“I didn’t realize that word was in your vocabulary.”
“It is for you.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “But don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
“Tragic,” I muttered, even as my brain immediately veered off in twelve different directions at once.
None of them helpful.
I pushed my glasses up again, more out of habit than necessity, and tried to pick one thought to follow through to completion. It didn’t stick. They kept slipping, overlapping, tripping over each other in a way that felt dangerously close to spiraling again.
“Okay, but—” I started, then stopped, because I wasn’t actually sure whichbutI meant.
Henry waited—all composed and patient. Like he had all the time in the world to let me work through whatever this was.
“How are you just… fine?” I asked finally, squinting at him a little. “Fully functional. Coherent. Using complete sentences. It feels disrespectful at this point.”
A hint of amusement flickered across his face. “Would you prefer I be less so?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “A little bit of visible disorientation would go a long way here.”
“Noted.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I shifted on the desk and immediately kept talking because apparently I had no intention of stopping now that I’d started.
“How did you even find me? Were you just… wandering around the annex hoping I’d appear? Do you have some kindof tracking system I don’t know about? Should I be concerned about that?”
His brow lifted slightly. “A tracking system?”
“I’m just saying, you showed upveryconveniently. It’s a little suspicious. Are we mentally linked now? Did I miss that part? Was there paperwork?”
“Archibald.”
“What if I’ve been microchipped?” I continued, ignoring him entirely. “That feels like something Wexley would do. ‘Congratulations on your assistantship, here’s your stipend and a mild invasion of privacy.’”
“Archibald.”
“And—” I pushed forward anyway, because stopping felt impossible, “—you’re not even a little concerned that this place is technically open to the public? Like, anyone could have walked in. We could have been—” I cut myself off, grimacing. “Actually, no, I don’t want to finish that sentence.”
His hand came up, fingers closing lightly around my wrist. “Archibald.”
I finally looked at him.
“What?”
His thumb brushed once over the inside of my wrist. “You’re spiraling.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
I exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. “Okay, a little.”
“A lot,” he corrected.
“Rude.”