2. Archie
2
ARCHIE
“ I have a good one for you guys today!” Oakley clasps my shoulder with his beefy hand, and he looks pretty excited as he directs his attention at Walker and me.
“Oh God, Oakley is excited,” Walker says in mock horror. “He’s going to kill us with this one.”
“Nah,” Oakley says casually. “You won’t die. You just have a bit of a drive. But trust me, this job will be worth it.” His eyes are all lit up with excitement now.
“Drive where?” I ask.
“Larnard,” he says with a shit-eating grin.
We both groan loudly at that, and Travis rolls his eyes as he hands me the paperwork. “It’s not that bad.”
“Oh yeah, you take a job in Big Bend then,” I sass at my boss, who just grins next to his man. They’re both from Kensley. Big Bend and Kensley don’t get along at all. Town rivals since the beginning of time.
But... if there were ever two towns that could compete with that particular rivalry—it’s Hayes and Larnard.
“Jesus. Fuck. Anywhere but there,” Walker whines, and Oakley and Travis are barely holding it together. They totally gave us this job on purpose. Just to fuck with us.
“A job’s a job, boys,” Travis says with a sparkle in his eyes.
“We better get going then,” I say, looking at the address on the paperwork. “Gonna be a long drive.”
“It’s only an hour and a half.”
“Closer to two,” we both say together. It’s rural as hell out here, so we always had to travel pretty far for away football games. I’ll never forget that long-ass ride to Larnard once a year.
Travis goes back into serious business mode now. “Do you want the details? They’re a nice couple. Oakley and I made the drive yesterday to check it out. It might take a couple of weeks, but it should be a straightforward job.”
Although I’m annoyed that we have to be traitors and work in Larnard for the next couple of weeks, the thought of a new job always gets my blood pumping. “Yeah, what are we doing?” I ask enthusiastically.
Walker is on board too. We aren’t actually so immature that we can’t handle going to our old rival town for work.
“Nice couple,” Oakley reiterates what Trav said. “They’re getting married soon, and I guess they want to do it on the woman’s family property. The family gifted them the house and the land, but it needs a lot of work before they can accommodate a wedding.”
“Fall wedding? Nice,” I say absently as I peruse the work order.
“Yeah, just clean it up, plant some flowers. Create an inviting front porch atmosphere.”
“How bad is it?”
Oakley shakes his head grimly, which makes me chuckle. The man loves a good front porch. “Make it shine,” he says proudly, and I nod in acknowledgment.
We don’t do a lot of building—we usually leave that up to Langley’s Construction, but if we aren’t too busy and it’s not too complicated, we’ll take on porch and deck projects here and there.
“They’d also like a nice firepit area for after the ceremony. It’s all very simple country vibes, and I like it,” Travis says all sappy-like, gazing at his man.
Walker and I share a grin before we gather our tools and start the drive out to Larnard.
“I never thought we’d come back here,” Walker says, driving through the familiar old town that still looks exactly as it once did. A corner grocery store downtown, next to the bank. A café. The post office. Everything right in the middle of the town.
“Yeah. Oakley was salivating to send us here.” I laugh. “Fucker.”
Walker nods in agreement and drives out of town, toward the windy, old gravel roads before we pull up to a nice-sized old white farmhouse with a fairly nice truck and a little new car in the drive.
We hop out of the truck, and I look around at the land. It definitely needs to be mowed, even after the heat of the summer. Though some areas are a little rougher than others. I can see the backyard is looking particularly rough.
The front door opens, and a couple comes out to greet us. The woman is pretty. Petite and blonde, wearing a white sundress with her hair flowing down well past her shoulders, but it’s the man with her who takes my breath away and sends a sharp pain through my gut.
“Holy. Shit,” I whisper harshly, not fully able to believe what I’m seeing right before me.
“What is it?” Walker asks quietly beside me, his eyes focused intensely on me because he knows something is wrong.
Something is very, very wrong, all right.
The man— Cane —nearly trips down the stairs when he recognizes me, and his wife-to-be grabs his arms and laughs lightly. “You okay, babe?”
Babe.
He’s her babe . This is fucking fantastic.
“I’m fine,” he says quickly, but his eyes don’t leave me as they approach.
“Hi! Oh my God, you’re here,” the woman says excitedly as she reaches out her small hand for me to shake. I do, but I wonder if she can feel how cold and clammy my skin has gone.
You’re okay, Archie. Just hold it together. Put on that big, bright, fake-as-fuck smile you’re so good at. “We are,” I say dryly and release her hand. “I’m Archie.”
Her smile is bright and beautiful as she glances up at me. “I’m Evelyn White, soon to be Evelyn Butler.” She’s beaming up at Cane now, and I at least now know his last name. Her eyes turn back to us as she reaches out for Walker’s hand. “But you can call me Evie.”
Cane looks like he swallowed a lemon whole, his face pulled in a sour look as Walker shakes her hand and smiles politely. “Walker.” He doesn’t add “not the Texas Ranger,” like he sometimes likes to do as an icebreaker. I’m guessing he’s still sensing the tension as he releases Evie’s hand and reaches out for Cane’s.
