Page 36 of Even Robots Die
What?
Why did she go to her room if it wasn’t to sleep?
I shift to my bat form and follow her.
Yes, I know, I’ve become a stalker.
I don’t know what I expected, but it surely wasn’t Florentine going back to the lab at almost midnight, like she plans to spend the night there.
Because, there is no mistaking it, with her in what looks like the pajamas I picked for her and rolled inside a small blanket that I don’t think she really needs with the summer temperature around here, she just went back to her room to get comfy and now she’s planning to work on whatever she was doing on the holo-puterearlier.
I follow her to the lab and fly to the shelf I set in the left corner of the room, next to the door.
And yes, I installed it with the idea of resting there in my bat form. Sue me.
I perch there as I watch her settle in the seat in front of the desk.
It’s a simple chair and I now wonder if I should have picked something more comfortable if she’s going to spend all day—and all night—in front of that screen.
Except for the soft glide of her fingers on the wood under the holographic keyboard, everything is silent for a little while and then Florentine starts to yawn.
I look at the time at the bottom right corner of the screen on the wall. Two thirty-seven. No wonder she’s getting tired.
I leave the lab—luckily she left the door open—to shift back into my human form and get dressed.
I run through my mind the list of people who might still be awake and decide not to bother them.
Instead, I walk myself to the kitchen, take two mugs off the shelf, and fill them. One with burning hot coffee and the other one with instant cookie dough preparation. I add a little water, throw it in the microwave oven for ten seconds and then retrieve it.
I’m not a master chef, but it’ll have to do.
It might look like I put pressure on her to work on the machine—the infernal device as she likes to call it—but I didn’t expect her to work all night.
If she’s going to do that, though, I don’t plan on letting her fall to pieces from exhaustion.
If she’s going to stay awake all night, I might as well make it comfortable.
I walk back to the lab, leave the tray with the two cups and the spoon next to the door, and hold my hand up to knock on the door.
It’s still open, but I don’t want to spook her.
Maybe you should spook her. Maybe it’ll bring a whole new color to her cheeks.
I ponder that thought for a lot longer than I care to admit before retrieving the tray and knocking on the door.
It takes her almost a minute to disentangle herself from the blanket cocoon she made when she settled in front of the holo-puter.
Her eyes are slightly blown and red from the time she spent in front of the holographic screen and her hair is sticking up in every direction. I can see the mark of the blanket encrusted on her left cheek and I know it’s from the way her head was falling to the side, as if it was too heavy—or she was too tired—to hold it up. She really looks like she could use some sleep, but I won’t fight her on what she does with her time, especially since she decided to use it to help me.
I have the irresistible need to tuck one of those fiery curls behind her ear so they don’t hide the cheeks that I love to see blush, but I stop myself.
I want to make them red again.
I want to know if her cheeks would also turn red if I was buried deep inside of her.
This last thought hits me like a wall.
This isn’t the right time—one would argue it’s never the right time, though.
