“I don’t really think I have a choice. I don’t know if I ever did. Do you think his brother would tell me where I can find him?”
At that, surprising Julian entirely, Ilan’s mouth stretched into a smile. “What if I told you I knew for a fact that he would?”
Chapter 28
Archer was numb as he stepped into the cottage, and numb as he dragged his case outside, and numb when a little black sports car arrived with Katerina behind the wheel. He couldn’t stop a faint groan when he slid into the passenger side and put on his seatbelt, and she gave him a side-eye.
“Did you think I was going to be Rex?” she asked with a slight scoff, and Archer’s already aching heart twisted in agony because all he wanted in that moment was his brother.
Well, it wasn’t entirely true. All he wanted in that moment was Julian to flag down the car and tell him that he forgave Archer for the lie, that he understood why he’d done it. But none of that happened. Katerina kept her foot firmly on the gas, and Crescent Cove disappeared in the rearview mirror.
“You know that he can’t just drop everything and rescue you from whatever stupid situation you’ve gotten yourself into, right?” she snapped at him as they hit a long stretch of empty road, bracketed by farmland on either side.
Archer felt his throat go tight. “Considering that I’ve been in another fucking country by myself for the last eight years, I’m well aware of my brother’s travel limitations. Not that you’d understand, but today was really fucking shitty and I just wanted my big brother. I know he didn’t disappear the moment he took office.”
Katerina was quiet for a long time, and when she spoke again, her voice was less sharp. “He wants you to come over when we get in.”
“No.” Archer dragged a hand down his face, then turned his body more toward his window and stared as the farmland became thick trees and boggy swamp. “I want to go home.”
Of course, home wasn’t his little apartment that Rex had kept up for him. Home wasn’t an unfamiliar bed, and unfamiliar walls, and none of the food that would have comforted him. Home wasn’t the Governor’s mansion either—with the decorations put up by someone Rex had hired for photo-ops, and holiday food cooked by a nameless chef.
He wanted his Paris flat. He wanted that little neighborhood off the beaten path, away from the tourist hubs. He wanted his little old neighbors who took care of him like he was a skittish stray cat. He wanted the quiet markets and fresh bread and food carts with spicy sausages covered in mustard, stuffed in warm baguettes.
He wanted the feeling distance between him and the life that always left him feeling bereft and alone and more of an inconvenience than a wanted presence. His mistakes in Paris could be catastrophic—to research, to the labs, to the other teams—but his mistakes there would be embraced as a learning experience.
He would never be left on the side of the road.
He would never be abandoned to a stranger by the person who had chosen to raise him, and love him, and support him.
“Archer…”
“Please don’t,” he whispered, and he both loved and hated that Katerina didn’t say another word all the way home.
It felt like a lifetime instead of a few days when he stepped into his apartment, and he was only mildly grateful that Shen wasn’t around. He went straight for the terrarium, finding Cassini perched on his branch, his wobbly eyes flickering toward him through the glass shield.
He drew his finger in a line along the top and for a second wished he had a pet that wanted to cuddle. His mind flashed back to Fredric, to Bastian who was a working dog but had spent his off time nosing at Archer’s hand and begging for pets. Thinking about Julian’s family—and the fact that they were hurting and probably hated him—was almost too much to bear.
He could have loved them. He almost did—because he loved Julian already. And maybe it wasn’t a big, grand love, but it was the spark of something. It was the spark of life in the early universe, a millionth of a second after the big bang. It was matter and antimatter battling each other for space and dominance and he knew that love—that matter—would win out. Eventually. If he let it.