13. Drop Off
thirteen
Drop Off
Liam
Archer hasn’t said much all the way home.
Nothing important anyway. He went weirdly distant once we got in the car.
Small talk about London, about whatever we drove past. Hardly anything.
And now we’re pulling up on my street, a little down the road from my place, where I stopped him early because I don’t want him to see where I live.
Then Archer… does nothing. Just stares forward. And it kind of feels like he wants to say something? So I wait a moment, and he still doesn’t. The atmosphere turns awkward. I guess he just wants me out of his car.
“Thank you,” I say, reaching for the door handle.
“Liam.” His eyes stay on the road, lips pressed.
My hand stills on the door. “What is it?”
“About this job…” His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, then drop when he shifts to face me. “It’s dangerous. Even regular ghosts—”
“I kind of figured that out today,” I half joke, trying to cut the thick atmosphere.
His words come back clear and stark. “I don’t think you should do it anymore.”
The urge to throw up hits me instantly, as if I’ve just chucked back a shot of garbage water. I thought he liked me. I thought we were getting along. I thought… “You’re firing me?”
“No!” he gasps out. “No, of course not.” And he looks genuinely alarmed I’ve said it, even if I’m still reeling from his words.
“No, if…” His hands flail around in the air a few times.
“If you were going to keep doing this, I’d honestly rather it’s with me.
Even with that thing in my house, in my life, because…
because it’s not safe. In general. So if there’s some other line of work you can do—”
I cut him off with a laugh. I feel bad. It’s incredibly unprofessional. But people don’t answer job adverts for ghost hunters that randomly fall down from supermarket notice boards if there are plenty of other great prospects on their horizon. “I can do this job.”
“I don’t doubt your ability,” he says carefully. “I’m just worried for you.”
“I need this job.” And this time there’s no humour in my voice, just a broken vulnerability. A sadness. The raw fact. “I can do it, and I need to do it. And if I’ve let you down—”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He reaches out a hand, but it falls just short of landing on my knee, touching down on the gear stick instead. I wonder if he meant to move closer. “If you’re determined to do this, I’d rather… I mean… I want you… I would prefer you come back to my place.”
His eyes carry so much depth that I can’t sift through it. Like he’s nervous about saying this, and I can’t figure out why. If he wants me back, I’ll be back.
But then he adds, “I advise against it. Strongly. I don’t want you to get hurt. And I don’t think Gerald should have sent you in without more training, more experience.” I almost flare, but he soothes me with, “I know you can do this. Please don’t get me wrong. But wouldn’t you rather stay safe?”
“No,” I tell him resolutely. “No, this is what I do now. I’m not quitting. Not for anything.”
His lips shift into a brief grimace, but then soften, and his face turns an odd sort of thoughtful, along with his voice.
“I’ve been thinking about this all the way over here…
because I thought you might say that… so…
I would like to… if it’s okay with you, if you do come back…
I would like to give you some… pointers.
From the small amount I know about ghosts.
So that, in the future, if you do decide to carry on, you might be… better equipped.”
“You’re…” An unexpected spark of delight glows warm in my chest. “You’re offering to train me?”
“No,” he rushes out. “I mean— To be clear…” That hand rises again, falls again, just out of reach of my knee.
“I think you should quit. Genuinely. Walk out now and never look back. I think this will damage you in the long run, if not physically, then mentally. But almost definitely physically too. But if you insist on doing it, I would like you to do it with me. If that suits you.”
The way my heart leaps, it’s like he’s just asked me on a date, not to come to his place and learn to defeat some supernatural evil that can create full hallucinations that actually hurt you.
Which, I won’t pretend isn’t terrifying.
There are so many thoughts racing through my mind right now that I can’t begin to put all the pieces together.
How did it hurt me? Why was Jem there? How does that thing know about Jem at all? And why, above all of this, do I still feel like Archer’s not telling me everything he knows? Even while he sits there trying to talk me out of coming back, all while asking me to come back?
“I insist on doing it,” I reply, my heart seizing on the opportunity—not just to keep this job, but to find the answers to the billions of questions I have.
He nods, slow and solemn, watching me carefully. “But I really think—”
“Duly noted. Thank you for your concern, Mr Gravely. I’ll be at your house, nine a.m. sharp, just like today.”
