Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leo
Elizabeth leaves on a Tuesday morning.
Archie’s in the bathroom when Elizabeth pulls me aside in the hallway. She’s already wearing her coat and her bag is by the door.
“You look after our boy,” she says quietly.
I almost smile. “That’s it? No threats about not breaking his heart, making sure I treat him like he deserves?”
“I don’t think I need to threaten that, do I?” The look she gives me is penetrating, like she’s seeing straight to the thing I’ve been trying not to name.
I swallow hard. “No, you don’t need to do that.”
She holds my gaze for one more second, then nods once.
“Good.”
She turns toward the sound of Archie clattering down the hall from the bathroom, and her voice shifts into something warm and bright. “Archibald, darling, I’m off. I’ll see you next time I’m in town.”
“Hope you have a great flight,” Archie says.
I stand in the hallway for a moment after she’s hugged him goodbye, her words echoing in my ears.
You look after our boy.
Our boy.
Not my godson. Not Archibald. Our boy. Like she’s already folded me into the small circle of people who get to claim him.
I don’t quite know how to feel about that.
The front door clicks shut behind her, leaving behind just Archie, me, and whatever this thing between us has become.
We have a party at three.
This one’s a space theme, which means my costume situation has escalated from terrestrial humiliation to intergalactic humiliation.
It’s a full astronaut suit. But it’s not one of those sleek, modern-looking ones. Instead, it’s the bulky, puffy white kind that makes whoever wears it look like the Michelin Man’s cousin who got lost on the way to a costume party.
The helmet has stars painted on it. In glitter.
“I’m Commander Giggles,” Archie informs me. “You’re my copilot Sergeant Twinkle.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Sergeant Twinkle is a crowd favorite, and you will treat his legacy with respect.”
Our eyes lock. His are dancing with barely contained glee.
I take the costume and go change.
By the time I emerge, Archie has perched himself on a stool, crutches propped beside him, and is arranging glow sticks and inflatable planets.
As I watch him test the portable speaker—“Ground control, can you hear me? Sergeant Twinkle, confirm audio status.”—I think about what he told me about Vaughn at the National Gallery.
He just stopped liking me.
Archie’s voice had been so quiet when he’d said it. Not angry or bitter, just bewildered. Like he still can’t understand how someone who’d loved him had decided to stop.
What could I say? Don’t worry, Archie, Vaughn is an asshole who doesn’t deserve your affection.
Except it’s not that simple, is it? Elizabeth painted a more complicated picture of Vaughn as a golden child slowly eclipsed by his younger brother, getting lost in the shadows when their parents’ attention pivoted to Archie.
It doesn’t excuse what he did and said to Archie, but it does make it harder to slot him neatly into a villain category.
But it appears Archie absorbed that rejection and turned it inward.
The thought makes something burn in my chest.
“Leo.” Archie’s voice pulls me back. “Are you going to stand there brooding in your space suit, or are you going to help me inflate Jupiter?”
“Jupiter’s mostly hydrogen and helium. Technically, it inflated itself four point six billion years ago.”
Archie pauses to stare at me. “Did you just make an astronomy joke?”
“I made a factual observation.”
“You made an astronomy joke. Sergeant Twinkle is developing a personality. I’m so proud.” He presses a hand to his chest. “They grow up so fast.”
“I haven’t grown. I’ve been coerced.”
“Coerced into making an astronomy joke. Yes, that’s definitely how coercion works. You were held at balloon sword point.”
“I’m simply stating that Jupiter’s composition is common knowledge.”
“It’s common knowledge that you just deployed for comedic timing. That’s growth, Leo. You’re wearing a glitter helmet, and you made a joke about gas giants. I’ve been a wonderful influence on you. Accept it.”
“I’m not accepting anything.”
“Your mouth is doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where it’s trying not to smile. Which means you know it’s funny, but you’re just being stubborn.”
He’s right. My mouth is doing that thing. It’s a tic that I’ve developed around Archie.
Luckily, the first children start to arrive, saving me from having to reply.
Archie introduces me as “the bravest astronaut in the whole galaxy, who once saved a planet made entirely of cheese from an asteroid, and who is definitely not scared of anything, especially not the Space Dance.”
Of course there’s going to be a Space Dance.
It’s the Macarena, but Archie has renamed all the moves to space terminology. “Activate your thrusters!” means hands on hips. “Deploy the satellite!” means jazz hands. “Engage hyperdrive!” means spin around, which in my inflatable suit means wobble dangerously and pray.
The kids lose their minds.
“Sergeant Twinkle, show us your moonwalk!” Archie commands.
