23. Tea
Chapter 23
Tea
There are four types of loon calls you may hear that communicate different things between pairs.
The wail, used for long-distance communication between mates, particularly under stress.
The yodel, typically used by the male when he feels threatened by an intruder.
The hoot, a soft call that signals communication between the family at short distances.
And the tremolo, also known as the “crazy laugh” that is used when threats are perceived.
But there is also a fifth and lesser-known call—a soft cooing between two mates when they are close to one another at their nest.
The lake was quiet the next morning as Tea blinked her eyes open.
She wasn’t used to waking up to the quiet.
Usually by the time she woke up, people were out on the beach, the teenage cohort playing volleyball or making some kind of ruckus, and Pop was slamming cabinet doors downstairs while Nan pleaded with him to keep it down.
But this moment was still.
Serene.
She reached for her phone and discovered it was six in the morning.
Two notifications waited for her.
One was a missed call from Mom, likely on a break during her shift.
They kept missing each other the past few weeks.
She hadn’t had the moment to tell her about Archer, yet each time they missed a call, she couldn’t help feeling relieved.
She liked how safe things felt with Archer at the moment.
Inviting the rest of the world into it meant actually facing what came next, and she didn’t feel ready to face it.
Even though her second notification forced her to.
It was an email from Bank of America about her internship.
To: Theresa Richards
From: Bank of America Recruitment Team
Dear Theresa Richards,
We are pleased to let you know that Bank of America will be shifting our summer internship programs to new programs this fall.
We are delighted to welcome you as a Financial Analyst intern at the bank.
Given the state of the pandemic, this position will be a hybrid role.
This means some of the days you will work remotely, and others will be in-person at our offices in Manhattan.
We will send you the proper equipment for at-home work.
Your start date is September 15.
Please let us know if you are still interested in this internship, and we’ll send over a contract with salary details.
Thank you for your patience, and we hope you are keeping well during these trying times.
Stacy Gils
Bank of America Intern Program Coordinator
She turned the screen over and placed it on her nightstand, aghast. She lay there for a moment in stunned silence, then got out of bed and bundled up in a sweatshirt and leggings, making her way outside and sliding the screen door gently behind her.
Except for the early morning calls of the crows and the creatures slowly waking up around her, the lake was calm.
A family of ducks swam up to the beach, dipping in and out of the water.
The remnants of a thunderstorm lingered south of her, soft booms of thunder that passed over the resort late last night, leaving the grass dewy and the benches slick from the rain.
She wiped down the seat at the dock then curled into herself, admiring the lake and the majesty it beheld, quiet and serene, leaving her alone with her wandering thoughts.
Streaks of cotton candy–pink covered the sky, blocking the sun as it slowly rose to meet the day.
Tea couldn’t recall the last time she was up early enough to experience a Silver Lake sunrise, but she never forgot the feeling.
It made her feel small in a great big world, like a tiny speck in a grander plan.
A pebble on the beach.
A pinecone on a tree, moved by the force of the wind.
Without the rumble of boats, she could hear the soft hoots from the loons, echoing across the lake and into open windows and screen doors behind her.
What do I do?
She’d worked hard to get that internship.
She knew working at a bank wasn’t the most appealing career choice, but numbers made sense to her, and eventually the pay would be really good.
She chose this internship because it was closer to Mom, and after everything the two of them had been through—the late nights at the hospital, moving out of their home, finding ways to scrape by with only one paycheck coming in—she couldn’t fathom leaving her behind.
She had to return east.
She rested a cheek on her knee and listened to the loon songs.
Yes, this place was special.
It was the only place that truly felt like home.
But eventually, like the loons, they would all have to migrate elsewhere for the winter.
She couldn’t stay forever.
Nan, Pop, Larissa, and Astor were exactly where she and Archer expected them to be during an afternoon at the lake; enjoying chips, dip, and margaritas for happy hour.
They sat around the picnic table on the porch of Cabin F, already making a ruckus of noise as the two of them approached from across the lawn.
“Can I please hold your hand?” Archer begged.
