And a couple of days ago, there was a chocolate croissant that I stuffed into my bag to eat when I got to work. He gave it to me and asked if I was ready to go, seemingly not expecting anything in return. Not even a thank you. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Confused, mostly.
He shrugs. “Needed the money, and I was desperate.”
“When did you know you would stop?”
He’s silent as we approach the bus stop. “When he started to feel like my brother.”
“And now?”
“Now? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. We’re family.”
I look at him, and I remember how they treated me before. How, at the flip of a switch, I went from their scent match to someone they looked at with disgust, and that was when they could stand to look at me at all.
And Archer, who dragged me into the library, fucked me against a bookcase, and left me on the floor. Like I was nothing more than a thing to be used and tossed aside.
Theyare family. I amnotfamily. Maybe now they want to apologize, but what about the next time the flip switches and they turn on me again?
Archer is peering down at me with a furrowed brow and an almost pained expression stamped across his face. As if he knows what I’m thinking and what he said to trigger those dark thoughts. I can almost believe I’m seeing genuine remorse.
Almost.
He takes a step toward me, and I immediately take one away. He stops, keeping his distance. “Juniper. About what I did to you…”
I look away from him and, relieved, stick my arm out. “My bus is here.”
I feel him watching me the entire bus ride. My face is cold and hard, like the shell I built around my heart to protect it.
When we get off the bus near my work, I dump the coffee I no longer want into a trash can and walk inside. I don’t say goodbye. I don’t say anything.
I just walk away, my heart encased in ice.
Gia talks to everyone in the building.
She almost always knows everything before anyone else, so, I pounce on my neighbor the second I spot her. “Gia, do you know what’s going on with all the building work?”
She’s leaving her apartment for work, and I’ve just left food I won’t eat near the noticeboard on the first floor with a sign for anyone to help themselves.
I’ve been so tired when I get home from work that all I want to do is crawl into bed, sometimes too tired to eat. Today has been one of the few days I’m not too exhausted, and that’s only because yesterday, I slept for practically my entire day off.
“Not sure,” she says with a frown. “Super’s gone though.”
“Gone?” I move closer for this piece of juicy gossip. I should have known he’d gone. I haven’t once had to dodge the usually overflowing trash can in the hall. Whoever has been emptying it has been doing it regularly. “He was fired?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. All I know is I had someone knock on my door the other day. He had a clipboard and was asking me to point out all the issues with my apartment.”
Alarm bells start ringing.
I haven’t seen Callum or Torin since they came to my apartment and told me about Oscar, but maybe there’s a reason they’ve been keeping their distance. Something like being busy as the new owners of my apartment building.
“Was he young? Kind of attractive?”
She gives me a long look. “No. Older. Maybe late forties. Why?”
Okay, so maybe it’s just a coincidence that someone starts improving my building at the same time my scent matches—exscent matches—come back into my life.
“Just thought I might know him. Did he say who he was?”
“Building manager. Another guy was with him. Said they had to do urgent repairs in the halls and on the AC first, and heard they’ve been going to every apartment. They’re doing your floor now, or should be soon. I gotta go, hon.”
