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Today was apparently the first time I’d heard Alexander Brougham speak, because until just now I’d had no idea he had a British accent. I understood his wide appeal now: Oriella, my favorite relationship YouTuber, once dedicated a whole video to the topic. People with perfectly good taste in partners historically had their senses addled in the presence of an accent. Setting aside the messiness ofwhichaccents were considered sexy in which cultures and why, accents in general were nature’s way of saying, “Procreate withthatone, their gene code must be varied as fuck.” Few things, it seemed, could turn a person on as quickly as the subconscious realization they almost certainly weren’t flirting with a blood relative.

Thankfully, Brougham broke the silence when I didn’t reply. “I didn’t get time to dry off properly. I’d just finished up when I heard you out here. I thought I might catch the person who runs locker eighty-nine if I snuck through the fire escape. And I did.”

He looked triumphant. Like he’d won a contest I was only now realizing I’d been participating in.

That was, incidentally, my least favorite facial expression. As of right this moment.

I forced a nervous laugh. “I didn’topenit. I was putting a letter in.”

“I just saw you close it.”

“I didn’t close it. I just banged it a little when I was sliding the, uh… the letter inside.”

Cool, Darcy, way to gaslight the poor British student.

“Yeah, you did. Also, you took a pile of letters out of it.”

Well, I’d committed to this enough to shove them down my tights so I might as well follow this through to the end, right? I held my empty hands out, palms up. “I don’t have any letters.”

He actually looked a little thrown. “Where did you… I saw them, though.”

I shrugged and pulled an innocent face.

“You… did you put them down your stockings?” His tone wasn’t accusing, per se. More “mild, patronizing bafflement,” like someone gently questioning their child onwhy,exactly, they thought dog food would make a great snack. It only made me want to dig my heels in further.

I shook my head and laughed a little too loudly.“No.”The heat in my cheeks told me my face was betraying me.

“Turn around.”

I leaned against the lockers with a rustle of paper and folded my arms across my chest. The corner of one of the envelopes dug uncomfortably into the back of my hip. “I don’t want to.”

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

Yeah. He wasn’t buying this for a second.

If my brain were functioning properly I would’ve said something to throw him off track, but unfortunately it chose that precise moment to go on strike.

“Youarethe person who runs this thing,” Brougham said, confidently enough I knew there was no point protesting further. “And I really need your help.”

I hadn’t settled on what I believed would happen if I ever got caught. Mostly because I’d preferred not to worry about it too much. But if you’d forced me to guess what the person catching me would do, I would’ve probably gone for “turn me in to the principal,” or “tell everyone in school,” or “accuse me of ruining their life with bad advice.”

But this? This wasn’t so threatening. Maybe it was going to be okay. I swallowed hard in an attempt to shove the lump in my throat down closer to my thudding heart. “Help with what?”

“With getting my ex-girlfriend back.” He paused, thoughtful. “Oh, my name’s Brougham, by the way.”

Brougham. Pronounced BRO-um, not Broom. It was an easy name to remember, because it was pronounced all wrong, and that had irked me since the first time I’d heard it.

“I know,” I said faintly.

“What’s your hourly rate?” he asked, peeling his shirt away from his chest to air it out. It thwacked heavily back against his skin as soon as he let go of it. See?Overlywet.

I tore my eyes away from his clothes and processed his question. “I’m sorry?”

“I want to hire you.”

There he went again with the weird money-for-favors language. “As…?”