When the App Knew Better

I’d been on the app for three months, swiping through a sea of carefully curated faces, and I was about to delete it. The cynicism was starting to taste like bile in the back of my throat. Another guy holding a fish. Another “entrepreneur” with a suspiciously vague job description. Another perfectly symmetrical smile that promised absolutely nothing.

Then I got the notification: “You have one perfect match.”

It was from Symbios, the new invite-only app everyone was whispering about. My friend Lena, a software engineer, had gotten me a beta code. “It’s different,” she’d promised. “No photos. No bios. Just a brutal, beautiful algorithm that connects you based on… everything else. Core values, communication styles, conflict resolution, sense of humor, intellectual curiosity. The deep stuff.”

“So I’m going to fall in love with a disembodied personality?” I’d asked, skeptical.

“You’re going to meet a person,” she’d said firmly. “Not a profile.”

My match’s username was TheoreticalDilemma. Our compatibility score, displayed boldly at the top of our chat window, was 98.7%. I’d scoffed. Nothing human was 98.7% compatible.

But then we started talking. Or rather, typing. For two weeks, we lived in that text-based world. We debated the ethics of time travel before breakfast, exchanged terrible puns by lunch, and shared our most potent childhood memories—the smell of rain on hot pavement, the specific terror of a parent’s silence—late into the night. The conversation flowed with an ease that felt supernatural. We’d finish each other’s sentences, digitally. We’d send the same obscure song link at the exact same moment. The laughter was constant, a private joke universe expanding between us.

We’d made a pact: no photos, no voice notes, no last names. Just the raw text. The purity of it was terrifying and exhilarating. I knew the cadence of his thoughts, the texture of his humor, the weight of his silences. I knew he took his coffee black, that he hated the feeling of wool against his skin, that he cried at the end of The Iron Giant. But I had no idea what he looked like.

And that was the point, wasn’t it? To transcend the superficial. Still, my mind, trained by a lifetime of visual consumption, would try to sketch him. Sometimes he was lanky and pale with glasses. Sometimes he had the build of a swimmer. His voice in my head was a smooth, warm baritone.

“This is insane,” I typed one night, curled on my sofa. “I feel like I know you better than people I’ve known for years.”

“It is insane,” he wrote back immediately. “And the statistical probability of this level of synchronicity, given our separately submitted parameters, is approximately 0.0003%. I looked it up.”

“A true romantic,” I replied, grinning at my screen.

“Data-driven romanticism is the only kind that lasts. So. The theoretical dilemma becomes practical. Should we meet?”

My heart did a clumsy, heavy thud against my ribs. This was the cliff. We’d been dancing towards it for days. All that beautiful, weightless connection was about to be tested by gravity, by flesh, by the awkward reality of physical presence.

“Yes,” I typed before I could overthink it. “But where? Somewhere neutral. Public. With good lighting and easy exits.”

“A bookstore cafe? Saturday, 2 PM? I’ll be the one nervously dismantling a straw wrapper.”

“I’ll be the one re-applying lip balm every thirty seconds.”

We didn’t specify what we’d wear. We didn’t exchange a final, frantic photo. We just agreed on the time and place, and then the chat went quiet. The silence felt louder than all our previous conversations combined.

---

Saturday arrived with the subtle menace of a final exam. I stood in front of my closet for an hour, paralyzed. What does one wear to meet a theoretical construct? I chose simple dark jeans, a soft cream-colored sweater, and boots. I wanted to feel like myself, but the best version—comfortable, approachable, real. I stared at my reflection, a woman with brown skin, curly hair I’d fought into a semi-tamed halo, and eyes that looked far more anxious than I’d hoped. He knows your mind, I told myself. That’s what matters.

The bookstore cafe, The Last Chapter, was one of those cozy, sprawling places with overstuffed armchairs and the rich, comforting scent of old paper and fresh coffee. It was busy, but not packed. My pulse was a frantic bird in my throat. 2:02 PM. I’d deliberately arrived two minutes late, a pathetic attempt to exert some control.

I scanned the room. A few people working on laptops. An elderly couple sharing a scone. A guy in a corner with a physics textbook… no straw wrapper. My palms were damp. This was a mistake. A beautiful, catastrophic mistake.

Then I saw him.

He was at a small table by the window, sunlight catching the edges of his form. He was Black, with skin a deep, warm brown, close-cropped hair, and a focused intensity as he carefully, methodically, peeled the paper from a straw, winding it into a tight little spiral on the table.

