Silence settled between us again, heavy but not empty.
She nodded once, slow and shaky.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And whatever was inside that envelope, we were already in too deep for me to walk away.
Frankie’s voice barely made it past her throat. “Archie… you realize there are laws about that, right?”
The way she said it — wounded, scared, trying to be brave — cracked something open in me and the darker part of myself stir. The part that had always refused to accept neat boxes and tidy explanations. The part that had known, from the first second I ever looked at her, that whatever we were was never going to fit anyone else’s rules.
I glanced at her, really looked at her.
Then I smiled — slow, dangerous, completely certain.
“Then I guess we’re complicated,” I said quietly. “Because whatever that envelope says, it doesn’t get to rewrite what Iknow.”
Her breath hitched.
“They can have their truth,” I went on, voice low and steady. “Edward. Your mom. The lab. Whoever. But they don’t get to own us. They don’t get to decide what you are to me.”
“Archie—”
“I’m not walking away from you,” I said. “Not because of a piece of paper. Not because someone wants to make us something we’ve never been.”
Her eyes shone, fragile and fierce all at once.
The strangest thing was… I didn’t doubt it for a second.
Even if that test came back saying that bitch Maddy was right — even if the whole world tried to label us — I knew it in my bones:
Frankie wasn’t my sister.
Sheneverhad been.
Sheneverwould be.
She stared down at the envelope like it might bite her.
“Do you want me to open it now,” she asked softly, “or wait until we get?—”
She paused, then looked up at me. “Wait. Where are we going?”
I flashed her a grin as I guided the Ferrari through a lazy curve in the road. “Wherever we want.”
She did not look impressed.
Her gorgeous green eyes narrowed just a fraction, the way they always did when she knew I was being deliberately evasive. That look — sharp, challenging, unamused — hit me straight in the chest in the best possible way.
God, I loved the way she handled me.
My smile widened. “Okay, okay. I was thinking we’d go out to the lake. Get away from everyone. From everything.”
Her shoulders eased a little at that.
“I would’ve taken us home,” I added, keeping my eyes on the road, “but Maddy’s schedule has been… unpredictable.”
That was putting it politely.
