I leaned my arm against the bar, right next to the stool he was perched on, and said, “Well, hey there, slick, how about you tell me what it takes to get bought a drink around here and I’ll tell you what the first two I want are.”

He leaned back a little, unhunching his broad shoulders from where he was sort of curled in towards his drink, and gave me a long up and down. “You prove you can fit two shot glasses in that mouth and I’ll buy you whatever you want, sweetheart,” he said. We both lasted about two straight-faced beats before he turned on his stool and held out an arm. “C’mere and give me a hug, you little fucker.”

“You need to get one,” Gillian said to me. “You’re making me sad. You’re making everyone very sad.”

“A little sadness is good for people,” I said back. “It lets you appreciate the full spectrum of human emotion. The highs and lows.” I knew I wasn’t going to win this one, though. She was tenacious, like a little terrier, and dedicated to preserving my well-being, like a little terrier.

“No!” she said, and poked a finger right at my nose. “No spectrums. And no more of you being stubborn and afraid of change.”

I took a deep breath and hunched my shoulders up towards my ears. “I’m not afraid of change,” I said, and then let out the breath. The shoulders stayed right where they were, though. “Okay, I am, but I’m also just lazy. And I’m fine with how things are now!” I reached into my pocket. “Look! Look at this little guy. He’s still doing so great after all these years.”

Gillian took one look at my phone, my very ancient phone that had a cracked face so I couldn’t tell who was calling me and flipped open like an arthritic clam and had a dangly charm of one of those little Japanese waving kittens hanging off of it. She grabbed me by both biceps and said, “Too sad!”

It was such a rotten cliche, to be smitten with the cute boy behind the counter at the coffee shop, but, well, cliches had to start somewhere. At least in Adam’s defense, he had only been caught in deep smit for the three minutes he’d been waiting in line. The boy in question had soft eyes and long lashes and a scruffy chin and smirky lips and Adam was just fine with waiting as long as possible while he got practice at staring while pretending not to stare.

When it was Adam’s time to come up to the counter, though, he saw the barista’s nametag read ‘Smug.’ Well, at least he was properly labeled.

“What can I get you today?” he asked, and up close Adam could see he had the loveliest eyes, rich brown like strong tea.

“Tea…” Adam blinked rapidly. “Ah, no, pardon. A large cappuccino, please.”

The barista — Smug, Adam supposed — gave a glance over to the girl behind the espresso machine, who was muttering to herself and seemed to be having a bit of trouble. “Might take a few minutes more, if that’s all right with you.”

“Oh, that’s fine, just fine,” Adam said. He was the last person in the queue at the moment, so he felt no guilt for lingering.

“Right, thanks,” he said, and tilted his head back to call to the girl. “Large cappuccino please, Marian.” He got a faint grumble in return, and Adam stifled a laugh. Smug — it was ridiculous to even think of that as a name, but it was easier on the internal monologue than ‘Perfect Handsome Man at the Coffee Shop I Wish to Marry’ — told him how much he owed for his drink and handed it over. The register clanked and jingled and Adam just watched his face. Handsome eyebrows, even; he’d never thought of eyebrows as something to be handsome.

He shook himself out of his charmed reverie. “Ah, my change?” he said. Society had to keep functioning, even in the face of infatuation.

Smug just smiled at him. A bit smugly, to be perfectly frank. “I think you’ll find it’s in your hand, sir.”

You couldn’t tell the latest generation of automata from human beings. That was common knowledge, so common in fact it was on the books as law in some countries. No disclosure required, and in any case, terribly rude to ask. You still found many of them working in the arts, hitting perfect-pitched notes and playing instruments with virtuosity, but the telltale markers of thirty or forty years ago were long gone. Your girlfriend with the perfect body and the strange light eyes was just as likely to have paid to have those features added to her flesh and blood body as she was to have had them built into her by equally mechanical hands. What was the point of trying to tell, anyway? It didn’t matter anymore.

Saif didn’t need to ask, though; he always knew. Even after all this time. He rested his forearms on the edge of the opera box and leaned forward, closing his eyes and tilting his head down over all the space between him and the orchestra below. The lead soprano, with her spirals of burnt honey hair and simply spectacular breasts, she was entirely human; the baritone singing opposite her, however, belting out profound notes from deep within his mighty beard, he was wires and circuits beneath his skin. Saif could keep himself occupied with this game for the entirety of the performance; he honestly found it a more interesting diversion than opera itself. But rituals were rituals and promises were promises. Even though his date was late, and more than just in his usual fashionable manner.