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‘Toban,’ I correct—but then I freeze. Why bring up Archer at all?
‘Tell him to stop calling the office, please. It’s disruptive and I have tons of paperwork to fill out and I can’t do that if your boyfriend nuisances me. Cheers.’
She starts to turn.
‘Wait. Archer called? What did he want?’
Lucy shrugs. ‘He wanted to know if you’d turned up for your shift. He rang a few weeks ago and asked what time you were in.’ She makes aand it’s fucking weirdface.
My hands grip the counter. ‘He did?’
‘Most days. If he does it again, it won’t be him facing the consequences,’ she says, and walks away.
I stare after her. What the hell does Archer think he’s doing calling my work? I think about what Chase said—Archer’s stalked a woman before, and this is typical stalkerish behaviour. He showed up here that night completely unannounced and uninvited, with no information from me at all, and I didn’t even know him that well.
I text him, but he doesn’t reply. I don’t get another break now, so I can’t call him, but I can’t stop myself from checking my phone when I get chance. I hate myself for ignoring Kai’s message about how his gig went weekend, but I think about nothing else but Archer.
What if he calls again during my shift and I get sacked?
As soon as I step outside into the cool breeze, I call him, but I hear the ringtone, and I glance up.
Archer shakes his phone at me before declining my call and pocketing it. He leans against a lamppost, but it’s the expression on his face that stills me.
There’s no warmth in his eyes as his gaze lazily slips over me. He shrugs from the lamppost and ambles past me. ‘Come on. I’ll drive you.’
Something tells me not to get in his car. To run, very fast and very far. But if I don’t speak to him now, he’ll just keep phoning up Lucy and pissing her off, and I can’t afford that.
I settle into the passenger seat and secure my belt, but we don’t move.
He stares straight ahead as he presses a button; the doors lock, and my heart plummets like a rock thrown off a cliff.
‘What are we doing? I need to get home.’
A muscle twitches in his jaw. ‘I don’t appreciate how you spoke to me earlier,’ he says at last.
‘Why do you keep calling my boss?’ I retort.
‘I just wanted to see you reached work okay. Is that a crime?’
‘No, but it’ll get me sacked if you carry on. Don’t do it again.’
His laugh makes me go cold all over. ‘If I asked you if you reached work okay, how will I know what to believe when you’re such a persistent liar?’
‘God, are you still banging on about the shop thing? I was with my dad!’
‘Who’s Kai?’
My stomach drops. ‘How do you know about Kai? Have you been through my phone?’
Wrong thing to say.
‘I thought you liked me. I thought we had something. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I saw you’re talking to another man.’ He turns those cold, piercing eyes on me. They slice into me like knives. ‘It’s been bugging me for a while, and I kept telling myself it’s nothing, but when you lied to me today, I wondered if you were with him.’
I swallow and cast back to that time in detention when he had my phone for about five minutes.
‘Why does it matter so much?’ I ask. ‘It’s not like we’re together. I didn’t go mad at you when you checked out that waitress the other night.’
His eyes narrow.
