Chapter 30
30
LAYLA
A rcher had to stay overtime at the hardware store tonight. A delivery truck showed up late, right when I was leaving to pick up Sky from daycare.
I don’t expect him to be home anytime soon because the Brighton siblings are at The North Node tonight. At least that’s what Karli said when we were texting earlier.
Archer may not be here in the flesh. But he’s been running on a loop in my mind. The scent of his skin lingered on the edge of my senses as I prepared dinner. The feel of his fingers gripping my hair played in my mind as I gave Sky his bath. The gravelly rumble in his voice spun like a vinyl record on repeat in my head as I sang to my son and got him dressed in his pajamas.
I’m a possessive man, Belle.
A kiss means something to me.
Once I kiss these lips, you’re mine, Layla.
Holy shit!
I’ve had a crush on Archer for the longest time. But now, I can say that I’m officially obsessed.
Haven’t I learned my lesson? I should be more careful than this. I still vividly remember how much it hurt the night he turned down my kiss. Although I can now see that his reasons were valid, it doesn’t change the fact that the pain I felt was real. This man has the power to cut me deep. I like him enough that he can do some big damage to my heart. I can’t let myself forget that.
Even still, butterflies take flight in my stomach when I finally hear the front door open. He’s home…
Floorboards creak under careful footsteps as he moves through the house. Archer is trying to be quiet so he won’t disturb Sky as I put him to bed. He’s so considerate. It makes me smile. My ears strain, trying to pick up every sound he makes as he moves around on the other side of the wall.
Sky is listening in, too as I lay him in his new crib. “Hewo Mista Musdache…” my little boy mumbles to himself as he drifts off to sleep, his lumberjack teddy bear cuddled to his chest. It’s the most adorable thing.
“I love you, my Sky.” I whisper with a soft laugh as I hover above his crib, watching him sleep for a while. The idea of Archer sleeping in this very same crib as a baby makes my heart squeeze.
Archer…Oh, Archer.
I crawl into my own bed, pulling the blankets up around my shoulders and trying to fall asleep. The bedside clock tells me that it’s 8:43. I know that tomorrow will be a long day at work, dealing with this new inventory delivery we received tonight. But all I can think of is coming up with some excuse to go to Archer right now.
He may be perfectly at ease with the heavy silence that hovers over this house every night when the lights go out. But I’m not.
Tonight, I feel lonely.
We all need human interaction to survive and thrive, don’t we? I need someone to talk to right now. And by ‘someone’, I specifically mean the big, closed-off, somewhat intimidating lumberjack who’s built up a multi-layered wall against me.
Finally, I decide to go check on him. There’s nothing weird about checking to see if he noticed the dinner plate I left in the fridge for him. Innocent enough, right?
Moving stealthily across the bedroom floor, I open the door and step out into the quiet, shadowy hallway. I glance down the hallway and, as always, a sliver of warm light pours from beneath the door to Archer’s study. On my tiptoes, I travel in that direction.
I peek through the crack in the doorway and see Archer slightly reclined in a cozy leather armchair. Hair disheveled. Eyes focused on his puzzle book. Red flannel shirt with the top buttons undone. And glasses—oh my god—Archer is wearing glasses right now.
Gah!
Glasses have never particularly been a turn-on for me. But on Archer? That’s a whole different story. He looks so fucking hot. Professor Grumpy Lumberjack hot.
As I hide behind the half-open door, he speaks without looking up from his puzzle. “You wouldn’t make a very good secret agent, you know that?” A faint grin curls the corners of his lips.
My face flushes with embarrassment over getting caught spying on him again. I take a backward step and the floorboards scream under my heels, confirming that it’s too late to run away now. I might as well go with it.
I make my best attempt at a sassy smile as I saunter into the small room. “Sheesh! Way to dash a girl’s career aspirations. I guess I’ll have to stick to sleuthing as a hobby."
“Good idea.” Archer chuckles, his eyes finding mine as he takes off his glasses and sets them on the table beside him.
Goosebumps wash down my back as his dark irises grab hold of mine. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the charming crackle of the fireplace. Or the intimate silence of the house. Or just the ceaseless memory of what happened between us the last time we were alone in the same room at this time of night.
I pull my gaze from his, letting my eyes travel around the room. “So, this is where you run off to every night?” I softly close the door behind me. Somehow, it feels like sealing my fate.
Archer throws a distracted look around the room before his full attention is back on me. “This is it,” he says simply.
I try to ignore the nervous sensation blooming in my belly as I look around the small home library.