He gives another small nod, but more final this time. “Okay, then. If you insist. I’ll have pastries.”
The word throws me, and I do an actual double take. “Pastries?”
“Pastries. For breakfast.” He shoots me a stern warning look. “Don’t eat before you come.”
“You’re making me breakfast?”
Fuck, look at that smile.
Who knew the Archer of five seconds ago, who I thought was about to fire me, could conjure up a bashful smile like that. “I like to bake. So, if you like to eat…”
“I love to eat,” I pretty much drool at him.
“Then I’ll cook for you,” he says softly.
As the offer sinks in, something fresh sparks in me. Some tickle that seems to radiate out from my chest, reverberating through the air in my lungs, tingling to the tips of my fingers.
It’s not, wow, this guy looks like a model (which he does). It’s not, damn, he seems to have his life put together (except for the ghosts) and that’s so impressive. It’s not even, it was quite sweet of him to lock me away from an angry ghost and keep me safe today (which he did).
It’s a crush.
Plain and simple, true as the light of day, I have a crush.
I have a full-blown crush on Archer Gravely.
It’s a rushing-dopamine crush that switches my brain off, makes me scramble for the nearest thing I can say to him about going back to his house to have pastries with him tomorrow. “Can I touch your bird?”
He stares one long moment, then breaks into laughter, loud and delicious, and his smile is about as handsome as they come. “He’s not my bird. But I’m pretty sure he’d like a pet from you.”
From me? Specifically me?
I wonder if Archer would also like a pet from me.
Is that why his voice sounds so sexy?
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” I shove out, before I do something mad and let him know how I’m feeling.
“All right, Liam.” He leans a little closer, and it’s like he pins me to the seat with those amber eyes of his. “Sleep well, okay?”
Well, fuck. I will now.
“Mmhmm.” I fumble at the door handle, and reality somehow turns less real than it was at the hospital. The outside world flies past as I disappear down the side of a building, working my way through the back garden and around to my crappy council flat.
I see nothing but Archer’s eyes as I punch the code for the door and it clacks open. No stairwell and stale smell and hoping I avoid the weird neighbour in number five. Not much of anything but Archer and more Archer until I open my own front door and come face to face with my mum’s furious eyes.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I, um…” I’m so taken aback by the outburst, by the slam back into my real life, that it takes me a moment to answer. When I do, it comes out too defensive. “Work! Where do you think I’ve been?”
“Work?” she spits back. “What kind of job keeps you out until this time of night?” I honestly don’t even know what time it is, so I reach into my pocket for my phone while she talks on.
“Not a call, not a text. Nothing! What were you doing that you couldn’t get in touch and let me know you’re okay? ”
I remember my phone went flat at the hospital a second before I swipe my screen in an automatic motion. But it turns on. It was completely dead a few hours ago, I’m sure of it… “Sorry, Ma,” I mumble. “I would have, but… I can’t explain it—”
“Tell me where you were!” she shouts.
“Work!” I shout back, and I don’t mean to yell, but I hate that this is happening again. Things have been so good between us for months. And like a switch, her reaction’s thrown me straight back into this state of constant stress I’ve lived with for so long.
“Work doing what? At night? When you left early this morning? Tell me the truth!”
I’m so exhausted, not just by today but by all of this, that the words spill before I can stop them.
“You need to stop this. Ma, I’m twenty-five.
It shouldn’t matter what time I come home.
You have to…” The words ‘get over it’ are so close to my lips, but I cram them back down, settling on the softer, if still crushing, “I’m not him.
You can trust me. I’m not going to…” Disappear?
Get myself killed? Walk out that door and never come back?
I don’t say the last part, but she heard it loud and clear. Her eyes fill with tears, and she walks away from me before they can spill, her shaking hand at her temple while she stands by the window, trying to calm herself down.
I feel terrible. Five seconds in the house and I’ve already made her cry.
I can’t get mad at her because she knows how messed up this is. We both do. And I know she’ll feel awful about this tomorrow if I let her say too much. She’s carrying enough without me doing that.
“There was an accident at work today,” I explain as quickly and as calmly as I can. “The guy they sent me to train with, he got hurt.”
She turns to me, concern battling the grief that’s never far from her eyes. “Were they attacked? By your client?”