Chapter Six Archer #2
Coach. I could call Coach. He’d listen to me, right? I couldn’t call my father. Didn’t have a mom to ask, because she left him so long ago, not caring enough to take me and Analise with her.
There’d been no one in my life to teach me how to do this shit, but I’d seen Coach with his wife, knew what kind of man he was.
What kind of husband and father. He loved them, unreservedly, and didn’t care who saw it.
There were no strings to his affection, and that was probably the kind of person I needed to talk to right now.
I stood up and pulled out my phone, ready to search for his contact info, when movement caught my eye in the parking lot.
The dog was sniffing around my truck.
In the light of day, I could finally see him clearly. He had a medium build, mostly black with some brown markings, a hint of white on two of his paws. A Lab mix, or maybe a hound.
I thought about interrupting Remi, but I could hear her on another call. Sitting by the front door was a small bag of hot dog pieces and a simple leash that could be looped around a dog’s neck. She’d set them there just in case anyone saw him.
I took a deep breath and tucked the hot dogs in my pocket, then looped the leash around my hand, cracking the front door just enough that I could slip out without triggering the bell attached to the frame. I kept my steps quiet, steady, but he lifted his head when he saw me.
His eyes were blue.
I slowed, setting the looped end of the leash on the pavement as I kept the other end tight in my grasp. I’d seen Remi do something similar the last time she’d tried to get him to come close, but that time, the blare of a car horn on the street scared him off.
Even though his body language was tense, he didn’t run.
I held eye contact while I eased myself onto the ground. “Nice to finally meet you,” I told him. “You caused one hell of a domino effect in my life.”
His head tilted, his frame relaxing a little at the sound of my voice.
“I know you didn’t mean it. I’m like that, too, you know.
I do stuff and I don’t always know why. Can’t see what might happen as a result.
” I carefully opened the bag of hot dogs and tossed a few in his direction.
One bounced close enough that he lowered his nose to smell it, then took a step closer to eat it off the ground.
I stayed still. He took another step and ate another one. Then another.
When the pieces I’d thrown were gone, he lifted his head and watched.
“Still hungry?” I tossed a few more, making sure the majority of them landed inside the loop of the leash. “I tell you what, dude, if I could bring you in there safely, I’d get some pretty major brownie points with her.”
Remi had been calling him Bandit, and he paused again, not moving closer to get more food.
“Not that that’s your responsibility,” I told him.
“It’s my problem to fix. Sometimes things that come easily to other people don’t always come easily to me.
Usually relationship stuff, you know. I didn’t have a good example growing up.
And I shouldn’t find it this hard to be around a beautiful woman who interests me without acting like a jackass, but I’ve spent the entire week doing that. ”
He ate another piece but kept his gaze flicking back to me, just to make sure I wasn’t moving.
“In college, and even the first couple years in the pros, no one cared much if I was a nice guy. I didn’t have to be the best version of myself. I just had to win.”
I tossed a couple more pieces closer to him, and he ate them quickly. When he stepped forward to eat the pieces inside the loop, I held my breath, making sure my body stayed perfectly still.
“When Coach benched me, then I got injured, that all seemed to change.” My stomach sank as I actually said the words out loud. “People looked at me differently, and I didn’t know how to change it. I still don’t. Definitely not now.”
All the pieces were gone, and Bandit stared at me expectantly.
I tossed him a few more, keeping them inside the loop. He ate them.
I threw a couple more.
“Maybe it’s just about being patient,” I said as I watched him. “Doing little things that add up to something big.”
Bandit lowered his head to eat, and I moved quickly, shifting onto the balls of my feet and tugging backward with the leash so that the loop pulled over his head.
He jerked back with a yelp, but jerked in exactly the right direction—darting to the side instead of back—so that the leash was firmly around his neck.
I stayed down at his level. “Easy, buddy, I’m not going to hurt you.”
He wrenched his body as far away from me as possible but wasn’t fighting the restraint like I thought he might. I gave him the last pieces of hot dog, and he only hesitated for a moment before inhaling them like he had all the others.
“You’ve probably been struggling out here a long time, huh? Nowhere soft and warm to sleep. That’s gotta get old. You come inside and you’ll have the cleanest floors in the world, I promise.”
I let out a slow breath when he raised his head—there was slack in the leash.
“Good job. Should we go inside and say hi?”
The door flew open behind me.
“How did you—”
Remi was wide-eyed, glancing incredulously between me and the dog. I held out the leash in her direction. Bandit stared between us, much in the same way she’d just been doing.
“I guess he was ready today.”
Her mouth fell open, and the way she looked up at me made me feel ten fucking feet tall.
“Archer,” she exhaled softly, then shook her head. “Thank you.”
This. This was so much better than her anger.
It was a heady thing, and my mouth went dry at the way her eyes held mine. It wasn’t how she’d looked at me when we sat in that darkened corner in the bar. It wasn’t how she’d looked at me on the dance floor.
She didn’t know me then. I didn’t know her either.
Those were looks based on only the superficial, only the things our eyes could see.
This was something different.
Something better. Something powerful and slick as it swelled in the space between us.
Oh, how I wanted more.
As I took a step back, I refused to drop her gaze. The color climbed slowly up her cheeks.
I wanted more of that too.
“See you tomorrow, boss.”