32. Archer
Chapter 32
Archer
T he engine’s quiet hum is the only sound in the truck besides her breathing.
I don’t look at her.
I can’t. Not yet.
Lottie’s in the passenger seat, hugging herself like she’s trying to hold the pieces in place, and I intend to get answers. I’m assuming because that fuck Crew came running out after her, that they cornered her, and I was too late to protect her… again.
My knuckles tighten around the gearshift, skin stretching white. I try to ease my grip, but I can see the slight tremor in Lottie’s frame, and I have to resist the urge to turn the truck around and go back to them and demand answers.
I don’t say a word; I don’t think I could if I wanted to, and she doesn’t push me—not after the fight we had. I don’t know why I said the things I did… maybe I do—but I just don’t want to admit to myself why or how much she really affects me. I promised myself that I’d tell her how I felt, even if it means leaving my heart at her feet to stamp on.
Instead of turning toward the house, I veer off, heading down the long stretch of highway, toward the beach.
I pull up and cut the engine. “Shall we?” I ask, barely recognizing my voice. Rough, raw, like the words aren’t my own.
She nods, kicks off her shoes, and slips out of the truck without a word. I catch the flicker of something like relief in her eyes, and when I finally make my way to her, she walks ahead of me.
I follow. Of course I do. Lottie has pulled me in since the moment I met her, the tether between us snapping tighter with every moment I was around her, until it felt like I was walking a strained tightrope.
I feel something twist in my chest as I follow behind her, the same twist I feel whenever I think of the night I saved her.
I can feel the heat from the sand underneath my shoes, and the waves lap at the shore like a memory I haven’t been able to shake.
We don’t speak as we walk, just move until we reach the halfway point. I lower myself onto the sand, elbows resting on my knees. Lottie joins me a second later, not too close but close enough that I can feel her near me.
I exhale slowly through my nose. “I remember the night I found you,” I say, unable to look at her. We’ve never spoken about this night fully, and I’ve never wanted to. The memories are always too much.
She doesn’t answer, but I feel her tense.
“I thought I was seeing things at first. You were just a shadow, and I watched as you stepped back and jumped.” My voice falters. I swallow hard, fighting the lump in my throat. “I didn’t even think. I just ran. You hit the water, and I swore I stopped breathing. I told myself you’d surface…” I pause. “You didn’t come up.”
The wind kicks up a little, brushing her hair into her face. She doesn’t move it, she just stares at me. Unable to handle not touching her anymore, I reach across and brush it out of her face, with a tenderness I’ve only ever saved for her. “I dove in after you. It was freezing. My chest locked up from the cold, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t breathe or think as I saw you sinking. Limp. Like you’d given up and wanted it to end.”
I drag a hand over my face. “I got to you in time. Barely. Hauled you out, did CPR… and then when your eyes open, when you took that gasping breath of air, I swear to god, I’ve never felt that kind of relief before. But all I could think about was that the gorgeous girl I was holding in my arms, who I just saved, wanted to die, and it was like something lit up inside of me.”
I turn my head and look at her. Her eyes are glassy, jaw tight, like she’s fighting herself not to cry. “I’m sorry…” she rasps, but I shake my head, determined to continue.
“That night never left me,” I say softly. “Every time I was deployed, you were there in the back of my head. I’d see your face under the water, your lips blue. I’d wake up drenched in sweat, thinking you were gone, and I wasn’t there to save you this time…” I gulp. “It always felt so real.”
She presses a hand to her mouth.
“I tried to focus. To stay sharp, because out there, it means life or death, but the darker everything got, the darker my thoughts got. You ever wonder what the darkness in me is, Lottie?” I tap my chest with my fist. “It’s not bullets or blood. It’s that goddamn night that I saved you and lost someone I considered a brother. The fear that one day, I won’t be fast enough to save you, and I’ll fail you just like I did him. That I’ll lose you before I ever had a chance to make you mine.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Archer…”
“I know we fought,” I say, cutting her off, but I know if I don’t say it now, I never will. “About the stripping. I shouldn’t have hauled you out of there like some caveman… It just all became too much, and all I could think about was the pain in your eyes. It tore me up.”
My heart’s pounding, but I try to stay calm. I sink my hands into the sand beside hers. She’s still hurting, and it makes me ache knowing I caused it.
“It hurts, Archer,” she says quietly, her voice shaking like a thread ready to snap.
“I know it does, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I caused it.”
“It’s not just what you did.” Lottie swallows hard, her hands trembling as she looks out at the ocean. I can see the way everything’s affected her as she tries to keep the walls she’s built to protect herself intact. I worry that she’s going to slip back into the silence she used to protect herself, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she looks at me, her voice barely above a whisper. “I…” she chokes, “I don’t remember everything from before. It’s like the memories are locked away. I remember the pain. His voice, but there’s something niggling at me and I can’t figure it out.”
My chest tightens. I want to reach for her, pull her into me, but I know she needs to get this out.
“I told them half-truths about my parents. The parts I thought I could handle.” Her voice wavers. “I didn’t want to tell them the real story because, as much as they’ve hurt me, I couldn’t do that to them. I couldn’t let them see what I really went through.” She bites her lips, her eyes filled with pain. “Because the more I remember, the more it hurts, and everything I tried to escape is clawing its way back, and I want nothing more than to be back on the edge of that cliff.”
