Page 32 of Nolan
“I saw it. I don’t blame you for being pissed off. I would be too,” Apollo says, but I can see there’s something on his mind. “But we need to talk.”
Mimicking a sigh, I motion for him to follow me to my little dorm above the station, the old barracks. “Okay. Sure.”
“So I hear you’re talking to Mia, and that I, quote, can’t do anything about it.” Apollo paces in front of me, running his hand through his hair.
Reading his agitated vitals, I watch Apollo closely, and choose my words carefully, too. “Yes, I’ve been talking to her for the past few days.”
“And?” Apollo stops, looking at me in surprise. “Here I was, thinking I must’ve hit my head or something, but it’s true. You went over my head. How could you, Nolan? And how far has this gone already?”
I can’t ignore that uncomfortable pulse when he asks me this question. That level of deception isn’t in me, not when I’m confronted point-blank. “A kiss. Nothing more.”
“Come on.” Apollo groans, resting his hands on his hips as his pacing finally comes to a halt. “Mia? Of all people, you had to go after her? She’s been in town for a few days and you’re already—” He points at me, grimacing and worried. “Tell me you guys didn’t do it in my wife’s store. That’s—that’s—a health hazard, man!”
“We didn’t do anything beyond kissing,” I repeat. I feel as though I’m stuck between two steel beams, uncomfortable with sharing even one fact about my private interactions with Mia. My systems are twisted around. I want to please my best friend. But I also want to protect Mia. Our correspondence is nobody’s business but ours. I shoot a message off to her. Good morning, beautiful. Heads up. Apollo is giving me the talk.
“I don’t buy that. I know what you’re like with women,” Apollo says heatedly.
That earns a hard stare from me. “What am I like with women, Apollo?”
“Come on, that’s—I—I just know!”
“You’re angry and irrational,” I reply. “And I don’t like the implication behind your words. I’m not AJ or Travis or even Booker with women, and you know it.”
“You’re right. You’re right. That was uncalled for.” Apollo sighs, his shoulders sagging somewhat. “I just—I can’t believe you didn’t come to me.”
A pulse of agonizing guilt plagues my circuitry. Error. Recalibrating. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. It’s not something I was able to control.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Apollo asks, exasperated. “She gives you her number, you say no, and you walk away.”
“It’s not that simple. Come on, man. I have software, I have programming. And my drive latched onto her so hard and so fast, it made my head spin,” I explain. “I couldn’t resist if I wanted to. I needed to speak with her, or every system in my body would’ve been crawling with errors.”
Apollo’s frustration finally calming. “Wait . . . really?”
I’m sorry, Mia sends back. Our talk this morning really didn’t go well. I should’ve handled it better.
Don’t worry. It’s nothing I can’t handle, I reply.
Apollo peers up at me. “Your gratification drive, right? You told me about it.”
I’m relieved that Apollo’s cooled himself down enough to listen to me, to really hear me. That uncomfortable pulsing in my circuitry dies down as I try to explain. “The very same. I didn’t know what to do, how to act. I thought about walking over to Tin Man’s Heart and just begging them to reset me, but I don’t think it would’ve mattered. I would’ve met her eventually through you again, and the scenario would repeat itself.”
Apollo ruffles his hair and sits on my neatly made bed, glancing over at a shelf displaying small models of historic fire trucks. “Then why didn’t you say something?”
“I wanted to deal with the situation myself, try to make sense of these feelings I had,” I explain. “And we were only talking. At first, it seemed unnecessary to alarm you if maybe I could get my systems to cool down.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“No. Not around her. It’s impossible.”
“Your drive’s attached to me too, right?”
“Yes, but it’s not the same thing.”
“And if I ordered you to stay away from her and never speak to her again?”
The pain that comes from the suggestion alone causes another error to flicker across my screen. Warning, battery surge detected.
“Is that a command?” I ask, unable to hide just how perplexed it makes me.
