Page 78 of Forty, Flirty & Fake-ly Yours

Connor whistles. "Look who's finally growing emotional processors."

"Shut up." But I'm already calling my house manager. "Talia? I need your help with something..."

An hour later, we three stooges actually manages to focus on engagement party plans. Mostly. Sort of.

"All I'm saying," Connor argues, "is that if you're going to go all out, it should reflect who you are now, not who you were trying to be."

"I'm not ‘going all out’.”

"Right. You're just having Talia transform your sterile penthouse into something Roz would actually want to spend time in." He scrolls through the extensive list of changes I just ordered. "Including, and I quote, 'replacing all smart home features with actual human-controlled switches.'"

"It's just an upgrade."

"It's you finally admitting that some things are better without computational analysis.” Alex grins.

"That's very profound coming from someone who wanted to hire pasta acrobats."

"Hey, Mac vetoed the acrobats. She can't veto me trying to make our engagement party special."

"Speaking of special," Connor cuts in, "want to tell us what really happened on that rooftop?"

I hesitate, my mind wrapping around last night’s rooftop garden, the warm string lights and Roz.

"I think," I say slowly, "I might have forgotten about data entirely."

"Good." Alex claps my shoulder. "Because if you try to data analyze Valentine's Day, we're officially disowning you."

"Pretty sure that's not how friendship works."

"Pretty sure that's exactly how friendship works." Connor starts gathering his coat. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go prevent my grandmother from reprogramming CORA to play love songs every time you enter your office."

"She wouldn't."

"She absolutely would." He pauses at the door. "Though personally, I'm more interested in how you're going to handle the fact that Roz—like you—is probably overthinking everything right now."

He's not wrong. I check my phone again, but there's nothing from Rosalind except a carefully worded text about engagement party logistics.

"You know what Jessica's problem was?" Alex asks once Connor's gone.

"Besides falling in love with her co-founder?"

"She made sense." At my look, he clarifies: "On paper, in spreadsheets, in all your numbers. But she never made you forget about the data. Roz makes you human." He starts gathering party supplies. "Which is exactly why you're terrified."

"I'm not?—"

“Dude, you’re scared shitless of anything you can't predict? You’re glitching right now. But at least, you know what you have to do," Alex says.

I do know. I just hope I can pull it off without any of my normal systems in place.

Through his windows, Seattle's eternal grey has taken on that particular quality that means more snow is coming. Like the universe is trying to tell me something about perfect timing and unpredictable patterns.

My phone buzzes one final time. CORA:Sir, might I suggest a comprehensive analysis of romantic gesture protocols?

"No, CORA,” I bark. “I’ve got it handled.”

I grab my own coat, preparing to head out into the winter weather, hoping that last part’s not a lie.

22

---