Her words cut through me like a knife, and I can’t help the way my throat tightens. I reach for her then, grasping her hand so tightly in mine to really assure myself she’s still here. A flash of anger surges through me, knowing that it’s because they’re back that she’s suffering.
They’ve cornered her, violated her, pushing her when they don’t deserve any of the answers they are trying to demand from her—it burns through me like fire.
“Sometimes, pain shows that you’re still alive. That you’re still here with a beating heart that’s purer than most.” I try to reason with her, hating that this is how she feels.
She shakes her head, her lips trembling.
“I don’t like it when it hurts, Archer. All I’ve ever known is pain. I wanted to start fresh, and now they are here, dragging everything up again. Why would I want to keep hurting?”
I can feel my heart shattering. It’s hard to look at her like this, because I want to fix everything. But I can’t.
“Because one day it won’t hurt,” I say, the words slipping out before I can stop them. “The pain will fade, and you’ll realize that the betrayal and hurt won’t define you anymore… I’m going to make you so happy that you’ll look back and wonder what it felt like to hurt so much.”
She looks at me, searching my face like she’s trying to see if I’m being truthful. “How can you be so sure?”
I move closer to her, lifting a hand to gently cup her cheek, my thumb brushing over her skin. “Because I would cut out my heart and sell my soul to Lucifer himself to make sure that all you ever know from this moment on is peace. Let me make you happy, Lottie.”
She lets out a shaky breath, and I swallow hard. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry for how I treated you. I’m sorry for hauling you out of there when I found out about the stripping. I acted out of fear… or anger, I’m not sure, but I know I shouldn’t have done it.”
Her brown eyes flicker, and for a brief moment, I can see the hurt in them, raw and exposed. “It hurts that you treated me like that.”
I want to say more to explain myself, but the truth is I don’t have the words for this. “I know. I can’t take it back, and I regret it. I should’ve treated you with respect and spoken to you instead of letting my emotions control me.”
She smiles at me, and I swear my heart thumps heavier in my chest.
“Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t. I love you too much to hurt you like that ever again.”
“I’m with Oscar,” she says.
“I know. I saw you both the morning after I fucked up. It gave me time to think, which is why I was avoiding you for a few days. I realized I was close to losing you. I love you, Lottie, and the only thing I want is for you to be happy.”
She sighs. “Then what do you want, Archer?”
“You. We’re not soulmates.” Hurt flashes across her face, sharp and raw, before she shuts down all emotion. Her mouth snaps shut, her jaw tightens, and I see the walls go up.
I can’t stand it.
I grip the back of her neck, forcing her to look at me. She doesn’t try to fight me, but her eyes are filled with so much confusion and pain that it makes my heart ache.
I can feel the tremor in her body from being this close, and I nearly break, wanting to devour her right here and now, but she needs to hear this first, so there’s no more confusion.
“We’re not soulmates,” I repeat, my voice surprisingly steady despite the storm I can feel swirling in my chest. “This is not fate or chance. You and me? I willed it. I knit the very threads of fate myself until it spelled out your name…”
“I love you on purpose. You have become my only purpose in life, and I love you with everything I am. Do you understand the power you have over me, baby? I’m yours forever if you want me.”
I slam my lips to hers before she can say anything. It’s not gentle or soft. It’s desperate, raw, as if I’m trying to prove to her everything I can’t say with words.
I pour everything into it—my guilt, my love, my fear that I’ll lose her.
It’s an apology.
A confession.
A promise that I’ll take the burden of all her pain.
For a moment, everything in the world is right. She melts into me, her hands tangle in my shirt, her lips moving with mine in a rhythm that’s purely our own.
It’s not perfect. It’s messy, but it’s real.
It’s her.
When we pull away, I look at her, my chest heaving, my mind still buzzing.
She’s staring at me, her lips slightly swollen, and her eyes are wide.
“Do you get it now?” I whisper, my hand still cupping her face, my thumb brushing across her skin like I can erase some of the pain.
She nods slowly, then her forehead drops against mine, her breath brushing against my lips. “I get it,” she whispers, the words barely audible over the sound of the waves crashing. “I just don’t know if I deserve it.”
A quiet anger flares in me—not at her but at the world for every making her think she’s unworthy of love, this deep and consuming. I take her hand in mine and softly kiss her. “You deserve everything, baby. You’ve survived hell and came out the other side still capable of love. That’s not weakness. That’s strength.”
Tears slip down her cheeks, but she doesn’t look away, and it undoes me more than anything else ever could because Lottie Reyes is finally mine. I wrap my arms around her, pull her into my chest, where I know she’s safe.
We stay like that, tangled in silence. She clutches my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear, and I hold her like I’m anchoring her to the earth. We listen to the waves, the wind, and the birds soaring above us until her grip loosens on my shirt and she tilts her head up to me, a content smile on her face.
“I’m never going to ask you to choose,” I murmur. “But I need you like I need air to breathe. I’ll understand if you aren’t ready to forgive me yet, what I did was so shitty and out of line but I’ll be here. Waiting for as long as you need and loving you anyway.”
Lottie sighs. “You said we’re not soulmates.”
“We’re not,” I say again, brushing my thumb along her jaw, “because soulmates are handed to you by the universe. This?” I lean in, my voice rough, my lips so close to hers that I can feel her breath against my skin. “This is a choice. And I choose you. I will choose you every damn day no matter how broken you think you are.”