I started over with my career, taking a risk by applying for a job with Andrew. Andrew and I built NovaCore from nothing and turned it into something that made Vaughn’s stolen protocol look like a school project.
But my anger didn’t go away. It just went underground, settling into my bones.
I blink, and the bedsit comes back into focus.
The photo is still in my hand. Vaughn’s teenage grin. The total trust in Archie’s upturned face.
What happened to Archie to turn a kid vacationing on a tropical beach into a man living in a fourth-floor bedsit with fairy lights and a three-legged desk?
But now I’m standing in the middle of his bedsit, holding a canvas bag full of sex toys, with no idea what I’m doing anymore.
I carefully put the photo back where I found it.
I pick up the bag, lock up, and walk down four flights of stairs.
The London air hits me like a slap. It’s cold, gray, and indifferent to my problems.
I pull out my phone and text Archie.
Got everything. On my way back.
His reply comes in seconds.
Did you meet the Destroyer? I hope you don’t find it intimidating. Don’t worry, size isn’t everything.
I stare at the message, and despite the eight years of swallowed anger currently sitting in my chest like a fist, my mouth does that thing it often seems to do around Archie.
My lips curl into a smile.
Chapter Twelve
Archie
I’ve developed a system for showering.
The system involves a stool, a detachable showerhead, and the waterproof cast cover Leo appeared with four days ago, with no explanation or ceremony. Just a neoprene sleeve with a watertight seal sitting on the kitchen counter when I woke up, like the cast-cover fairy had visited in the night.
It’s annoyingly thoughtful. It’s also much better than the trash-bag-and-duct-tape arrangement I’d been using, which had a success rate of roughly sixty percent and resulted in me blow-drying my cast twice.
However, today my system completely fails.
I’m mid-shampoo—eyes closed, head tipped back, lather situation fully committed—when the shampoo bottle slips off my knee and clatters onto the shower tray.
I lean forward to grab it. This shifts my weight and the stool tips.
What happens next takes about two seconds and involves the stool going one way, my good foot failing to find any purchase on soapy wet tile, and my ass hitting the shower tray with a thud that I’m fairly sure registers on the Richter scale.
The showerhead, which I’d been holding in my other hand, hits the tray and starts thrashing around like a landed fish, spraying water in every direction.
I’m now sitting on the floor of the shower, shampoo streaming into my eyes. My casted leg is wedged awkwardly against the wall, and the showerhead is enthusiastically hosing down the bathroom mirror.
“Fuck.”
I try to push myself up. My good foot slides on the wet tile. My hand slides on the wet tile. Everything is wet tile and soap, and the fundamental betrayal of friction as a concept.
“Fuck fuck.”
I weigh my options.
