Chapter Two
Archie
There’s a beauty to birthdays when you think about it. Every year you complete another orbit around the sun, accumulating roughly five hundred and eighty-four million miles of cosmic travel, and society’s response is to set dessert on fire and make you hyperventilate over it.
I love humans. We’re such beautiful weirdos.
I’m also turning twenty-three in a restaurant where the staff is contractually obligated to say “Ahoy,” so clearly I’m nailing this whole adulthood thing.
“Mansley,” Billy says as he arrives back from the restroom. He claps me on the shoulder with the force of someone who’s had too many protein shakes, and I nearly face-plant into my pancakes.
When I manage to regain my balance, Billy’s smirking at me. “Core strength, mate! You should’ve been able to resist that. We need to get you into my boot camp.”
Billy is a personal trainer whom I first met while he was running boot camps in the park where I go for my dog-walking business. He’s been trying unsuccessfully to get me to participate in one of his boot camps ever since.
I personally think there is something slightly masochistic about people who voluntarily subject themselves to something called a boot camp.
“I’ll take a pass on that,” I say. “I get enough exercise through dog walking and doing the ‘Baby Shark’ dance approximately four thousand times per week.”
My other side hustle is a children’s entertainer, by the way, just to explain the “Baby Shark” thing.
Although dog walking and being a children’s entertainer can’t really be called side hustles because that would imply I have a main hustle, which I don’t.
Once again, twenty-three and really redefining what success looks like.
Jaymee arrives back at the booth with a tray full of lethal-looking green shots.
Billy turns to her. “Tell Archie he needs to come to boot camp.”
“I’d rather tell him to set himself on fire. Similar results, less shouting.” She distributes one shot to each of us. “Besides, it’s his birthday. We’re supposed to be nice to him today for one day, remember?”
Billy sniffs one of the shots. “What is this?”
“The bartender called itDavy Jones’s Locker Juice. I didn’t ask questions. I think the less we know, the better.”
“Fair. Should we do the birthday song before or after we potentially poison ourselves?”
“Before,” Jaymee says. “If we’re going to die, we might as well embarrass Archie first. But I’m thinking we should probably make it nautical and sing it in a sea-shanty style.”
“What’s a sea-shanty style?” Billy asks.
Instead of explaining, Jaymee starts to sing. She actually has an angelic singing voice, which is not what you’d expect at firstglance when you see her bright-purple hair or tattoo-covered arms.
Billy joins Jaymee with his low, off-key singing, and the overall effect is actually quite sweet. Moving down to London from Oxford and rebuilding my life over the past year has been challenging at times, but I’ve at least nailed the making-good-friends part. That’s got to count for something, right?
Warmth and affection for my friends swell inside me.
And that’s when the universe decides my twenty-third birthday needs some chaos thrown in.
A cold wetness hits the back of my head.
I whip my head around, only to get a faceful of something thick and sticky.
The unmistakable smell of maple syrup assaults my nostrils.
It’s in my eyes, dripping down my nose, pooling in my ears like I’ve been attacked by a syrup bottle that gained autonomy and chose violence.
“What the—” I shoot up to a standing position, hands going to my eyes.
