Page 95 of The Serendipity

“I’ll see you in the morning? I need to get things ready for Steve to start next week,” I say.

Archer’s gaze moves past me. “I think … I might just go to the city a day early.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow?”

“I think that’s best.”

Why does it feel like we’re having a fight even though we’re not fighting?

I ignore the feeling and press up on my toes to kiss him. “Hurry back.”

His gaze heats as he chases my mouth, deepening the kiss for not nearly long enough. “As soon as I can.”

Okay, maybe things aren’t so dire. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe I’m being overly dramatic, and Archer just needs more time to open up to me.

But as Archer turns the deadbolt, he pauses and frowns, staring at it. I watch the growing crease between his brows as he runs a finger over the lock.

And it’s at this moment I remember how I got here. My stomach lands somewhere in the vicinity of the laundry room in the basement.

Archer glances at me. “How did you get into my apartment? Did Bellamy give you his key?”

“I—no.” My thoughts are running like a scared mob, trampling over one another.

Make an excuse!

Tell the truth!

RUN!

“I was planning to give you a key tonight but forgot,” Archer says. “I wrapped it up in a box and put it in a drawer—did you find it?”

Such a sweet gesture. I only wish he’d remembered to do it. Because then I could lie and tell him I used my key. Lying would be so much easier.

I shake my head. “No,” I whisper.

His features tense as I watch, like a door slowly closing. “Then how did you get into my apartment, Willa?”

“Before you say anything, let me explain. Please.”

Archer doesn’t say anything. But as he crosses his arms and takes the smallest step back, his body says a lot.

“I guess I shouldn’t say I’m going toexplainbecause, honestly, I can’t explain it. But this is the truth—sometimes, when I walk into my closet, I end up in your closet. And I know how that sounds. I promise, I know. There are rumors the building is magical, and I have no idea if that’s true and I honestly don’t even really believe in magic. If it hadn’t happened to me—three times now, actually—I wouldn’t believe it at all.”

I pause and take a breath, keeping my gaze focused on Archer’s undershirt, which is as clean and pressed as his starchy button-downs.

“Say something,” I plead. “Ask me questions! I’ll answer what I can, even if I don’t know how. Or why.”

I finally dare to look up at him and wish I hadn’t. His face is as closed and impassive as the day I met him, when we had a similar discussion in the same room.

“Three times?” Archer asks, finally. “I know about the first time you claimed this happened and now tonight. You were in my apartment a third time?”

“Y-yes. The night of the possum. I was getting ready to deliver Bellamy’s cookies, but then—poof!—the closet delivered me here. I left the cookies and then ran into you downstairs.”

“My door was unlocked when I came back up,” he says, his eyes still looking at something—anything, it seems—other than me.

“I didn’t have a way to lock it. You believe me?” I ask, sounding as desperate and needy as I feel.

Archer finally meets my gaze, his gray eyes all steel. “I …” He pauses and studies my face. Not with the kind, doting looks I’ve grown used to, but like he’s a scientist and I’m a virus under a microscope. “I’m trying to reconcile this …explanationwith the person I knew.”

---