His head snapped toward me. “No.”
“Yes.” It would hardly save his relationship with either woman, and honestly, I didn’t care about that.
He twisted and moved to sit sideways so he could face me. “Frankie.”
“She lied,” I insisted, my voice rising despite myself. “And now they’re at war because of it. Because of history. Because of secrets.”
“And you think detonating the latest one will fix anything?” he shot back. The crack in his control showed there.
Small.
But there.
“We can’t just let him keep building something on a lie,” I said. “He keeps saying he wants to be my father.” A fact that just baffled me. “He shouldn’t be wasting that time on me, not when?—”
“You think he doesn’t already know?” Archie demanded.
I froze.
His jaw flexed. “You think he doesn’t suspect? You think Muriel hasn’t already poisoned that well?”
The room felt smaller suddenly. The cats shifted slightly, probably even more aware of our tension than we were.
Tiddles stood, stretched, then plopped dramatically between us like he was inserting himself as a buffer.
Archie actually let out a breath that was almost a laugh at that. But it didn’t stick.
“I don’t want to live here,” I said quietly.
That piece of truth seemed to explode between us and Archie’s whole body went still as he stared at me. “What?”
“I don’t want to live in a house where glass flies because of me. Because of my mother.” My voice wobbled now, but I didn’t stop. “She and I need to move out.”
His entire body went still. “You arenotleaving,” he said.
“I can’t stay.”
The platform felt like it was tilting.
“This isyourhouse,” I said. “Yourmother.Yourfamily.Yourhistory. We are the interlopers.”
“No,” he said immediately. “You’renot.”
“Archie—”
“No.” He stood abruptly, pacing once across the platform, then back. “I don’t give a shit about Maddy and if she wanted to vanish to hell tomorrow, I’d pay for the ticket. Butyoubelong here, Frankie. You belong anywhere I am and I can protect you here.”
The words came out in a rush of heat like bullets being fired rapidly.
“You are not going to make yourself smaller to solve their problems.”
“I’m not making myself smaller,” I shot back. “I’m choosing peace.”
“There isnopeace,” he snapped. “Haven’t you paid attention? There is conflict and there are armed truces. Those truces are better served when they are far apart, but we will get through this…”
That was it.
“We will,” he insisted. “Then they’ll leave and go—wherever the hell they want. They always do.”