“My god, can you not go a few minutes without touching me?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She shook her head.
Archer was doing a lot of that lately.
Sweet little comments that made her heart melt, expressing his need for her while his big hands roamed her body.
His mouth showing his need in other ways.
Her skin prickled at the thought of what that mouth did to her thirty minutes earlier.
“Hey.”
She looked up at him, his face soft and serious.
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be okay. One day at a time, remember?”
Tea hummed as they reached the porch.
“One day at a time,” she repeated.
They climbed the steps.
Larissa jumped from her sweet.
“Archer! Is that really you? Come to finally join me on my porch?”
He gave his mother a teasing face.
“Mom, I’ve come over for dinner a couple of times now.”
“A couple of times a summer is pathetic, son.”
“Hey, I’ve been busy!” He turned and pointed to Tea.
“Right? We’ve been busy?”
Tea shrugged.
“I don’t know. A couple of times does sound pathetic.”
His mouth fell open, which had everyone laughing.
His eyes thinned into slits, but a smile widened on his cheeks.
He liked when she teased him.
“Okay, okay, fine. I have another excuse,” Archer announced.
“It better be a good one,” Larissa grumbled.
Archer shrugged, then turned to Tea.
She nodded once, slight enough for him to get the message.
Go for it.
His mouth burst into that grin, the one that Tea couldn’t help but fall for.
Gleaming white teeth, teasing dark-brown eyes, a sharp jawline that made him look less like a boy in his youth and more like the man she had come to know.
Somehow in the years apart, Archer Vincent transformed into an even more gorgeous version of himself, and it stole her breath away.
She wondered what a man like him could see in someone like her, a woman barely holding on as her life sailed by at top speed.
Archer slipped a hand around her waist, then kissed her on the lips.
Nan and Larissa gasped.
Wayne and Astor cheered and clinked glasses.
“Since when?” Larissa asked at the same time Nan shouted, “How long?!”
Tea blushed.
“A week.”
Astor threw up his hands.
“A week?” He pointed to his son.
“It took you that long to seal the deal?”
Archer shook his head with a smile.
“Hey now, that’s not fair.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know, Arch. That is a long time to seal the deal.”
He squeezed her waist as the others laughed then chattered excitedly amongst themselves.
He leaned in close, his lips at her ear.
“Good things come to those who wait?” he murmured.
She smirked as she whispered back, “Shall I remind you of that later?”
He chuckled, his breath warm on her skin.
“You are not playing nice today.”
She turned to look at him, their faces close.
“I give you full permission to not play nice later as well.”
“You dirty little—”
She stepped out of his grasp, which made him laugh.
Tea took a seat at the table.
Archer lifted the last chair and placed it close to Tea’s so he could put an arm around her shoulders, his fingers gliding across her skin.
Larissa clapped her hands together.
“I want every detail.”
“No, you don’t. That’s gross,” Archer quipped.
She rolled her eyes.
“Not that kind of information.”
Nan furrowed her brow.
“I’m confused.”
Astor chuckled.
Wayne scanned the group, also looking confused.
“When did you first kiss her?” Larissa asked her son.
Archer looked at Tea with a sweet expression, like he was recalling a special memory.
“When we quarantined together.”
Even the mere thought of that kiss, how it went from sweet to very hot in a matter of seconds, made her skin go warm.
The way those hands of his took control, making her beg for more and more.
He rubbed her arm.
Larissa looked confused.
“That was more than a week ago.”
Archer frowned as he responded to his mother.
“Okay, relationship police. We had some things to work out.”
“And what did you work out?” Nan asked.
Archer moved his hand from her arm to her hair, combing sections of it with his fingers.
“That I don’t want to leave her side.”
Butterflies took flight in her belly at his words.
Not leave her side ?
What did that mean? Her thoughts spiraled as the aww s and how sweet s came from the group.
“Tea?”
She looked at Nan across the table.
“Have you told your mom yet?”
She hesitated, then shook her head.
“She’s been, um, really busy at the hospital. Haven’t been able to get her on the phone.”