My breath caught.

He was… beautiful. Not in a generic, magazine-cover way. His beauty was in the precise line of his jaw, the full curve of his mouth currently bent in concentration, the broad shoulders stretching the fabric of a simple grey henley. He had strong, capable-looking hands. I had imagined a thousand versions of him, and none of them were this. None of them carried this specific, potent gravity.

TheoreticalDilemma was a man. A real, breathtaking man.

A wave of sheer terror washed over me, followed immediately by a surge of something else, something hot and bright. What if my mind wasn’t enough now? What if the moment he saw me—a Black woman with more curves than the app’s algorithm could possibly have calculated, with hair that defied gravity—the beautiful fiction we’d built would evaporate?

I must have been staring, because he looked up.

His eyes found mine across the room. They were a light brown, almost amber, and they widened just a fraction. The straw wrapper forgotten, he stilled. There was no smile, not yet. Just a searching, profound look of recognition. It wasn’t a look of appraisal, not of my body or my face. It was the look of someone hearing a familiar voice in a crowded room.

He stood up. He was taller than I’d imagined, with a quiet, solid presence. He didn’t wave. He just waited.

I walked over, each step feeling both endless and instantaneous. The cafe noise faded to a hum.

“Hi,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Hi,” he said. His voice. Oh, his voice. It was a low, resonant vibration, exactly the warm baritone from my imagination, but textured with a real, breathing body. It wrapped around me.

“I’m Noah,” he said, extending a hand.

I took it. “Chloe.”

His hand was warm, his grip firm but not crushing. A simple handshake. A point of contact that sent a current straight up my arm. We both let go a half-second too slowly.

“You’re…” he started, then stopped, shaking his head slightly. “Sorry. I had a whole speech prepared about not commenting on appearances. But you’re… it’s you.”

“It’s you,” I echoed, the words feeling profoundly true.

We sat. An awkward, delicious silence settled between us, filled with the weight of all our digital intimacy crashing into this new, physical reality. He was watching me, not with the hungry scrutiny of a date, but with the awe of an explorer finding a landmark he’d only read about.

“You’re dismantling the straw wrapper,” I finally said, nodding at the tiny paper spiral.

A slow, devastating smile spread across his face. It transformed him, lighting up his eyes and carving a dimple in one cheek. “And you,” he said, his gaze dropping to my hands resting on the table, “have very convincingly not re-applied lip balm once.”

I laughed, and the tension shattered into a million glittering pieces. “I was too nervous. I left it in the car.”

“Good. I like your lips as they are.”

The statement was so blunt, so unadorned, it stole the air from my lungs. It wasn’t a slick line. It was a data point, delivered with calm certainty.

We talked. Of course we talked. But it was different now. The words were the same—fluid, effortless, tumbling over each other in our haste to share thoughts—but now they were accompanied by a symphony of physical details. The way he’d run a hand over his head when he was thinking. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed at my dumb joke about Schrödinger's cat. The way he’d lean forward, elbows on the table, when he wanted to emphasize a point, bringing the clean, subtle scent of soap and something like sandalwood closer to me.

I watched his mouth form words I already knew the meaning of, and it felt like learning a new language. The conversation moved from books to a shared hatred of musicals to the existential dread of pension plans, and through it all, this electric awareness hummed between us. Every incidental brush of his fingers against mine as he passed the sugar bowl. Every time our knees bumped under the small table. Each touch was a punctuation mark, underscoring the text of our dialogue with a subtext of pure, undiluted chemistry.

“This is unfair,” he said after a while, his cup of black coffee long empty.

“What is?”

“The algorithm. It gave me your mind, which is a treasure. But it didn’t prepare me for… the rest.” His gaze swept over me, not leering, but appreciating, like one would a stunning piece of art. “The convergence is… statistically overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming,” I agreed, my voice soft. I felt seen, in every possible sense of the word. My thoughts, my humor, my body. All of it, accepted in one amber-eyed glance.

As we talked, I noticed subtle things. The rich, deep umber of his skin against the pale wood of the table. The way the sunlight caught the different textures—the smoothness of his knuckles, the slight, appealing roughness of a faint scar on his thumb. I saw the contrast when he reached for his cup, his hand looking dark and sure against the white ceramic, and I imagined how my own lighter brown hand would look tangled with his.

“What now?” he asked. The question was simple, but it contained multitudes. Do we stay here? Do we leave? Where does this go?

