Garrison might help, but he’s still interviewing omegas matched by Haven Academy. I see occasional reports in the newspaper. He doesn’t have time to look for River for me.
Jack’s hardware shop is closed, and the lights are off when I pass it. When I knock on the door and peer in the window, Jack doesn’t seem to be inside. I try calling him, wanting to ask if he’s found a solution to saving the shop yet. He doesn’t answer, so I head home, making a mental note to try again later.
My bags of groceries, things I won’t eat that I leave near the noticeboard, are gone. I smile when I see a note, a page ripped from a notebook, pinned to the noticeboard.
Thanks, June. You’re the best!
Simon
Gia’s son must have found something he liked a lot in the bags to leave me a note.
At least someone is happy today.
As I make my way up the stairs, more drilling is going on in another part of the building. All the apartments have new frontdoors—probably with the same thick, sturdy door chain as mine—along with brand new furniture.
On my floor, someone has replaced the silver panel for the elevator call button. I hope it’s a sign that sometime soon, I won’t need to keep climbing four flights of stairs. I’m fishing my keys from my bag when I spot a familiar figure at the entrance of a door four from mine. Archer.
The door is open, and Archer has a set of keys in his hand. I don’t know if he was on his way inside the apartment or just stepped out of it.
“Archer?”
He twists around and freezes when he spots me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, continuing toward him.
He wipes all traces of expression from his face. “There’s no way to answer that without you being pissed at me.”
I peer over his shoulder and into the apartment.
It’s almost identical to mine and includes the same brand-new furniture that all the units now have. The sound of a mattress squeaking is unmistakable, though. So is the guilt stamped on Archer’s face.
He has a woman in there.
My mind instantly flashes back to Lottie, the omega laughing in the library with my scent matches. Callum told me Lottie was a childhood friend. There was no cheating, though it looked that way to me.
But what ifthisis cheating?
I told Archer I didn’t need him to meet me after work today, and he agreed so easily, without arguing or asking what I was doing.
Almost as if he were relieved.
Maybe he had something he wanted to do more than meet me at work. I turn to look at Archer, and the pain of this new betrayal surprises me.
My mood was in the toilet after my confrontation with the greedy pawnbroker. But now? If there were a window beside Archer, I’d have happily shoved him out of it. Hardening my heart, I turn away. “I have to go.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” he says, stepping in front of me.
“Said every cheater ever,” I mutter, moving around him.
“Juniper,” he says firmly. “I swear to you that it is not what you think. Someone is in that bed, sleeping, but it’s not a woman.”
I look into his face, hunting for a lie amid the ring of truth in his voice.
He steps aside, holding the door open. “Any room you want to look in, you can. I am hiding something from you, but it’s not a woman.”
After another searching look, I walk into the apartment, gripping the strap of my tote bag and praying Archer was telling the truth.
It’s a two-bedroom instead of a studio apartment like mine. There’s a desk set up on one side of the living room, right in front of the double window. I pass a three-seater navy couch and a wooden coffee table identical to mine. The bathroom door is open, so I don’t go in there. I push one closed door open. It’s a bedroom with one bed, lazily made. And the other…
