Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Leo
San Francisco hasn’t changed.
The same fog settles over the hills. The same wind funnels through the Financial District like it has a personal vendetta.
I’ve been back for twenty-two days now. Not that I’m counting.
My apartment is on the thirty-second floor of a building in SoMa, all floor-to-ceiling windows, clean lines, and the kind of minimalist aesthetic that used to make me feel like I’d made it.
Now it just makes me feel like I’m living inside a furniture showroom.
It’s like how the apartment I shared with Archie was before it became filled with the clutter of half-eaten packets of cookies and costume wigs on doorknobs and random flecks of glitter.
I never thought I’d miss finding random sparkles in unexpected places so much.
This morning, I make coffee in my sterile apartment. I check my emails. I do the things Leo Brennan does, trying to pretend I haven’t spent another restless night trying not to replay my memories of Archie and failing.
Then, because apparently I have no self-control whatsoever, I check Archie’s Instagram.
And my heart lurches.
He’s posted a photo of himself and Vaughn.
They’re in a pub, judging by the low lighting and pint glasses on the table in front of them.
Archie’s grinning directly at the camera and Vaughn is beside him, not quite smiling but close.
Their body language is cautious—a few inches of space between them, Vaughn’s posture slightly stiff, but they’re there. Together. In the same frame.
The caption reads: The good thing about going out with my big brother is that he buys all the drinks. @vaughnmansley
I stare at the photo for longer than I should.
Archie looks happy.
And it’s not his performer-happy, the bright, weaponized cheer he deploys when he’s trying to keep people at a comfortable distance. This seems softer and more tentative. The happiness of someone who’s been handed something they’d stopped believing they could have.
I put my phone down. Pick it up again. Zoom in on his face.
Archie is smiling, and I did that. I mean, I didn’t do it directly. I didn’t force them to reconcile or stage-manage the reunion. But I made a choice in a conference room near Liverpool Street, and this photo exists because of it.
That should be enough.
It’s not.
But it should be.
Fuck.
I close Instagram and go for a run. Six miles along the waterfront, the bay wind sharp against my face, my lungs burning in a way that almost crowds out the other ache. Almost.
At mile four, I pass a guy in a full dinosaur costume handing out flyers for a comedy club.
Three months ago, I wouldn’t have broken stride.
Today, I slow down enough to take a flyer from him.
People who’ve been forced to try to maintain their dignity while dressed as a prehistoric reptile are a small subset on this planet. We’ve got to stick together.
When I get back to my apartment, sweating and no less miserable, I shower and check my calendar.
Lunch meeting with Gus at twelve. Then, a call with a startup founder who wants me to tell her whether her pet food subscription service is viable.
It isn’t, but she’s paying me to say it diplomatically.
It’s a normal day in my normal life. The life I had before Archie Mansley crashed into it like a small, chaotic asteroid with a great smile and the intellectual capacity to run a small country by himself.
I check Instagram one more time.
I need to stop doing this. I need to stop scrolling through the videos of him performing as Captain Giggles, stop looking for traces of how he is and whether he’s missing me as much as I’m missing him.
Despite the pain, I can’t regret meeting Archie.
He showed me a side of myself I’d never indulged.
I spent my childhood being serious because I had to be. I had to grow up fast and be the adult because the actual adults in my life weren’t doing their jobs.
I never had the freedom to be ridiculous.
Archie gave me that freedom. It’s a gift I will never forget.
Gus arrives at the restaurant exactly on time.
“Leo.” He shakes my hand with his usual measured grip. “Good to see you.”
“You too.”
We order. Gus gets a black coffee and a salad because Gus approaches meals the way other people approach business meetings—with discipline and minimal enjoyment.
But something about Gus seems different from normal.
Not physically. He’s still the same sharp-eyed, careful, impossible-to-read man he’s always been. But there’s something around his edges that’s less contained. A tightness in his jaw that I recognize because I’ve been seeing a version of it in my own mirror for the past few weeks.
“So,” I say. “What’s on your mind?”
Gus pauses. This is normal. Gus always pauses before speaking, like he’s running his words through an internal compliance check. But this pause is longer than usual.
“I need your advice,” he says. “Not on the company. On something more personal.”
In the year I’ve known Gus, he has never once asked me about anything personal.
“Okay,” I say.
He takes a sip of his coffee. Sets it down with precision.
“The partner I told you about. In London?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“It turns out they don’t exist.”
I blink. “What do you mean they don’t exist?”
“I mean, the person I thought I was in a relationship with was a fabrication. The trip to Italy, which was conveniently timed to coincide with my arrival, was a stalling tactic. It was all fake.” He delivers this with the same measured tone he’d use to describe a market correction. “It was a romance scam.”
I stare at him.
Gus Wilson. The man who builds software to detect financial fraud for a living. Who analyzes patterns of deception as his day job. Who trusts approximately three people on the planet and suspects the rest of harboring ulterior motives.
Got catfished.