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” I admitted. It was terrifyingly honest.

“Neither do I.” He paused. “My apartment is ten minutes away. I have a terrible vinyl collection and ingredients for a marginally decent pasta carbonara. We could continue the experiment in a more… controlled environment.”

A thrill shot through me, warm and liquid. “A controlled environment. For science.”

“For science,” he affirmed, a playful spark in his eyes.

A beat of silence stretched between us, thick with the unspoken weight of the decision. The safe, public cafe was one thing. A private apartment was another. This is it, I thought, a final flare of caution igniting. You walk out that door with him, and there’s no pretending this is just a chat. I looked at him—at the earnest intelligence in his eyes, at the hands that had so carefully spun a straw wrapper into art. I thought of the man who knew I cried at dog food commercials and debated Kant before bed. The risk was real, but the compulsion was absolute.

“Okay,” I said, the word a release of breath I didn’t know I was holding.

---

The walk to his car was charged with a new kind of quiet. It wasn’t the easy silence from the cafe; this was a dense, anticipatory hush. Our shoulders brushed as we walked, a constant, gentle spark. He drove a sensible, clean sedan. He opened the passenger door for me, his hand a careful inch from the small of my back.

In the enclosed space of the car, his presence was magnified. The scent of him—clean cotton and that underlying sandalwood warmth—filled the air. The silence wasn’t awkward, but it was profound. I watched the city lights begin to blur past as dusk settled in, my mind racing. I felt him glance at me occasionally, a soft, sidelong look I could feel more than see.

“Nervous?” he asked quietly, his voice a rumble in the dim cabin.

“A little,” I admitted, turning to look at him. The dashboard lights painted his profile in soft blues and greens. “Aren’t you?”

“Terrified,” he said, without a trace of irony. “My hypothesis is about to be subjected to its most critical test. The margin for error feels… personal now.”

His honesty disarmed me. “No more data points for a minute,” I said softly. “Just… drive.”

He gave a single, slow nod, and a calm settled over us. The quiet became comfortable, a shared space where our anticipation could just be, without being dissected.

Noah’s apartment was a reflection of the man I’d come to know: clean, organized, but full of captivating depth. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a sleek but comfortable-looking sofa, a record player with a small, curated collection of albums ranging from Miles Davis to Explosions in the Sky. It was quiet, warm, and felt instantly like a sanctuary.

“Welcome to the lab,” he said, closing the door behind us. The click of the latch sounded absurdly final and significant.

I wandered to the bookshelf while he went to the kitchen, giving us both a moment to breathe. The titles were a mix of speculative fiction, philosophy, and dense scientific journals. I smiled, seeing a well-worn copy of The Left Hand of Darkness. Next to it, tucked slightly behind other volumes, was a book with a stark, simple spine: The Body Keeps the Score. The title gave me a sudden, poignant glimpse into a depth I hadn’t considered—a history of some past hurt, carefully managed. It made him more real, more human, in a way that tightened my chest.

“You have good taste,” I called out.

“I have your taste, apparently,” he replied from the kitchen. “According to the data.”

I heard the clatter of a pot, the run of water. The domestic sounds were intimately soothing. I turned and leaned against the bookshelf, watching him move. He was graceful in his efficiency, his movements economical and sure. He’d removed his henley, leaving him in a simple white t-shirt that stretched across his back as he reached for a colander. The sight of him, so at ease, so physically present, made my mouth go dry.

“Can I help?” I asked, walking to the kitchen doorway.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You can keep talking. Your voice is my favorite soundtrack.”

I blushed, a heat spreading from my chest to my cheeks. “Smooth, Noah.”

“Just true,” he corrected, smiling. He turned, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “The pasta water is taking forever to boil. It gives us time for the next phase of the experiment.”

“Which is?”

“Proximity testing.” He said it so seriously, like a researcher outlining a methodology.

He walked toward me, stopping just inside my personal space. I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. The hum of the refrigerator, the distant hiss of the stove, it all faded into a background buzz. All I could hear was my own heartbeat.

“Hypothesis,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “The intellectual and emotional compatibility documented in the digital environment will manifest as a proportional physical compatibility.”

“And how do we test that?” My own voice was barely a whisper.

“Observation. And… touch.”

He didn’t move to kiss me. Instead, he raised a hand and slowly, so slowly, brushed the back of his knuckles along my cheekbone. The touch was feather-light, but it resonated through me like a struck gong. My eyes fluttered closed for a second.

