Chapter 2
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 it Davy 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 first glance 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.
The thing about being temporarily blinded by a breakfast condiment is that your brain, desperate for data, starts overclocking every other input channel. I can hear Billy’s shocked laugh, Jaymee’s “Fucking hell,” and someone behind me making panicked noises.
I stagger back, still scraping at my eyes in a desperate attempt to see, and my shoulder connects with something solid—the mechanical parrot, my brain supplies, right before twenty pounds of animatronic bird crashes onto our table.
The sound is magnificent. Like someone threw a drum kit into a china shop.
I try to back away from the destruction, but the decorative netting along our booth, which I’d found charmingly kitschy five minutes ago, has other plans. My foot tangles in it.
“Wait, let me—” a male voice says from behind me, urgent.
And then the floor tilts.
Oh right. The ship-rocking feature. Because this restaurant commits to its themes with psychotic dedication.
Unfortunately, when you combine angular momentum, compromised balance, and a tangled limb, the result is…not good.
I go down in a way that would make Newton weep—my body obeying gravity while my caught foot insists on staying put.
The crack is distinctive.
“Fuck!”
Pain immediately radiates out from my ankle, sending signals to my brain that can only be described as angry Morse code performed by wasps.
Oh my god.
The human foot contains twenty-six bones. I’m fairly confident I’ve just discovered several new ways to arrange them.
The floor tilts the opposite way, adding insult to actual injury as I slide but my foot doesn’t.
“Don’t move! Your ankle—” the deep voice says. Through my syrup-impaired vision, I can make out a man kneeling beside me.
“Could someone turn off the boat?” I gasp, “This is like being seasick and broken at the same time. Zero stars, would not recommend.”
Apparently, my response to extreme pain is to critique the restaurant’s ambiance.
I manage to wipe enough syrup from my face to squint up at the guy on his knees next to me.
He’s staring at me, a horrified look on his face.
My brain, which has never once in my life had appropriate priorities, chooses this moment to inform me that the man who just broke my ankle has dark hair, darker eyes, and a jawline sharp enough to qualify as a structural engineering marvel.
Apparently, my gorgeous-guy detector still functions even when I’m in immense pain. Good to know.
Someone has thankfully located the off switch for the rocking boat, leaving only my frantic gasping punctuating the air.
“Oh my god, Archie, are you okay?” Jaymee drops to her knees next to the gorgeous syrup guy.
“Uh…I think my ankle is broken,” I say through clenched teeth. It must be one of the most redundant sentences ever spoken because my ankle is currently puffing up to a size that is definitely not the shape of a healthy ankle.
The pain has made me lightheaded and the syrup fumes aren’t helping.
One of the servers comes over, a phone pressed to his cheek.
“I’ve just called 999, but they’re saying an ambulance will take about three hours to get here,” he informs us.
“I’ll order an Uber to get you to the hospital.” The handsome guy is apparently taking charge of the situation. He’s already pulling out his phone with one hand while somehow managing to take off his suit jacket and fold it under my head with the other.
Which is a good thing because Billy’s started doing his crisis-breathing exercises, which means he’s essentially hyperventilating with good form while Jaymee has turned white.
“Please grab some ice,” Handsome Guy continues to the server, who has ended his 999 call. The server obediently scurries off.
“Nobody touch his foot. You”—he nods at Billy—“support his shoulders.” He turns to Jaymee. “Can you please clean up the glass shards?”
His voice identifies him as American. It also carries a quiet authority, like he regularly manages crisis situations. Although judging by the quality of the silk suit jacket currently under my head, it’s probably ones involving stock markets rather than syrup attacks.
My ankle continues to throb, the pain radiating up my shin and into my knee.
I grit my teeth, but I can’t prevent my body from doing that involuntary full-body clench thing that happens when pain exceeds your available coping mechanisms.
“I’m so sorry,” Handsome Guy says. His voice is tight with what sounds like genuine distress. “I lost my balance and the syrup just… I tried to catch myself and made everything worse.”
“You accidentally squeezed an entire bottle of syrup at my head?” I ask because even through my pain, I can tell the physics of his story are questionable. Syrup has a high viscosity. You’d need a significant force to achieve that kind of projection arc from a standing stumble.
He flushes slightly. “I—yes. I’ll cover all your medical expenses, of course. Anything you need.”
“My dignity back would be nice, but I think that ship has sailed,” I say as the server returns, breathlessly clutching an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel.
Handsome Guy takes it from him.
“Tell me if this hurts too much,” he says, barely touching the tea towel to my skin, watching my face for any signs of distress. His hands are steady and gentle as he arranges the ice, adjusting it twice when I wince.
“Sorry, sorry,” he murmurs, and his voice has dropped to something quiet and careful that makes my chest do something stupid.
The Uber arrives just as spots are starting to mar my vision.
“We’re going to need to help him get out to the Uber,” Handsome Guy instructs Billy.
Billy takes position like he’s spotting someone at the gym, but Handsome Guy essentially becomes my right leg, taking most of my weight with an ease that suggests his shoulders aren’t just decorative.
He smells like expensive coffee and a woodsy cologne, and I can feel the warmth of his hand gripping my waist through my shirt.
The three of us shuffle through the restaurant like the world’s worst conga line.
“Careful, watch the step,” he murmurs near my ear. His warm breath against my neck makes me grateful I can blame any shivering on shock.
A guy I’ve never seen before materializes just as we reach the restaurant door.
He’s practically vibrating with millennial tech-bro energy, complete with limited edition sneakers and a smartwatch that’s definitely tracking his stress levels right now.
He looks to be a few years older than me, with the kind of carefully messy hair that takes forty minutes to achieve.
“Is everything okay, Leo?”
Leo. Handsome Guy’s name is Leo. It feels right for him, somehow.
Is this his date? But I dismiss the idea as soon as I think it because the body language rules out anything romantic. He’s giving off anxious intern energy, not boyfriend energy. Client, probably. Which raises questions about what kind of business gets conducted at Pirates of Pancake Bay.
“Just a minor medical emergency, Ezra. Email me your quarterly projections, and we’ll reschedule for Monday.”
“Sure thing,” Ezra says.
We continue our tragic parade through the door, where London’s weather has decided to add a light drizzle to my birthday festivities.
The Uber is parked half on the curb, hazards blinking.
Luckily, it’s an XL because fitting three functioning adults and one broken one into a standard sedan might have been difficult.
Getting me into the back seat requires complicated geometry.
Leo basically has to fold himself in half while supporting my weight, and Billy’s giving instructions like it’s a deadlift technique video.
“Pivot! No, the other way!” I end up sprawled across the middle seat, broken ankle elevated on Leo’s very expensive lap.
Billy folds himself into the back row like a gym-bro origami.
Jaymee materializes at the car door, breathless and triumphant, holding a box that can only be my birthday cake.
“Got it,” she announces, cramming herself into the front seat. “You can’t have your birthday without cake, even if you’re eating it in the Accident & Emergency department.”
As we pull away from Pirates of Pancake Bay, I take stock: broken ankle, syrup-covered hair, and now being escorted to the hospital by an incredibly handsome assailant.
This is definitely not how I imagined my birthday playing out.