Chapter Two Archer #2
A provisional license to go back and forth between work and community service, for three months.
And a fine of $5,000 to cover the damage to the building.
To be honest, I’d gotten off easy. A suspended license was what I’d expected, but that was the one battle my father had won for me.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to breathe through the weight pressing on my chest, but it simply kept getting heavier and heavier.
Three beers, slick roads, and the shadow of a dog darting across the street. With my eyes closed, I could still hear my sister’s frantic shriek when the car jumped the curb and plowed through the fencing.
The muscles in my neck were tense again, and I tried to roll them out. Maybe some extra time in the treatment room after workouts the next day.
“The rescue will be expecting you,” the judge had told me, peering over her wire-rimmed glasses with a steely glint in her brown eyes. “Take this as the opportunity it’s meant to be, Mr. Evans. Do you understand me?”
Understanding was fine. Application was something else entirely.
According to my dad, Evanses weren’t meant to humble themselves, but as I turned the truck on and entered the address to the rescue, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when they were forced to. Like shoving an elephant through the eye of a fucking needle.
The drive from the courthouse to the rescue took about twenty minutes, and in that time, I thought about the disappointment I’d faced from different people in my life over the last couple years. Some, like my father, hardly registered. Others, like Coach King, hurt more.
Even worse was that Coach hadn’t even had to tell me he was disappointed the first time I came into the facilities after the DUI. It was all over his face. My teammates’ faces too.
I’d hardly spoken to any of them since.
I got there early, did what I needed to do, and left with as few words exchanged as possible.
What was I supposed to say? Sorry you thought I’d changed? That you thought I’d turned into something different?
It was better not to expect anyone to think well of me at all. If I could just find a way to do my job free of the burden of those expectations . . .
To be a good man. To lead the team by example. All the things they wanted from me.
I didn’t know how.
For the first time in a week, a flash of pretty eyes and red hair went through my mind.
She’d been disappointed in me too. Whenever the opportunity to do the right thing was in front of me, I always ended up veering sharply to the left of what that was.
My moral compass was skewed so fucking badly that I didn’t know how to correct it.
All their individual reactions still sat heavy in my gut, like a rock that kept tumbling around in my stomach. Something impossible to break down. Eventually it would have to, though, right?
Frustration built and built under my skin, a low hum of energy that I couldn’t expel. Frustration with myself. With my dad. The judge who was using me to make a point.
Like I needed anything to make me feel worse.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel as an uneasy feeling turned my stomach into knots.
I just needed to get it over with. Feed some puppies or take some pictures or whatever the fuck they wanted me to do.
The sunny-yellow building came into view, a large white-and-blue-and-yellow sign on the black shingles. Something I hadn’t noticed the other night when it was rainy and dark and the flashing lights of the police car distorted everything in sight.
Someone had cleaned up the damage done from the car, but I could still see the mangled fence and the wooden bench that had hooked on to the front bumper. The parking lot was empty, save for two cars parked in the back corner underneath tall, thick trees that shaded the entire space.
Just behind them, I saw a woman crouched on the ground with her hand outstretched. Her hair caught my notice first—red and curly and tied on top of her head in a messy knot.
The air punched from my lungs so fast, like someone had taken a baseball bat to my chest.
It couldn’t be.
A black dog was in the tree line, eyeing her warily, and I sat up in my seat as I turned the truck into a parking spot.
It was the same dog that had darted across the road the night of the accident.
His attention turned to me, and I let out a deep, aggravated breath before hopping out of the truck. The door got away from me, and it slammed more loudly than I’d expected.
At the noise, the dog was gone in the blink of an eye, only some rustling leaves left behind. The woman deflated, dropping her arm with a groan.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she answered, standing from the crouched position, her focus on the tree line. Tall. She was tall. I drank in the sight of her body, now covered with a baggy T-shirt and black leggings. It had to be her. “He’s been cagey all week.”
In the seconds it took her to turn around, my mind spun in a million different directions.
She was here.
Oh fuck, she was here. That meant she worked at the shelter.
She was either going to punch me, or we’d have a great fucking laugh about how small of a world this was. I really, really hoped it would be option two.
What color were her eyes?
Then she shook her head and swept her hands briskly down the front of her leggings before turning toward me with a friendly smile on her face.
God, it sounded cheesy, but she was so fucking beautiful, my lungs stalled for an agonizing second.
When I finally pulled in a breath and thought maybe, just maybe, this community service thing wouldn’t be so terrible, her smile disappeared and her eyes—big and green and thickly lined—went just as cold as my father’s.
Before she even opened her mouth, that gorgeous, kissable mouth I’d fantasized about no fewer than a dozen times in the days since I’d seen her, I felt a sick twist in my gut.
“You asshole.”
Option one. She was definitely going for option one.