“Data point one,” he murmured. “Skin conductivity appears highly reactive.”

I opened my eyes, finding his gaze dark and focused. “Your touch is a controlled variable,” I managed. “Of course there’s a reaction.”

A slow smile. “Good. A rigorous experimental model requires acknowledging the variables.”

His hand moved, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw, then drifting down the side of my neck. His touch was inquisitive, reverent. Every nerve ending he passed sang to life. He paused, his thumb stroking the delicate skin just below my ear. “The contrast here,” he whispered, almost to himself. “It’s beautiful. Like light finding its shape in shadow.”

His words weren’t clinical; they were poetic, and they unraveled me.

“May I?” he asked, his hand pausing at the collar of my sweater.

I nodded, wordless.

His fingers hooked gently in the fabric, his thumb brushing the hollow of my throat. I felt my pulse hammering there, under his skin. He could surely feel it.

“Elevated heart rate,” he noted, his own breath seeming a little uneven. “A positive indicator.”

“You’re one to talk,” I breathed, lifting my own hand. I pressed my palm flat against his chest, over his heart. The strong, steady beat was thudding against my hand, rapid and fierce. Through the soft cotton of his shirt, I felt the heat of him, the solid wall of his pectoral muscle. “Your control group seems compromised, Doctor.”

He let out a soft, shaky laugh. “The experiment is contaminated. By you.”

His other hand came up to cradle my face. This was it. The moment where the theory met practice. Our first kiss was not a question. It was a conclusion.

His mouth was soft, yet insistent. He kissed me with the same focused intelligence he did everything else—learning the shape of my lips, the rhythm of my breath. It started slow, a tender exploration, but the chemistry between us was a catalyst, accelerating everything. The kiss deepened, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, and a bolt of pure, undiluted desire shot straight to my core. I moaned into him, my hands fisting in his t-shirt, pulling him closer.

He broke the kiss, both of us gasping for air, our foreheads resting together.

“The hypothesis is confirmed,” he said raggedly. “Beyond all statistical significance.”

“The pasta water is boiling over,” I pointed out, hearing the frantic hiss from the stove.

“The pasta is irrelevant.” He kissed me again, harder this time, his arms wrapping around me, lifting me slightly so my feet barely touched the floor. I was surrounded by him—his scent, his strength, the hungry pressure of his mouth. My body arched into his, every curve meeting the hard planes of his. The evidence of his arousal pressed against my stomach, a thrilling, concrete reality.

He walked us backwards, out of the kitchen, never breaking the kiss, until my back met the cool wall of the hallway. The sensation of being pinned between the unyielding surface and the living, breathing heat of him was exquisite. His hands slid down my sides, settling on my hips, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh there.

“Chloe,” he murmured against my lips, my neck, my collarbone. Each utterance of my name was a prayer and a claim. “I’ve thought about this. So much.”

“Me too,” I gasped as his mouth found a sensitive spot just below my ear. “In the abstract.”

“Nothing about this is abstract.”

He pulled back, his eyes searching mine, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Then, his voice dropped, losing all its structured pretense, becoming raw and urgent. “I need you. Now. I can’t… I can’t protocol this.”

That break in his façade—the sudden, desperate admission—was the most potent thing I’d ever heard. It was our unique, signature moment. The analyst vanished, leaving only the man, overwhelmed by want.

“Bedroom,” I said, the word both command and surrender.

He took my hand and led me to his bedroom. It was as orderly as the living room, dominated by a large bed with a dark grey duvet. The late afternoon sun had given way to twilight, and he flipped a switch, bathing the room in the soft, warm glow of a single bedside lamp.

Standing by the bed, the reality of it all descended again, but this time it was a warm blanket, not a cold shock. We were here. Together.

He faced me, his hands coming up to frame my face. “I want to see you. All of you.”

My hands went to the hem of my sweater. He watched, his gaze heavy and hot, as I pulled it over my head. I stood before him in just my jeans and a simple lace bra. The cool air on my skin raised goosebumps, but under his look, I felt myself flush with heat.

“You are breathtaking,” he said, the words hushed with awe. His hands followed his eyes, skimming over my shoulders, down my arms, then tracing the swell of my breasts above the lace. His touch was fire. “Every hypothesis I formed was inadequate.”