The vibe is cozy and rustic. Warm but in a masculine way, if that makes sense. There’s one wall packed from corner-to-corner with old books. A big picture window overlooks the woods out back, where snowflakes fall lazily from the sky. There’s an overstuffed sofa shoved up against one wall. I notice the half-finished jigsaw puzzle that used to be in the living room. It’s now sitting on a hand-carved antique table in the corner. The old-fashioned light fixtures and the roaring fireplace only add to the quaint atmosphere.
My eyes return to Archer. He’s still looking at me from his recliner, curiosity in his expression. That intense stare draws my awareness back to the fact that I just barged into his private space in the middle of the night with zero explanation.
“Couldn’t sleep…” I mumble. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, just to give my fidgety hands something to do. I wait for him to tell me to get lost.
Instead, he just nods faintly. When I say nothing further, he drops his eyes back to his puzzle book.
“Did you eat?” I ask quietly. “I left you a plate in the fridge.”
“Yeah. Thank you for dinner, Belle. It was delicious.” He nods gratefully.
After another silence, he slides his hot lumberjack-professor glasses back on and returns to his crossword.
Well, at least he’s not kicking me out. So I take that as an invitation to explore the room some more. I start with the pictures on the wall first.
An image of a younger Archer, dressed in his military uniform, embracing his mom as he returns home from a deployment. A picture of Stella, perched happily on Archer’s shoulders as she eats an ice cream cone in the middle of the farmer’s market. A shot with all the Brighton brothers, struggling to keep up on the basketball court as Archer dunks the ball into the net. The little family photo gallery makes me smile.
In the corner of the room, a door slowly swings open on its own, startling the heck out of me. Peeking inside, I realize that it’s a gorgeous rustic bathroom with a deep bathtub, a walk-in shower and a huge wooden vanity. I almost sigh out loud, thinking of how relaxing a soak in that tub might be.
I move on to a bookshelf tour. I let my fingertips trail along the spines of the books, enjoying this tiny peek into the more private side of Archer. Some of the books on the shelves surprise me. Sprinkled between the classic detective fiction novels and the military sci-fi adventures and the non-fiction history tomes, I recognize more than a few well-loved romance books.
Archer Brighton reads romance books.
I was right. I always knew this hard-shelled man was soft and cuddly at the core.
I peek over my shoulder and steal a tiny glimpse of him, wondering about all the other parts of him I’ve yet to discover. Longing makes my chest ache. I want each and every one of his secrets. I want him to share every little piece of his story with me.
His firsts. His favorites. His triumphs. His regrets.
When his head starts to lift from his puzzle book, I snap my neck away. I absently pluck a novel from its place on the bookshelf. I begin to peruse the pages of Sense and Sensibility without really seeing the words.
Shit. The tension is so thick right now, I can practically feel it crawling across my skin. But I’m realizing that I like being near him, even when words aren’t being exchanged. My relationship with Razor was all about screaming matches and shouting fits. I grew so used to the chaos that I never understood what ‘companionable silence’ meant. But I think this is it.
The quiet is…nice. Even in Archer’s silence, there’s nowhere I’d rather be, and I find myself realizing just how starved I am for connection.
After a long moment, I dare to glance back in Archer’s direction. This time, I find him already staring at me. Well, at my ass, to be precise.
He’s checking me out.
Blatantly. Hungrily.
The shock of it makes the book slip from my fingers. It hits the carpet with a muffled thud. I hurriedly scoop it up, slipping it back on the shelf.
“Sorry…” I mutter quietly and I try to compose myself.
With an unreadable expression on his face, Archer simply returns his attention to his puzzle book.
Is he as nervous as I am? Or is he just wondering when I’m going to go away and leave him to his solitude? My usual insecurities raise their stupid heads.
A feeling of discomfort slips under my skin. A feeling of doubting whether he actually wants me around or if he’s just too polite to tell me to leave.
Just the other night, Archer basically made me an ultimatum. He admitted to being attracted to me, all while explaining that he’s not willing to get physical without a commitment.
A commitment! What normal, red-blooded man has ever uttered those words out loud? And with a straight face, too?!
That should be music to any normal woman’s ears. But I guess I’m anything but normal. Because I still have my ex’s voice ringing loudly in my head, reminding me that I’m just flat out unloveable. That nobody will ever truly want me.
If I commit, Archer’s just going to change his mind once he gets to know me at my core. And then I’ll be the one who gets hurt.
This whole thing is messing with my head.
Suddenly, I feel the need to taint the silence with words. “Can I ask you a question…?” My voice cracks the quiet air.
His lips quirk subtly. “We both know you’re going to ask your question whether I want you to or not.”
I roll my eyes and carry on. “How’d you get so comfortable being alone?”
