“No. This one’s mine,” I said quietly. “He deserves to hear it from me, not from a third party with an axe to grind.”
Rachel blinked, then gave a sleepy, crooked grin. “You’re sure?”
No. Except that it wasn’t a choice.
“Yeah.” I snagged my backpack that I had packed the night before, trying to sound steadier than I felt. “Just… lock thedoor when you leave, okay? Don’t feed the cats, even if they act starved. They’ve been fed, but they’ll lie, don’t believe them.”
“Copy that,” she said, already sinking back against the pillow. Then, softer, “Hey, Frankie?”
I turned in the doorway.
She gave me this small, lopsided smile. “You’ve got this. If you don’t, I’ll find you at school later and we’ll fix whatever you break, deal?”
Something warm flickered in my chest. “Deal.”
“Go kick emotional butt,” she mumbled, already half-asleep again.
I almost laughed, which was exactly the point.
By the time I was in the car, the laughter had faded into something else. Nerves, mostly, tangled with a kind of reluctant determination. The morning sun wasn’t quite on the horizon, it was still too damn early but the gray light of half-dawn was there.
I started reciting what I’d say to Archie, running lines like it was some impossible scene I had to get right.
Hey, just so you’re not blindsided, my mom’s probably on a warpath.
No. Too blunt.
So, funny story, my family drama’s about to intersect with your life again — sorry in advance?
Worse.
Look, I just didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.
Maybe that one. Maybe.
Traffic lights blurred past faster than I expected. The drive felt both endless and instantaneous. I barely noticed turning into the Starbucks lot until I was already there, heart hammering like I’d sprinted the whole way.
Eight minutes flat. Not bad for a crisis commute.
Archie was already outside, because of course he was. He liked to know everything and that often meant being punctual if not early. He had two cups in hand, and just like I expected, his hair was disheveled and he was dressed in sweats. He scanned the parking lot until his gaze landed on me, and then he was moving, arrowing straight toward my car.
He didn’t even glance back at the crowd inside. There was a line in and out, with more cars sliding into the drive-thru line while I sat there. His focus was locked on me, jaw tight, shoulders tense. Fuck, he was braced for the worst.
For one wild, split second, watching him cross that stretch of asphalt, I wanted to rewind all the way to last spring to before I knew, before their summer of sex, before all the complicated truth bombs got dropped.
But there was no rewind. No do-overs. Just here. Just now. Just Archie, coming closer, and me, sitting there, trying to remember how to breathe.
Chapter
Ten
ARCHIE
Iwasn’t late. That was the first thing I told myself as I pushed through the Starbucks door, taking a deep breath of the aromatic fog of espresso. One thing Frankie and I had in common, coffee wasn’t optional. Pretty much everything could be dealt with thanks to coffee. Still, I ordered a quad shot in my mocha and an extra shot for Frankie’s because while she liked the boost, she didn’t always care for how it tasted with that much espresso.
I’d known Frankie for four years. Four years of small things. The way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear when she was thinking, how she hated cilantro and never pretended she liked something when she didn’t. How she ate whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and didn’t embrace a diet of rabbit food because it was “expected.” Even the stupidest things could be an inside joke, and she always included me.
Always.