He leaned in and kissed me again, his hands moving to the clasp of my bra. With a deft flick, it came undone. He peeled the fabric away, his breath catching as he looked at me. His thumbs brushed over my nipples, and I cried out, the sensation so sharp and sweet it was almost painful. He bent his head, taking one peak into his mouth, his tongue swirling around the taut bud. The sensation was so intense, so perfectly targeted, my knees nearly buckled.

“My turn,” I whispered, my fingers tugging at his t-shirt. He obliged, pulling it off in one swift motion.

Oh.

His chest was magnificent. Broad, sculpted with defined muscle, dusted with dark hair that trailed down his taut stomach. My eyes caught on a thin, faded scar, about two inches long, slanting across his lower ribs. Without thinking, I reached out and traced it with my fingertips. He flinched, almost imperceptibly.

“Rugby,” he said quietly, his voice a little tight. “University. A stupid accident. I’ve always been… conscious of it.”

His vulnerability, this small confession of insecurity, opened a floodgate of tenderness in me. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the scar, a soft, lingering kiss. “It’s just part of the map of you,” I murmured against his skin. “And I want to learn all of it.”

He made a sound deep in his throat, a mix of relief and desire, and his hands tangled in my hair. “Chloe…”

The rest of our clothes fell away in a hurried, desperate tangle of fabric. Then we were skin to skin, pressed together on the edge of the bed. The feeling was sublime. The heat of him, the smooth strength of his back under my palms, the fascinating contrast of textures—the coarse, tight curls of his chest against my softer skin, the powerful, solid muscles of his thighs against the fuller curves of mine. Every point of contact was a live wire, a study in difference and harmony.

He laid me back on the duvet, coming over me, supporting his weight on his elbows. He looked down at me, his expression so full of wonder it made my heart ache. The lamplight gilded the sweat already forming on his brow, highlighted the rich, deep brown of his shoulders against the pale grey sheets.

“I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he confessed, lowering his head to kiss me, deep and slow. “The connection. I thought it was metaphorical.”

“It’s not,” I breathed, wrapping my legs around his hips, drawing him closer. The hard length of him pressed against my center, and we both moaned at the contact. The thin barrier of his boxer briefs and my panties felt like an absurd formality. “Noah… please.”

He needed no further encouragement. He shifted, hooking his fingers in the waistband of my panties and sliding them down my legs. His eyes drank in the sight of me, exposed and wanting. He kissed my inner thigh, his stubble a delicious abrasion against my sensitive skin, and I nearly came apart from that alone.

Then he stood, removing his last article of clothing. He was fully, magnificently aroused. My mouth watered at the sight. He was perfect.

He joined me on the bed, his body covering mine again. This time, there was nothing between us. The slide of his skin against mine was electrifying—the sheer, overwhelming tactile reality of him. He kissed me, his hand sliding down my stomach, through my curls, finding the heart of my need.

“So wet,” he murmured against my mouth, his fingers stroking through my folds. “For me.”

“Only for you,” I gasped, bucking against his hand. “Only ever for you.”

His touch was masterful—knowing just where to press, to circle, to tease. It was as if he’d studied a manual written specifically for my body. Maybe, in a way, he had. He knew my mind; perhaps this was just an extension. He knew when I needed pressure and when I needed gentleness, when to slow down and when to push me higher. He watched my face, cataloging every gasp, every flutter of my eyelids, every bitten lip.

“I want to taste you,” he said, his voice thick with desire.

Before I could answer, he was moving down my body, his kisses blazing a trail over my breasts, my stomach. He settled between my thighs, his hands spreading me open. His breath was hot against me. Then his tongue touched me, a long, slow, devastating lick.

I cried out, my back arching off the bed. It was too much. It was everything. He feasted on me with a single-minded intensity that shattered all coherent thought. His tongue explored, lapped, circled my clit with relentless precision. One hand held my hip firm, the other slid up to pinch and roll a nipple. The dual assault on my senses was overwhelming. Pleasure coiled tight in my belly, a spring wound to its breaking point. The world narrowed to the feel of his mouth, the sight of his dark head between my lighter thighs, the sound of his hungry, focused breaths.

“Noah… I’m going to…” The warning was a broken whisper.

He hummed against me, the vibration tipping me over the edge. The orgasm crashed through me, wave after wave of blinding, shuddering release. I sobbed his name, my hands clutching at his hair, my vision whiting out. He stayed with me through it, his touch gentling, until the last tremor subsided. Then he kissed his way back up my body, his own need evident in the tension of his muscles, the fevered heat of his skin.

