Page 94 of Coveted

“Um?” Arching my brow, I face him. “How did you know I’d ever be in your apartment?”

“This isn’t my apartment, it’s the entrance.”

“Smartass.”

Lucan crosses to a concrete wall, where a door opens before he touches it, like magic.

“Come inside,” he says.

The apartment’s interior is dark in a way that can only be intentional. It’s all low lighting, black everything, sharp lines, glass, steel.

It’s so perfect that I’m struck with the desire to put my hand on a shiny surface to leave a palm print. Some evidence of humanity. Because as it is, there’s none.

“Status?” asks Lucan, removing his jacket as we enter the kitchen.

Dumbfounded, I blink. “What?”

But then a disembodied voice answers him, coming from invisible speakers.

“Welcome back,” says the smooth, neutral voice that’s not quite human. “Perimeter secure. Breaches in your absence: zero. Your night schedule is cleared.”

His home is run by an operating system. Lucky, otherwise he might be at risk of human connection.

“You have a night schedule?” I ask.

Lucan loosens his black tie, letting it hang around his neck. “Everyone does.”

“Right, but I bet yours is very different to mine.”

“It is.”

My stomach tightens, because he does have some idea of my schedule. He can watch me come and go from my dorm on the doorbell camera.

“What?” he asks, noticing my pensive expression.

“I just realized you know about my late-night habit. All that cookie-dough ice cream from the campus market.”

“It’s not a habit.”

“What do you mean?”

“You only go when you’ve had a difficult day,” he says.

His observation short-circuits my brain for a second. The idea of someone paying such close attention to my actions is surreal.

Not just my actions, but the reason behind them. Lucan noticed something about me that I barely knew myself.

What else does he know? How often does he watch me on the cameras? It’s like I’m featuring in a reality television show, with an audience of one.

“So what now?” I drum my fingertips on the kitchen counter to release some nervous energy. “You sit on the porch with a shotgun all night?”

“That won’t be necessary. Nobody’s getting to you in here.”

I believe no one can get in, but the isolation also makes me a little uneasy. I’m so alone with him up here. Sealed off, high in the sky.

He walks toward me, and I back away instinctively, but when he draws level, he keeps walking down a hallway that looks like a portal.

“Let’s have a drink,” he says.