Page 59 of The Boyfriend Algorithm

The rest of the reception is a warm, loud, beautiful blur.

The toasts are funny and teary. The food is good—for the people who can eat it, anyway. Mom cries three more times. And then tries to feed Aiden again. I have to send him away, into the bathroom for part of dinner just to get her to stop.

Natalie dances with her dad to a song that makes every person over fifty in the room lose it. Ethan dances with his mom and nearly trips on her dress, which somehow makes it more perfect.

I dance with Aiden twice during the fast songs, which is entertaining because he downloaded the skill set but applies it with a mechanical precision that makes me laugh every time. He spins me once—technically perfect—and I come back to his chest grinning, and he looks down at me with that quiet, intent focus and says, “I like when you laugh,” and I almost trip.

Josh and Audrey are on the dance floor too. I see them in my peripheral—his hand on her waist, her head on his shoulder. A year ago that would have hollowed me out. Tonight I notice it the way you notice a cloud passing. It’s there, and then it’s not, and the sky doesn’t change.

Then the DJ slows it down.

One of those songs—low and warm and inevitable, the kind that fills a room and empties the edges. Couples pull together. My brother and Sarah, the bride and groom, still glowing. Josh and Audrey.

Aiden looks at me. Extends his hand.

I take it.

We step onto the floor, and he pulls me close—closer than the practice sessions, closer than the kitchen swaying. His hand settles on my lower back, and my hand goes to his shoulder, and we fit together in a way that shouldn’t make sense but does.

He moves differently now. Not stiff, not mechanical, not solving an equation with his feet. He’s just holding me and swaying, and his chest is warm against mine. I can feel the steadiness of him through his shirt, and I close my eyes and rest my forehead against his jaw, and the room gets very far away.

His thumb traces a slow line on my lower back. Not choreographed. Not from any tutorial. “Ruby?”

“Mm.”

“I don’t understand everything I saw today. The vows. The promises. Why humans say words they can’t guarantee and mean them anyway.” His voice is low, just for me, almost lost in the music. “But I understand why they do it. I understand wanting to stand in front of someone and say, ‘I choose you,’ and mean it permanently.”

My hand tightens on his shoulder. He presses me closer, his hand on my back, his warmth soaking through my dress.

“Aiden.”

“Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

He doesn’t ask if I’m sure. Doesn’t ask about warnings or verbal signals or physical cues. He just tips my chin up with his fingers—the same gesture from the rehearsal dinner, except this time there’s no fake anything.

His mouth finds mine.

This kiss is different. Not a peck, not a two-second performance. It’s slow. Sweet. His lips are warm and careful, and he kisses me like he’s memorizing it, like he wants to get every detail right not because he’s a machine, but because this matters to him in a way that has nothing to do with data.

My hand slides to the back of his neck, and I feel his skin—real, warm, human—under my fingers, and I kiss him back, and my heart rate kicks up.

We pull apart. Not far. His forehead rests against mine, and his breath—performed or not—is warm on my face, and his eyes are that faint amber in the low reception lighting.

“Let’s go back to the room,” I say.

He looks at me. Reads me. All of me.

“Yes,” he says.

I take his hand. Walk off the dance floor. Through the reception, past the tables, past Mom who’s too busy crying to notice, past the jazz trio, into the lobby.

Chapter Sixteen

Ruby

All Systems Go