Page 36

Just in case.

I head down the back stairs to her apartment, hoping she’s there when she doesn’t respond to my text.

What Idon’texpect is to be bowled over the moment I exit the stairwell by someone running.

“Oof!”

My back hits the wall, and I almost go down, but a large body pins me in place. A large body and … trash bags?

“Archer?”

He jumps back, dropping one of the bags in the process. His eyes flash to mine, then quickly away. He bends to grab the trash bag he dropped, and when he straightens, his cheeks are red.

The whole thing is a strange look—a man in a very expensive suit with a blush on his cheeks and an overflowing garbage bag in each hand.

It’s almost like one of thoseCelebrities—They’re Just Like Us!moments.

Grumpy billionaires … they’re taking out their trash—just like us!

But does Archerreallytake out his own trash? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. I also can’t really see Bellamy, with his tailored suits and perfectly coiffed hair, being that person either. He might have joked about being the Alfred to Archer’s Bruce Wayne, but Bellamy is no butler.

“I didn’t see you,” Archer says in a clipped tone, which I guess is as close to an apology as I can expect.

Based on how he smashed into me, it appears he was running away from the back doors.

But that doesn’t make sense—runningorbringing trash bags inside when the dumpster is just outside the doors.

“Is everything okay?” It definitely doesn’tlookokay.

Besides the trash, his dark hair is rumpled, and his suit jacket looks like it popped a button and is hanging open, his tie askew.

He looks better this way, and it reminds me of how I wanted to mess up his bedroom just a little bit.

And nowI’malso blushing. Because I was just in this man’s bedroom, and he has no idea. I’m also in my pajamas in front of Archer. Again. I hope he can’t look at me and tell that I just crept out of his apartment like a cookie-leaving criminal.

“There’s an opossum out there,” he says through clenched teeth. “Or a whole family of opossums. I’m not sure. It’s—they’re—guarding the dumpster.”

I do my very best not to laugh, but the mental image of this scenario is too potent. “I see.”

He glares. Guess I’m not hiding my amusement as well as I’d like. “They gave chase,” he says.

“Gave chase?” I repeat. Even the man’s words sound like rich-person speak.

He ignores me. “They’re probably rabid.”

“Possums play dead. They don’t typically chase people. And they almost never get rabies—something about their body temperature.”

I typically don’t store up random animal facts, but Sophie started sending me Instagram reels of cute puppies and kittens that soon shifted to raccoons, possums, and capybaras, which I didn’t know existed before this year. A two-hundred-pound rodent sounds like something out of a movie.

Actually, it is—an R.O.U.S. fromThe Princess Bride. Though capybaras are much cuter and less likely to eat you in a fire swamp.

The point is: my entire Instagram feed is now nothing but animals, and I have amassed a random collection of facts.

“It’s why possums are so good for the environment,” I continue, though it’s immediately clear Archer doesn’t care. “They eat ticks and other icky pests and are less likely to carry rabies than raccoons.”

“And guard dumpsters,” Archer mutters.

“Are you sure they were possums?”