I thought having some space from him today would help to clear my head, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s made things worse. I keep checking the time, calculating how many hours until I’ll be back at the apartment and can see Archie again. Until I’ll have to figure out how to act normal around someone whose mouth I’m still remembering against mine.
I’ve never wanted someone as much as I want him.
He’s Vaughn Mansley’sbrother. The only reason I met him is because I injured him in an attempt to get revenge on hisbrother.
I try to remind myself of those facts, but they keep getting eclipsed by memories of Archie’s lips.
But when I get back to the apartment that evening, the first sign my life is about to get significantly worse is the Louis Vuitton suitcase in the hallway.
The second sign is how Archie greets me.
“Leo! Darling! You’re home!” He sounds like a 1950s housewife welcoming their husband. “Come and say hello to Elizabeth. She’s staying with us for a few days. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Wonderful is not the word I would choose.
“Hotel trouble,” Elizabeth explains from the armchair, where she’s sipping tea with the air of a queen surveying her kingdom. “Some ghastly mix-up with the booking. Archie insisted I take the spare room.”
The spare room. Where I sleep. Where all my belongings currently are.
Or were, I should say, because when I glance at Archie, he gives me a tiny nod that communicates he’s handled it.
Which means all my possessions are now in his bedroom.
Apparently, I’m going to be sleeping approximately three feet away from the man whose kiss has been playing on repeat in my brain for the past eighteen hours.
Wonderful indeed.
“I’m so glad you could stay,” I say to Elizabeth.
“Archie’s been telling me all about your routines,” Elizabeth says. “It sounds very sweet. The Sunday morning pancakes you make him. The little notes you leave each other.”
I look at Archie. He stares back at me with the serene innocence of a man who has fabricated a lot of things in the past few hours.
“Leo’s notes are the best,” Archie says. “So romantic. He hid one in my sock drawer last week.”
I have never written a romantic note in my life. I communicate exclusively through messages, calendar invites, and pointed silences.
“That’s me,” I say. “Romantically hiding notes in sock drawers like every normal person does.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly.
The moment she excuses herself to freshen up, Archie grabs my arm and yanks me into the kitchen.
“She knows something’s off,” he whispers. “I think the hotel story is made up. She’s here to check us out.”
“And your solution is to invent a romantic history involving sock-drawer notes?”
“I panicked. She asked about romantic gestures, and my brain went blank.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And once it had recovered from the blankness, your brain went to secret notes mixed with hosiery?”
Archie waves his hand dismissively. “The point is, we need to up our game. She’s going to be watching everything, so we need to be completely, disgustingly, nauseatingly in love.”
I think about how I’m going to have to play “disgustingly in love” with him for the evening and then go to bed and lie next to him in the dark.
I swallow hard.
“Fine,” I say. “What’s the plan?”