Archer’s hand paused for a brief moment, then continued playing with her hair.
Astor popped up from his chair.
“This calls for more margaritas!”
Larissa and Wayne lifted their glasses and cheered.
Nan kept a close eye on Tea, hands in her lap.
Archer pointed to his father as he stood up.
“Don’t you dare touch that shaker. I’m making it.” He then turned to Tea and held out his hands.
“Time to learn how to make a proper margarita.”
She took his hands and let him lead her into the cabin.
He slid the door shut, then pulled her deeper into the cabin, away from listening ears.
He cupped her face with his big hand.
“Hey, you good?”
She hesitated.
He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone.
“ Talk to me, Tea. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She leaned into his palm.
“You don’t want to leave my side?”
“Does that scare you?”
She could have said no and kept things good between them.
She wasn’t ready to tell him the truth about what she woke up to that morning.
But this was Archer in front of her, her best friend of many, many years.
She knew she could trust him to hold her honest thoughts.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I’m scared.”
He leaned down to kiss her cheek.
“We’ll figure it out. One day at a time, remember?”
She didn’t say anything at first, then simply nodded.
Her thoughts were too muddled in her head.
The look of Nan’s face across the table.
The fact that she still hadn’t talked to Mom.
The internship. New York.
The man in front of her who wanted to be by her side but also had big dreams of his own.
Did this mean Archer wanted to give up his dreams?
What did he actually mean when he’d said that?
He laced his fingers through hers with a beaming smile.
“Come on, let’s have your first cocktail lesson.”
Tea stood at the counter as Archer grabbed all of the ingredients, as well as a cocktail shaker, a jigger, a small cutting board, and a knife.
She pointed to the latter two.
“What are those for? I thought we are making drinks?”
“For the lime juice.”
“Can’t we use the bottled stuff?”
He looked at her like she’d just committed a major crime.
“And this is why we’re having a lesson.”
She shook her head.
He chuckled. “What?”
Tea shrugged.
“It’s fun to see you passionate about something.”
He beamed, then moved to stand behind her and kiss her shoulder.
“I’m passionate about a lot of things.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, Casanova, show me how to margarita.”
He remained behind her as he pointed to the different objects and bottles.
“Most people assume when making a cocktail that you put the spirit in first, but you actually want to do it last. It’s the most expensive product going in the shaker. So if you screwed up your measurements and the tequila was already in there, then you wasted quite a bit of money.”
“Got it. So what’s first?”
He had her cut and juice a fresh lime, then add in the simple syrup and orange liquor.
Archer stepped up to the counter beside her.
“You could use blue agave instead of simple in margaritas, but we’re working with what we got.” He lifted the bottle of silver tequila.
“Now this is the part where we add the spirit.”
“ Finally .”
He barked out a laugh, then uncorked the bottle and handed it to her.
“Two ounces, so two pours in the smaller part of the jigger.”
She did as instructed, pouring in her measurements as Archer scooped ice from the freezer.
He tossed it in. Then he sealed the shaker with the top and handed it to her.
“Now shake really hard until the outside is so cold you can’t stand it.”
Tea went to shake, then hesitated and slid it over to him.
“Why don’t you show me?”
He smirked.
“Getting lazy?”
She leaned her elbows against the counter.
“I want to see you in action.”
He shrugged then lifted his arm and shook, his biceps flexing with each shake.
He was mesmerizing to watch, moving from two hands to one as he grabbed more ice for her glass, then reached for the strainer.
He popped it open and strained her drink, topping it with a lime wheel.
The entire moment was less than a minute, but it was enough for Tea to surmise that she could not be the reason Archer walked away from all of his connections in Minneapolis, or even his work at Wild Pines.
He was naturally good at all of it, and it was clear by the pleased expression on his face as he slid his glass to her that he loved it with his whole heart.
I don’t want to leave her side.
Her heart sank as she took a sip of the drink and watched him make another for himself, knowing deep down that while everything about their summer felt perfect, at some point she would have to say goodbye.