I moonwalk. Or I attempt to, which in the astronaut suit looks less like Michael Jackson and more like a man trying to walk backward through wet cement.
A boy in the front row shrieks with laughter. “He’s so bad at it!”
“He’s not bad,” Archie corrects gently. “Gravity works differently in space. Sergeant Twinkle is actually an incredible dancer on his home planet.”
“What’s his home planet?” a child asks.
“Planet Grump,” Archie says without hesitation. “It’s a very serious place. No laughing allowed. That’s why he came to Earth. To learn how to have fun.”
The children accept this origin story without question.
“Is he learning?” the boy asks.
Archie looks at me. There’s a flicker of something underneath the performer smile. Something real and warm and just for me. “Yeah,” he says. “I think he is.”
During the magic show, I hand Archie his props and watch him work.
I’ve watched Archie do this enough times now to understand how skilled he actually is.
He can read a room full of children better than I can read quarterly earnings reports.
He knows when to ramp up energy and when to bring it down.
He can spot the shy kid at the back and draw them in without making them feel singled out.
He can defuse a meltdown with a well-timed joke and a balloon sword.
He’s genuinely brilliant at this.
Brilliant in a way that has nothing to do with his IQ and everything to do with who he is as a person.
This is Archie. The full, unedited, undiminished version.
The version that makes a room full of six-year-olds believe in magic.
The version that knows everything about Renaissance painters and overstuffed walruses and can turn a pair of crutches into comedy props.
The version that lights up every room he walks into.
The version that lights up every room I walk into.
A little girl tugs on my inflatable sleeve. “Sergeant Twinkle, are you Commander Giggles’s best friend?”
“Yes,” I say before I can think about it.
“You’re lucky,” she informs me solemnly. “He’s the best.”
Yeah. He really is.
After the magic show, it’s the balloon-animal segment. I’m now competent enough to handle the basic requests.
“You’ve actually gotten good at those,” Archie says, watching me twist a passable butterfly for a girl who asked very politely.
“I had a good teacher.”
“You had a persistent teacher. There’s a difference.”
“There really isn’t.”
He grins, and it does something to my chest. As usual.
Then he turns to greet the next child with that smile still on his face.
And something shifts inside me.
I love the constant push-pull between us. I love the way he challenges me, the way he makes me laugh even when I’m trying not to. I love the way his brain works. I love the way he cares about these kids. I love how he brings out a version of myself I didn’t know existed.
I love…
Oh holy fuck.
My brain stutters to a halt.
I’m staring at Archie, dressed in his Commander Giggles outfit, balanced on his stool with a half-twisted balloon giraffe in his hands, explaining to a very serious five-year-old why giraffes don’t exist in space.
Oh my fucking god. Shit. Jesus Christ.
I’m in love with him.
This isn’t just attraction or desire or amusement or even plain old like.
I’m in love.
I’ve never been in love with someone, but I can’t deny that’s exactly what it is.
That ache in my chest when he laughs. The way the world rearranges itself around him whenever he walks into a room.
The way I’d do anything, wear any costume, dance any dance, make any ridiculous sound, just to see him smile.
I knew I was fascinated with him, intoxicated in his presence.
But I didn’t realize I’d crossed the line from fascination into something that’s so much bigger that I can’t see the edges of it.
“Leo?” Archie’s looking at me, head tilted. “You’ve gone weird. Weirder than usual, I mean.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
My voice sounds strange to my own ears.
“You sure? You look like you’ve just realized something terrible.”
He has no idea how accurate that is.
“Just thinking about health-and-safety regulations around balloon animals,” I manage.
Archie rolls his eyes. “I guess it’s one step forward, two steps back on the fun thing.”
I look at him, at this impossible, brilliant, infuriating man in a space costume, surrounded by balloon animals and glow sticks, making the world brighter just by existing in it.
I’m in love with him.
And he has no idea.
I don’t want to leave London.
My consultancy is flexible. I’ve been running meetings remotely for weeks with Zoom calls in the evening, catching the middle to end of the US business day, thanks to the time difference. My clients don’t care where I am as long as I deliver. Most of them don’t even know I’m in the UK.
I could make this work.
I could even keep doing the parties. The thought surprises me, but it’s true. I don’t hate them anymore. I might even—and I will deny this under oath—enjoy them.
I could stay.
The thought settles into my chest like something warm and heavy. Like a key fitting into a lock I didn’t know was there.
But staying means telling Archie the truth. All of it. The syrup. Vaughn. The fact that every day we’ve spent together started with a lie.
And I have no idea how to do that without losing everything I’ve just realized I want to keep.