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“You must stay for dinner,” Maura said.
Archie looked between Maura and me. “Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”
Sure, you don’t.***Everyone gathered at the table for Maura’s famous spaghetti and meatballs.
I’d just walked into the dining room with Archie after showing him my room and the rest of the house.
“Nice to meet you, Archie,” Shelley said before I had a chance to introduce him to anyone.
“Who’s this lovely lady?” he asked.
“This is my pseudo-sister, Shelley,” I said before looking over at Teagan, who was already seated. “And this is…Teagan.” I didn’t know what Teagan was to me at the moment, just that she meant a lot more than she had when I first moved in.
Teagan nodded and smiled but didn’t bother to get up or extend her hand. Typical Teagan—guarded and aloof, just how I’d grown to like her. Especially now. I was perfectly fine with her keeping her guard up around this guy. I didn’t want Archie anywhere near her.
Once we were situated in our seats, Maura began asking him questions. The friendly inquisition reminded me a bit of my first night here.
“So tell me about what brings you to Boston, Archie.”
“I graduated from uni last year and got a job working for a biomedical company. We have a client here in Boston. It’s a three-month assignment to help them with the design of a new product.” He looked over at me. “I was really hoping to get it since I knew my mate was here.”
Lorne spoke with a mouthful of pasta. “Where are you staying?”
“Well, my company gave me a stipend, but I’m still trying to work that out. It’s not easy to find something for only a few months. I’d arranged to rent a room from a girl in Dorchester, but she’s having trouble getting her previous occupant out.”
Maura shook her head. “Nonsense. We have an extra bedroom upstairs. It’s just wasting away as my sewing room. You can stay free of charge and keep the stipend.”
I loved Maura, but right now I sort of wanted to kill her—with a chicken bone, perhaps.
Archie looked like a kid on Christmas morning. “Are you sure?”
“You’re a friend of Caleb’s, so you come preapproved, right?”
He turned to me. “That okay with you, Caleb?”
What am I supposed to say? “Yes, of course,” I offered reluctantly.
He looked back over at Maura. “This is amazing. I can’t thank you enough.”
I sighed internally. Being in the States was my escape from home and all of the people there. Archie had blown in here like an unwanted storm. He’d stolen a bit of peace I might never get back.
“So how long have you guys been friends?” Shelley asked.
“We grew up on the same street,” Archie answered. “Lived near each other our whole lives.”
Which was precisely why I didn’t need to be living with him now. I took a deep breath. It wasn’t that I perceived Archie as an enemy. But he was always competitive, constantly trying to upstage me. If my mother enrolled me in a sport, he’d have his mum sign him up for the same team, and then he’d outperform me. It seemed anywhere I went, I couldn’t escape him. And the current situation was no different.
“So I bet you could tell us some fun stories about our boy Caleb.” Maura winked.
“I’ve got some photos from our childhood I could certainly blackmail Caleb with, particularly our tap dancing days.”
Great. Here we go.
Teagan cracked a smile. Figures she’d light right up with that one.
I felt the need to explain. “Archie’s mother was a dance instructor. She always complained that there weren’t enough boys enrolled in the tap classes. She asked my mother if I’d be interested in classes free of charge. My mum thought it was a brilliant idea, so she registered me. Archie’s mum enrolled him, too. So there you go.”
Shelley’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “You tap danced? I have got to see this.”
Archie winked. “That can be arranged.”
Teagan, while still quiet, looked more amused than ever.
Archie noticed her softening up and took it as his cue to start talking to her. “Teagan, where do you go to school?”
“I go to Northern with Caleb.”
“Ah. Okay. So obviously you chose not to go too far for university.”
“I considered moving for school, but in the end, Boston just has so many great options, and to not have to worry about paying for housing—this situation made the most sense.”
Archie’s eyes moved down to her chest, and my pulse raced. Teagan was wearing an open plaid shirt with a black tank top underneath. A tiny amount of cleavage peeked through the top. A mole that sat right between her breasts entered my awareness for the first time ever. Of all nights for her to show the most skin I’d ever seen, it had to be tonight?
