Chapter 146
Freddie was right where I knew he’d be.
He was by Grizzly Peak, walking and carrying the Irn-Bru for Niall.
A man on a mission. I’d been tempted to see if I could have encountered him earlier—like when he stopped short after getting the email from the manager.
But the more I worked out my plans, I realized I couldn’t get there in time, not with everything else I’d had to do.
And plus—I needed to make sure Niall knew about the manager.
I was pretty sure he always did; if Freddie didn’t tell him, like in the loops where I came into the picture later, Niall found out when he looked at Freddie’s phone.
I watched him for just a moment, trying to get my timing right. Just once, I was hoping to do this without getting splattered with orange soda. I took a breath and stepped into his path.
We crashed into each other, like I knew we would, but I managed to jump back at the last moment, out of the splash zone.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Freddie said, looking from me to the bottle of soda on the ground. Everyone around us was giving the ever-expanding puddle a wide berth, and Freddie chased the bottle down and tossed it in the nearest trash can. “Are you all right?”
“I am.” I smiled at him. “Hey, Freddie.”
“I…Hi?” His smile widened, even as it became more confused. “Have we met before?”
“We have. A lot, actually.” I took a breath. “Excalibur.”