His jaw ticks but he says nothing, head down and scribbling into his crossword puzzle.
Sucking up my nerves, I plow onward. “Kathryn…Does it have anything to do with Kathryn?”
Saying his ex-girlfriend’s name feels like throwing a grenade into the silence. But my curiosity is getting the best of me.
Unplanned words rush out of my mouth. “Why did you two break up? To me, it seemed like you two were the perfect couple. That you were going to get married and have babies and live this perfect life. I was a kid, so maybe I got it all wrong. But I’ve sort of wondered about it. About why you broke up.”
A pained look slashes across Archer’s forehead. But in a second, it’s gone. He huffs out a breath, not looking up. “You really are a nosy girl. You know that?”
I exhale harshly. “I’m not nosy. It’s just that…It’s just that, when it comes to you…” I cut myself off before I complete that thought.
He looks up now, one bushy eyebrow hiking toward his hairline, clearly interested in how I’m going to stick my foot in my mouth. “What about me?”
I want to know every damn thing there is to know about you. I’m lucky enough to catch those words before they slip out.
“I’m just curious,” I say instead.
Now, one corner of his mouth curls into a smirk. He taps his puzzle book with the end of his pen before picking up his thesaurus. “Hmm…Synonym for ‘curious’. Four letters. Starts with an ‘N’. Ends with a ‘Y’. There’s an ‘O’ and an ‘S’ somewhere in there, too.”
A laugh puffs out of my chest. “I never knew you were this annoying.”
“Well, there you go.” He throws a hand out at his side. “You just learned something new about me.”
Despite myself, I laugh again.
I give him a second, waiting to see if he’ll give me something, anything. But he doesn’t. I should probably leave him alone, but I just can’t help myself.
“Y’know, you claim that you want a commitment, yet I can barely get a sentence out of you. What exactly do you want me to commit to if we don’t even know each other?”
Shit. Maybe that was a bit harsh, too direct. But maybe Archer’s just interested in the idea of commitment, not with the reality of me.
Silence reigns once more and I give up. I’m not going to get a conversation out of this man tonight. Especially not on this particular subject. I might as well go back to my bed and take another shot at falling asleep.
“I’ll stop bothering you,” I whisper, hanging my head in resignation. “Have a good night, Archer.”
I pivot on my toes, taking light footsteps across the creaky floor.
But right as my hand turns the doorknob, I hear Archer speak. “I loved her. But she chose that asshole over me.”
Holding my breath, I slowly turn to face him.
He’s quiet for a moment before he goes on. “I fell for her back in high school. She sat in front of me in Biology class and I was so gone for her I didn’t know what to do with myself. When she asked me to dance at the Valentine’s Day fundraiser, I decided I was going to marry her the minute we graduated high school.” He grunts bitterly. “I was an eager, little fucker. Eager and in love and so dumb. At the time, I’d just gotten my first job—at the hardware store, actually—and I immediately started putting away a portion of every paycheck toward buying her a ring.”
“Oh, Archer…” I hear myself gasp, my hand leaping to my chest as I take a few steps toward him.
The sole of his foot taps rapidly on the old carpet. He tears his glasses off again and drops them on the table. “It was crazy—I knew it was. But I’ve always been a person who takes commitment seriously. Maybe it’s an ‘oldest kid’ thing.” He chuckles dryly before raking his long fingers through his thick hair. “The problem is, she didn’t feel the same.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“Kathryn and I dated exclusively for a while. But then she started flirting with other guys. When I told her how much I hated it, she said she wanted to ‘keep her options open’. I knew I couldn’t handle that, but I liked her so much I went along with it. I compromised my own needs. Because I was convinced that I could convince her to choose me in the end. I did everything in my power to win her over. But it killed me, having to share her with guys who didn’t give a fuck about her as a person. Guys who saw her as just another blonde with a nice body.”
My heart aches under the weight of his words. I watch the way his shoulders bunch up with tension. It’s taking everything in me to not just walk over there and wrap my arms around him.
“She got a summer job, working the reception desk at the local country club.” Pain slashes across Archer’s face now. “That’s how she started seeing Dan.” He collapses against the backrest of his chair, absently moving around the pieces of his half-finished jigsaw puzzle. “The two of them had started fooling around. I pretended not to know about it. I tried to just focus on winning her over once and for all. But everything went to hell one day when I went to surprise her with lunch. When I got there, she was already enjoying a mouthful of Dan’s dick in a golf cart on the edge of the woods.”
“What did you do?” I hear myself whisper, my heart pounding as I lower into the seat facing him.