“I know you’re thinking it’s ironic that the man who spots fraud for a living got defrauded.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” I admit.
“It crossed mine too. At considerable speed.” He takes another sip of coffee.
His hand is steady, but I can see the effort it’s taking to keep it that way.
“The person behind it was good. They did their research. They understood what I wanted, and they built it piece by piece, like a product designed for a market of one.”
Despite the clinical way he’s describing this, I’m fairly sure the wound is deeper than he’s letting on. Gus isn’t the kind of man who falls easily, so I imagine that when he falls, he falls far.
“How much did they get?” I ask.
Gus is quiet for a moment. “Enough,” he says finally. “The number makes me want to put my fist through a wall, and I’m not a wall-punching kind of guy.” A flicker of something crosses his face—shame, maybe, or fury held on a very tight leash. “It was significant. And I want it back.”
I nod. I don’t push.
“I’m going to work out the syndicate behind this,” Gus continues. “Using my own tools. Running the patterns.”
“And then?”
His blue eyes meet mine. That familiar, unsettling focus.
“I’m going to track them down,” he says. “I’m going to get my money back. And I’m going to make them regret what they did to me.”
He says it in a quiet, deliberate, controlled voice that sends a small chill through me. Not because I think Gus would do anything violent. But because I recognize the tone. It’s the same tone Andrew used when he talked about Justin.
The tone of someone who’s turned their pain into a plan.
“Gus,” I say. “Can I give you some advice?”
“That is what I’m paying you for.”
“This one’s free.” I lean forward. “Be careful with revenge.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I’m serious. I spent eight years wanting to get even with someone who wronged me. And when I finally got the chance, the only thing that came out of it was—” I stop.
The only thing that came out of it was Archie.
And then I had to let him go, which broke my heart.
“The only thing that came out of it was a mess,” I finish. “Revenge has a way of creating consequences you don’t see coming. You go in thinking you’re the one in control, and you end up somewhere you never planned to be.”
Gus studies me for a long moment. “Speaking from experience?”
“Speaking from very recent experience.”
He nods slowly, processing. But I’m fairly sure my words have landed somewhere near his resolve without actually denting it. Gus has already decided. He’s not asking for permission. He’s checking for blind spots.
“Noted,” he says. “I’ll be careful.”
It appears some lessons always need to be learned the hard way.
“If you need help,” I add, “call me. Before you do anything. Not after.”
“Agreed.”
We finish the meeting with twenty minutes of actual business, discussing his company’s expansion plans and a potential contract with a European bank.
But underneath the numbers and projections, I can feel the other conversation still humming.
The one about deception and trust and the things people do when they’ve been made to feel stupid.
After Gus leaves, I sit in the restaurant and check Instagram one more time.
Archie’s posted a story. It’s a blurry photo of a mini golf scorecard, covered in aggressive annotations and what appears to be a disputed tally.
The caption reads: Vaughn accused me of creative scorekeeping.
I accused Vaughn of not understanding how windmills work.
We have agreed to a rematch under UN supervision.
I stare at it for a few minutes. Then I close the app and put my phone in my pocket.
He’s happy. He’s healing. Vaughn is showing up.
That’s all I can hope for.
My phone buzzes as I’m paying the bill.
For a few seconds, I let myself hope that Archie is reaching out. I just need a few drops of his sunshine spread in my direction to sustain me. Although would it be worse to hear from him or not hear from him? I haven’t worked that one out yet.
But it’s not Archie. It’s my sister Caitlin.
Hey Leo. Kimmy’s birthday is next Saturday.
I know it’s last-minute, and I know you’re busy, but she keeps asking if Uncle Leo is coming this year.
No pressure. But she drew you a card with you on it, which I am NOT sending a photo of because I’m using it as emotional blackmail to get you here. Love you x
I stare at the message.
Kimmy’s birthday. She’s turning eight. Last year, I sent an expensive gift that I’d ordered through a service that wraps and delivers, and I called to talk to her for five minutes. The year before that, I’d done the same. And the year before that.
Money instead of presence. Exactly the pattern Caitlin accused me of.
I know I’ve deliberately kept my family at arm’s length, sending money instead of showing up.
But hasn’t the whole thing with Archie and Vaughn reminded me how important it is not to let resentments simmer?
The silence between them widened the gap every day it wasn’t addressed. And somehow, they seem to be finding their way back to each other.
Families are complicated. Archie said that once. You can love people and still not be able to save them from themselves.
He’s right. I can’t save my family from themselves. I can’t fix Tommy’s addiction or undo Caitlin’s choices or make my parents into people they are never going to be.
But I can show up to my niece’s birthday party, even if I’m not quite sure how to behave.
Because showing up and not being perfect is still infinitely better than not showing up at all.
I type back.
I’ll be there. Tell Kimmy I’m going to make her the best balloon animals she’s ever seen.
Caitlin replies immediately.
OMG REALLY?? That’s amazing.
Then a follow-up one.
Since when do you know how to make balloon animals??
It’s a long story.