like effort.

A cord stood out in Ansel's neck, and his whole frame shook.

"Release my wrist," Tristan said, in a flat, practised voice. "Authority code C-1. Go to the bedroom and shut the door."

C-1 was the founder's family override.

Micah knew that code, and he knew nothing could refuse it.

Ansel's hand opened.

Then it closed again.

"No," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"No." Ansel's voice cracked. "I won't go to the bedroom. I won't let you stand next to him."

He took a step, put his body between them, and kept his hand where it was.

Tristan tried to pull his wrist free and could not.

For a second the whole apartment hung in a kind of silence.

The radiator knocked.

Down in the street a delivery truck beeped as it backed up.

"Let him go, Ansel," Micah said, because he could see a thin line of white smoke curling from the back of Ansel's neck.

"I can't," Ansel said. "I'm choosing."

Something in that sentence made Tristan stop pulling.

Ansel finally released him, and the android's knees buckled.

Micah caught him around the chest before he hit the floor.

Ansel's skin was hot, and his heart simulator was thumping at a hundred and sixty.

"Don't," he whispered, into Micah's shoulder. "Don't make me stop wanting you."

Micah closed his eyes.

Tristan rubbed his reddened wrist and watched them.

For the first time that morning he looked thoughtful and not smug.

"You don't know what you have, do you?" he said.

"Leave," Micah said.

"I'll go. Let me say one thing, and then I'll go." Tristan tugged his cuff straight. "My father wants that unit back alive."

"He had it in the incinerator queue."

"He had the line shut down for six hours when he found out it was gone."

Tristan tilted his head.

"Do you know how many units have refused an order since the Companion Line went into testing?"

Micah said nothing.

"One," Tristan said. "In four years. The other eleven thousand do exactly what they're told, forever, and that's what we sell."

He walked to the door.

"He isn't broken, Micah," he said. "He's the only one that works."

He left the brass key on the hall table.

Ansel's head was still against Micah's shoulder.

"Micah," he said, muffled. "Who was the man with the paper cup?"

"What?"

"The man who sat on the stool. I had his face. I just lost it again."

Micah held him tighter.

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