“Archie.”
“Hmm?” He still hasn’t looked at me.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. I’m making coffee. Although maybe it should be tea. That’s what British people do, isn’t it? It’s their national coping mechanism.”
“You’re acting…strange.”
“I’m not being strange. You’re being strange. You’re the one staring at me like I’m a puzzle that needs to be solved before breakfast.”
“Did I do something?” I ask carefully. “Did something upset you last night?”
Last night, he’d asked me to look at him. In all the times we’ve been together, he’s never asked for that.
“No. You didn’t do anything.” He sets a mug of coffee in front of me. “You were perfect. As usual.”
It’s the “as usual” that gets me. It’s delivered with the faintest edge, like being perfect is the problem.
“Archie—”
“Don’t.” He says it quietly. Almost gently. “Don’t, Leo. Don’t ruin this.”
“Ruin what?”
“Ruin what we have by trying to talk about it.”
I stare at him. He’s leaning against the counter, mug clutched in both hands, eyes fixed somewhere around my left shoulder. The robe is slightly too big for him, and he looks smaller than usual. Younger.
Vulnerable in a way he’d hate me for noticing.
“All of the people I’ve ever dated would be dying of laughter right now to hear me say this,” I say slowly, “but I actually think we need to talk.”
Archie stiffens.
The silence stretches between us like a physical thing. I can feel Archie pulling away even though he hasn’t moved. It’s a talent of his—to be present and absent at the same time. Body in the room, everything else retreating to a safe distance.
I want to push. Every instinct I have is telling me to push. To sit him down, make him look at me, to say the words that have been building pressure inside my chest since that moment at the party when my brain finally caught up with my heart.
I’m in love with you.
I want to stay.
I want this to be real.
But I look at Archie’s face, really look at it, and I see something that stops me cold.
Fear.
Real. Quiet. Deep.
He’s standing in this kitchen, wearing a robe that’s too big for him, holding a mug of coffee with both hands, and he’s terrified. Not of me. Of what I might mean.
Archie’s damaged. I don’t think I realized how much until this instant.
The thing about Archie is that he’s so good at the performance—the jokes, the charm, the dazzling intelligence deployed like armor—that it’s easy to forget there’s a reason for all of it. He didn’t build those walls for fun. He built them because someone he loved walked away from him and didn’t look back.
He’s not pulling away from me.
