“Okay, so, first things first, I should warn you about the pet names.”
“What pet names?” Suspicion laces my words.
“The ones I told Elizabeth we use.” He has the decency to look slightly sheepish. “She asked what we call each other when we’re alone, and I may have…improvised.”
My stomach drops. “What did you tell her?”
“I said I call you babe or darling. Very normal. Very vanilla. You’re welcome.”
“And what do I call you?”
Archie’s sheepish expression transforms into something far more dangerous and mischievous. “My little chaos gremlin.”
“No.”
“It’s already done, Leo. She knows. She thought it was adorable.”
“I’m not calling you a chaos gremlin.”
“You have to. It’s canon now.”
“It’s not— That’s not how—” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why? Why would you tell her that?”
“Because she put me on the spot! And it just came out.” He tilts his head. “Besides, it’s accurate. I am chaotic. I am gremlin-adjacent. It works.”
“You’re five-foot-ten.”
“Gremlin is a state of mind, Leo.”
Elizabeth’s footsteps sound in the hallway. Archie immediately plasters himself against my side, gazing up at me adoringly.
“I missed you today, babe,” he says loudly.
I put my arm around him. My hand settles on his hip like it belongs there, which is a thought I’m not going to examine.
“I missed you too,” I say. And then, because I’ve apparently lost all control of my life, “My little chaos gremlin.”
Archie’s eyes light up with unholy glee. I can’t help myself. I brush a kiss on his forehead because he’s this close and I can’t resist that look on his face. Archie’s eyes widen and he just stares at me.
Elizabeth appears in the doorway, and we both snap our gaze to her. She’s surveying us with an expression I can’t read.
“How sweet,” she says. “Chaos gremlin. How…unusual.”
“Leo’s very creative,” Archie says. “You should hear what he calls me in the bedroom.”
I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him right now and plead justifiable homicide. I’m fairly certain any jury would acquit me once they learned the actual circumstances.
But I don’t kill him. Instead, I smile at Elizabeth because that’s what fake boyfriends do. They smile. They endure. They silently compose their victim impact statements while their fake partner grins at them.
And so begins an evening where every casual touch is a landmine.
Archie’s hand on my knee under the dinner table. My arm around his shoulders on the sofa. The way he leans into me when Elizabeth tells a story, his weight warm against my side, his hair brushing my jaw. Each point of contact is just a performance, but my body didn’t get that memo.
The worst part is that Archie seems completely unbothered. He touches me with the easy confidence of someone who’s simply playing a role, while I’m busy recalculating the structural integrity of my self-control every time his fingers graze my thigh.
Later—much later, after dinner and conversation and an exhausting evening of performing couplehood—I finally escape to what is now officially Archie’s and my bedroom.
Archie has integrated my belongings with his. My suits hang in the closet. Archie has placed the unicorn onesie front and center beside them, which feels like a statement I’m choosing not to interpret. My shoes are lined up next to his. On the nightstand, he’s placed my phone charger, my book, and a glass of water.