“I broke down crying like a little bitch.” Archer grinds his molars. “And then I kicked his ass.”
I gasp loudly, hanging onto his every word.
“My heart was fucking broken and the dipshit was being smug about the whole thing. He made it clear that he had every intention of continuing to get his fill of Kathryn every chance he got. And my fist went flying like it had a mind of its own. I practically blacked out, losing my shit on him. The next thing I remember is security peeling me off him and tossing my stupid ass to the curb. I’m lucky he didn’t press charges.”
I cover my mouth with my fingers as my eyes start to blur with tears. My heart breaks for the teenaged version of Archer, having his spirit crushed in such a cold way.
“The worst part is, Kathryn didn’t try to fight for me, she didn’t show any remorse, she didn’t ask for another chance. She told me that Dan was an opportunity she couldn’t miss out on and that she had to make the ‘smart choice’.”
I laugh bitterly. “Great to see that her ‘smart choice’ is working out so well for her today.” Her husband clearly doesn’t seem to be interested in her or their kids in the slightest.
“I was devastated and all she cared about was the doors that Dan’s trust fund and old money could open for her. Doors that the meager engagement ring money I was naively saving up never could.”
I rub a hand over my aching heart. “I hate what they did to you, Archer.”
He shakes his head as if to downplay his pain. “I guess I didn’t have the right to be hurt—I knew from day one what I’d gotten myself into—but I was hurt, dammit. It hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced. Maybe I was more disappointed in myself for letting her lead me on. I should have never let things get that far. I should have protected myself. To this day, I’m still kicking myself for being such a fool.”
“Archer, you were a teenager.”
He lifts his chin defiantly. “Yeah. I was a teenager then. But I’m a man now. And I’ll never carelessly open myself up to making that kind of mistake again. To answer your question, I decided a long time ago that being alone was better than feeling the way Kathryn made me feel.”
I’m beginning to get the bigger picture of the puzzle that is Archer Brighton. So much of this enigmatic man makes more sense now.
“So you’ve never been in a relationship since then?” I ask.
“I tried, but I never found someone who was willing to give me the depth I was looking for. I can’t do the superficial relationship thing. I can’t deal with disloyalty. It just doesn’t work for me.”
“But you can’t let your entire life revolve around one heart ache,” I insist. “You can’t let one rotten person dictate how much happiness you’re allowed to have in your life. That’s not fair to you.”
He refuses to look at me. He doesn’t want to hear it. “Kathryn altered the trajectory of my life. All I know is, I haven’t been able to look at the world the same ever since.”
I’m on the verge of tears. I don’t know how much longer I can sit here without them spilling down my cheeks.
I reach across the table and lay my hand on top of his. He flips his palm over, making my chest stutter when he weaves his fingers through mine.
“You have to live your life, Archer. To the fullest. Because Kathryn is living her life. It is clearly a shitty life, but at least she’s living it.”
He only grunts, still avoiding my eyes.
“You may think that you’re punishing her but in reality, you’re only punishing yourself.”
He stubbornly withdraws his hand from mine, reaching for another piece of his jigsaw puzzle. “I’ve tried. But I can’t see things any other way.”
The silence returns but this time, it’s not so pleasant. It’s not companionable at all. I can tell that Archer isn’t angry with me. He just has a lot to think about. I decide to give him his space.
I rise from my seat. “Good night, Archer,” I say again.
His eyes lift to mine, looking bereft and lost. The moment drags out before he says, “Good night, Belle.”
I turn to walk away. I have a lot to think about, myself.
His voice is low and tender when I hear him call after me. “And Layla?”
“Yeah?” I say over my shoulder.
“You’re never bothering me.” There’s a vulnerability in his eyes when he says it. “I…I always like being around you.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips despite the heaviness in my heart. “I always like being around you, too. Regardless of all the weirdness between us, I’m glad to call you a friend.”
“Yeah.” He watches me with piercing intensity. Gosh—this man’s stare is unnerving. “But make no mistake, Layla. I want you as more than a friend,” he confesses.
My startled heart does a happy somersault inside my chest. His words are a tiny stroke to my fragile ego.
“Archer…” I whisper quietly, my longing stirring inside me.
But he quickly pulls the rug from under me. “Too bad there’s only so much I can do about that.”
I wince at the implicit reminder of Archer’s boundaries. And my complications. And all the other bullshit life keeps throwing in our path.
“You know where I stand—I can’t do this if it’s only physical. I’m the kind of man who goes all in.”
This is all so complicated. Maybe it shouldn’t be. But it is.
No matter how much we like each other, I’m not sure that either of us is willing to climb over the invisible wall that’s keeping us apart.