He reached for a condom on the nightstand, sheathing himself with quick, practiced movements. Then he was over me again, his weight a welcome anchor. He nudged at my entrance, his eyes locked on mine.

“Look at me,” he said, the command softened by the sheer vulnerability in his gaze.

I did. I drowned in the amber depths of his eyes as he pushed inside, slowly, inexorably, filling me completely. We both gasped at the sensation—the perfect, tight fit, the rightness of it. He was big, stretching me deliciously, but my body welcomed him, adjusted to him as if made for him. The feeling of fullness was profound, a completion that was both physical and spiritual.

He began to move, a slow, deep rhythm that was pure agony and ecstasy. Each stroke brushed against a spot deep inside that made stars burst behind my eyelids. This wasn’t just sex. This was a conversation we’d started weeks ago, now translated into the most ancient, profound language of all. The meeting of our minds was now a meeting of our bodies, and the synergy was transcendent.

I met his thrusts, my legs locked around his waist, my heels digging into the small of his back. Our skin grew slick with sweat, the mingled scents of us filling the air. The room filled with the sounds of our ragged breathing, the soft slap of flesh, my helpless whimpers, his guttural groans that grew less and less articulate.

“You feel… impossible,” he gritted out, his pace increasing. His control was fraying, and the sight of him coming undone for me was the most powerful aphrodisiac. His analytical mind was fully offline, replaced by a primal, driving need.

“More,” I begged, clawing at his back, feeling the powerful muscles work beneath his slick skin. “Please, Noah.”

He obliged, driving into me harder, faster, each thrust hitting that perfect, mind-melting spot. The tension built again, a supernova gathering in my core, fed by the sight of him above me, by the feel of him inside me, by the sheer, improbable perfection of us together. I could feel my own climax gathering, a tidal wave building from my toes upward.

“Come with me,” he pleaded, his voice raw and broken, all pretense of analysis gone. “Chloe, now.”

His words, his naked need, were the final trigger. My second climax tore through me, even more powerful than the first, a convulsive, screaming release that clenched around him like a vise. The sensation pulled his own orgasm from him. He shouted my name, a sound of pure, shattered release, his body bowing as he poured himself into me, his hips stuttering through the last, deep pulses.

He collapsed onto me, his weight crushing and wonderful, his face buried in the curve of my neck. We lay there, a tangled, sweating, spent heap, the only sound our gradually slowing breaths. His skin was hot and damp against mine, our hearts hammering a frantic, slowing duet against each other’s chests.

Long minutes passed. The room was dark now, save for the pool of light from the lamp. He finally rolled to his side, taking me with him, keeping me close. He didn’t pull away. He kept his arms around me, one hand idly stroking the damp skin of my arm. His touch was different now—possessive, tender, replete.

“The pasta is definitely glue,” he mumbled into my hair after a while, his voice gravelly with satisfaction.

I laughed, a soft, exhausted sound. “I’m not hungry for pasta.”

He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at me. His expression was soft, satiated, but there was a new, profound seriousness in his eyes. He traced my eyebrow, then my lips, with a fingertip. “That wasn’t an experiment,” he said quietly. “That was a… a conclusive result. The data is in. It’s you. It’s only you.”

The simplicity of his declaration, stripped of all jargon, meant more than any poetic phrase could have.

“I know,” I whispered.

“Stay. Stay tonight. Stay for the burnt pasta. Stay for breakfast.” He kissed my forehead. “Stay for the next question.”

“What’s the next question?”

“Not a hypothesis. A question. What happens when we let the world in? My friends, your friends… the weird, messy reality outside this room? I think the algorithm might have done its job a little too well. I’m not sure I want to share this with anyone else.”

His words hinted at a conflict, a slight fear of the outside world diluting what we’d found. It was a tiny, realistic obstacle that made everything feel more permanent.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said, curling into him, my body humming with a deep, resonant satisfaction. The app had known better. It had bypassed the noise and found a signal, a perfect harmonic frequency between two souls. And when we finally met, the chemistry didn’t just transcend our expectations. It redefined them, weaving our differences—of thought, of texture, of experience—into a connection of mind, heart, and body so complete, it felt less like a beginning and more like a homecoming.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I whispered against his skin.

And in the quiet of his room, surrounded by the evidence of his life—the books, the scar, the lingering warmth of his body tangled with mine—I knew the data was finally, beautifully, complete. And it was only the first chapter.