I glance sideways at the empty space beside me in the booth, and for a half-second, I expect to see Leo there, fighting a smile, ready to say something dry about my brain being put to its highest possible use in a pub in Peckham.
The space is empty. Obviously.
I take a long sip of my pint. But then I answer Dan.
“Ah, I actually have a PhD in applied mathematics,” I say.
Dan chuckles. “Sure you have. Is it a PhD from the back of a cereal box?”
“No, it came from Oxford, actually.”
Dan continues to laugh. “Right.”
But Jaymee’s not laughing. Instead, she’s looking at me like she’s having a lightbulb moment. Like I’ve just provided the piece of a puzzle she didn’t realize she was solving.
“Are you serious?” Jaymee asks. “You have a PhD?”
Now is probably not the time to mention that I have two of them.
I meet her gaze. “Yeah, I’m serious.”
“You said you came over here to study. I didn’t realize it was for a PhD,” Jaymee says.
“It turns out I’m full of surprises,” I reply.
Priya’s still on her phone. “Is your full name Archibald?”
Oh god, the powers of Google strike again.
“Um…yeah.”
“Not only does he have a PhD in mathematics, but when he graduated, he got the top award for a PhD that Oxford gives out.”
“Mate,” Dan says. “What the actual fuck?”
Unsurprisingly, no one questions my answers for the remainder of the quiz. We end up winning.
Jaymee’s shaking her head. “For a year, you’ve heard me moaning about losing every week to that team from the accountancy firm, and you’ve never volunteered to come help despite the fact that you know pretty much everything.”
“Not everything. I’m weak on K-pop discography.”
“Archie Mansley. I’m going to kill you.”
“Is it too much?” I ask, and I hate how small my voice sounds. “Is it weird?”
Jaymee’s expression shifts instantly. The outrage softens into something else.
“Archie. It’s incredible. Why would you think?—”
She stops. I can see her rewinding through our year of friendship, reassessing. All the times I deflected a question with a joke. All the times I played dumb. The careful, systematic way I’ve curated exactly which version of myself my friends get to see.
“Oh, Archie,” she says quietly. And there’s so much packed into those two words that I have to look away.
Billy claps me on the shoulder hard enough to rearrange my skeleton. “Mate, this is brilliant. We’re going to destroy everyone from now on.”
And something loosens inside my chest. The thing I’ve been bracing for—the pulling back, the discomfort, the subtle recalibration that happens when people realize you’re not what they thought—doesn’t come. Billy’s just excited about winning. Jaymee’s reassessing, but not retreating. Dan is looking at me like I’ve transformed from a novelty act into a secret weapon.
Nobody is asking me to be less.