“Cane,” Cane says as he clasps Walker’s hand, his eyes slowly sliding over to meet mine. “Butler.”
Their hands part, and then he reaches for mine. It’s no big deal. I can do this. I reach my hand out for his, but the moment my fingers graze his hand, electricity fires all the way up my arm, and I nearly pull away. I force myself into a quick handshake before I jerk my hand back and motion toward the land around us. “Where should we start?” I ask gruffly, just wanting to get away.
“Oh, wherever you want to,” Evie says, clearly missing all the tension in the warm air out here. “I’m so happy you all are here! We have our wedding coming up, and this place...” She sighs, her hands on her trim hips as she looks around the property. “It’s a mess, as you can see. Not suitable for guests.”
My heart clenches tight in my chest, and I want to puke. “When’s the wedding? In the fall, right?” I ask, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as pissed off as I feel.
It must not because Evie is still just a bottle of excitement, her eyes alight with happiness. I wonder if she’d feel that way if she knew what her fiancé was up to only months ago. “Yes!” She claps her hands together. “In one month. And I know it’s still hot out, but I’m hoping it will cool down and the leaves will start to turn a little.”
I nod absently, my jaw clenched so tight, I’m worried I might break some teeth.
I focus on some of the trees in the backyard. “One month? Possible.”
She’s beaming now. “It’s going to be so beautiful. You all have the best reputation in the state, so I’m not worried at all.” She smiles sweetly. “Okay, maybe a little bit, but that’s just because I want the day to be perfect.” She wraps herself around one of Cane’s beefy arms and leans into him.
Of course he won’t look over at me, but he does tilt his head down to kiss the top of her head, and all I feel is hot, uncontainable rage.
“Lord knows it’s been a long time coming,” she says and looks up at him with so much love, I start to think maybe Cane has a twin or something. There’s no way this is the guy I fucked in a seedy hotel mere months ago. Maybe though, they met right after or something. Maybe it’s one of those insta love, quick burning things. But she did say it had been a long time coming...
“How long you two been together?” I ask, my eyes firmly on Evie’s face and avoiding Cane’s at all costs.
She huffs a laugh, picking her head up off his arm. “Oh lordy, since grade school.” My eyes widen, and she only laughs again, the sound actually beautiful because of course it is. Everything about this woman screams beauty and grace. Kindness. What the fuck is wrong with him?
Why would he hurt her like that? Fucking cheating assholes.
My expression is grim as I look over at Cane, who at least seems to have enough decency to look ashamed.
“We’ve known each other a long time. We didn’t start dating officially until we were teenagers,” she says brightly, and I notice when she smiles that big, there’s a dimple in her right cheek. “But I swear, I still wasn’t sure if this day would ever come.”
“Evie,” Cane’s deep voice cuts in. “They don’t need to know our whole life story.”
My eyes meet his, and I glare at him. “I don’t mind.” My lips turn up in an angry sneer that I manage to make appear jovial before Evie looks at me again. “I love stories. All kinds of stories.”
I watch his throat flex as he swallows hard, his eyes not leaving mine. “There’s usually more to the story than you think.”
His silent message isn’t lost on me, but I don’t want to hear it. Cheaters always have an excuse. My dad always did, that was for sure, and my mother ate them up with her heart broken and her eyes closed as she ignored every horrible thing he did.
“You know, I think most stories are actually pretty straightforward and exactly what they seem like on the surface.”
I feel Walker’s shoulder nudge mine and look over at him. “Don’t you think we should get into the details of the job?” I know I’m acting weird and sense by his tone I need to cut it out. When I look over at Evie’s face as she stands there quietly observing me, I realize why.
I force a bigass smile on my face and nod. “One month until the wedding? Yeah, I’d say we better get working.”
Evie seems satisfied with that and gives us some directions on where to start before Walker and I head to the truck to get our tools and the happy little couple goes inside the house.
“What the hell was that about?” Walker asks as soon as their front door closes.
“You know that mystery hookup?” My eyes meet my best friend’s, and he nods. “That was him.”
His wide eyes and gaping mouth are showing the same shock I’m still feeling. “No fucking way,” he says hoarsely, his eyes going back to the house and then settling on me. “No. Fucking. Way.”
“Goddamn small towns. This would only happen to me.”
“He’s engaged?” I don’t think he’s actually asking me. It sounds more like he’s trying to make it all clear in his head, but I nod anyway and grab some tools out of the back of the truck.
“Yup.”
“Maybe they weren’t . . .”
I shake my head and hand him a shovel. “She said they started dating when they were teens. No way they weren’t together when I fucked him in that hotel.”
He blinks at me, looking pale and green at the same time. I’m not faring much better, but I know we have a job to do.
I smack him on the back. “Come on. Let’s get this job started so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Archie...” I hear his tone. I know he wants to make this better for me, but I’m fine. Really. I’m totally fine with this.
I give him a stern shake of my head and direct him to the backyard. “Hey, at least now maybe my dick will have closure, and I can finally get back to being the horndog you know and love.”
He frowns, but I force myself to stay with the joke and keep on walking further into the backyard.
No sense dwelling on it. So he’s a shitty human being. I haven’t found many people who aren’t.