Chapter Twenty Remi
Chapter Twenty
Remi
The amount of time it took me, Gavin, and the two strapping athletes to unload Pops’s entire life was not indicative of how long it had taken us to pack, sort, and donate his entire life prior to move-in day.
All four of us had vehemently denied his request to help unload, so he was the traffic director instead, perched on the edge of his new bed, instructing us on where he’d like everything to go.
While Archer and Grant (I refused to call him by his last name) moved the larger pieces into the house, Gavin and I started unpacking the wardrobe boxes.
We had already gone through two, and I shifted hangers around as Gavin passed them to me, keeping the colors grouped together the way Pops liked them.
“No, no, not that way. I want the dresser on the other wall instead.”
Grant and Archer froze, as they’d almost set the heavy wooden dresser into place where I’d instructed.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “This is a bigger wall.”
Pops nodded. “We can put my chair by that wall instead. Then I can see into the front yard when I come take my afternoon quiet time.”
I snorted. “You mean when you snore for four hours, all the while pretending you don’t ever nap?”
“I’ve never napped a day in my life,” he said, utterly affronted. Archer turned his face into his arm, clearly hiding a growing smile. “I’m just resting my eyes.” He tapped his cane on the floor. “Dresser over here, gentlemen.”
Archer swung his end around, the two of them pivoting positions. Against my better judgment, my eyes took a lazy perusal over the way his muscles flexed as he carried that piece of furniture like it weighed absolutely nothing.
The curves of his biceps were obscene, like someone had wedged perfectly round boulders underneath the skin. It really was no wonder his ego was the size of a small nation. If I were a man walking around looking like him, I’d probably be full of myself too.
“Is there a bathroom I can use?” Grant asked.
I smiled. “Gavin, can you show him where it is?”
I was on a roll this week. A second NFL player waltzing through my home and I wasn’t worried about scuffed trim or the fact that my end tables didn’t match.
All that was left to be moved into the room was Pops’s chair.
While he waited for Grant to return, Archer picked up a dustcloth and wiped down the top of the dresser, then the face of each drawer, spending a little extra time around the aged brass handles.
The veins along the tops of his hands shifted as he rubbed.
I swear to God, I felt it between my legs.
Pops cleared his throat, and I ignored the pointed look in his eyes, heat crawling along the back of my neck. So what if I was staring? Staring wasn’t illegal. Not at veiny hands like that.
“I can unpack those,” Pops said.
“I’m almost done with this box. Then it’s just dresser stuff.” I hung the last of the hangers and shifted the cumbersome box out of my way. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you do your own underwear.”
Gavin shouted for Pops from the other room.
“What?” Pops shouted back.
“You’ve already got a bird at your feeder! It’s one of those cute gray ones with the orange on it.”
Pops pushed up from the bed. “A tufted titmouse? Don’t scare him off, little bug, I want to see.”
Archer and I traded an amused look as he left the room, and the heat from my neck climbed just a little bit higher.
“We get very excited about birds around here,” I said.
“I do love a good titmouse.”
I rolled my eyes, which made him laugh. God, what a laugh it was too. It wasn’t loud or boisterous or meant to draw attention. It was quiet. Amused. Low enough that I had to strain to hear it. Deep enough that it sent a shiver down my spine.
Fortunately for me, he didn’t notice, already looking for something else to do.
As I worked on the chunk of clothes, I watched from the corner of my eye as the edge of Archer’s mouth lifted in a tiny smile. The box at his feet was pulled open, and a framed collage of pictures, just me and Pops, sat above a few others.
I set the burgundy sweater on top of a black one, allowing him a moment to look without interruption.
“When was this?” he asked.
Archer angled the frame so I could see it better, his pointer finger tapping at the bottom corner.
I smiled. Pops had his arm around me, both of us younger and skinnier than we were now, and we were standing in front of the maroon Cadillac he used to drive.
In my hand was a set of keys, the picture taken while I was mid-laugh. Pops was about to burst into tears.
“That was the summer I got my driver’s license.” I brushed a speck of dust off the glass. “He taught me how to drive in a church parking lot down the road from the house where we lived at the time. He was more stressed out for my driver’s test than when I had to do testing at school.”
“Why?”
“Because he had to drive me everywhere, and he kept talking about how he was so ready to hang up his chauffeur hat.” I smiled softly. “And the day I got my license, he couldn’t stop crying.”
“How come?”
Even if lingering eye contact was a terrible idea in such close proximity, my eyes found his all the same.
“Because we lost time together. Hours in the car every week, where he’d hear about my day.
What I was stressed about. What made me happy.
Until I got the keys, he didn’t realize how precious all that time really was. ”
Archer tilted his head back, a small humming sound coming from the back of his throat. “I’ve never thought about it that way. But my mom was long gone back then, and my father never would’ve taken the time to talk about anything other than football, even if he did sit in the car with me.”
There were deep-blue streaks in his eyes that I’d never noticed.
“How did you get around if it wasn’t him?”
“I had a driver,” he said, having the good sense to look slightly abashed.
“Of course you did,” I murmured.
His face creased with a grin—a deeply, unfairly attractive grin—and while I tried to settle the burst of deeply, unfairly strong nerves at what that grin did to me, Archer shifted the slightest bit closer, his bicep brushing against my bare shoulder.
The air changed with that movement, small though it was. The simple addition of his skin on mine, no matter how innocent, made my mouth go dry.
“How old were you when your mom left?” I asked.
This was why I was single, ladies and gentlemen. A moment of ripe sexual tension and my first response was to ask about his childhood wound. Like a fucking pro.
To his credit, though, Archer didn’t seem deterred.
“Eleven.”
I rubbed at my heart. “I’m sorry. That’s so young, but still old enough to remember.”
“Not as young as Analise,” he said lightly. “A couple years of trying to handle two kids, even with the help of nannies, and she was gone. Took a payout from my father and walked away.”
“I will never understand,” I whispered.
“That’s because you’re a good mom.”
I turned to look up into his face. “Mine died when I was five. Heart attack that was likely caused by the drugs and the drinks she loved.”
His face fell. “Remi, I—” Archer swallowed, giving his head a slight shake. “Fuck, I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s all right. I don’t usually give the full story because it’s easier to say she had a heart attack and leave it at that. It’s a more palatable tragedy, isn’t it?”
We both had had mothers who chose something else over us, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much of our worst impulses, the ones we’d flung at each other so early in this relationship, stemmed from the seeds they’d planted.
His gaze lingered on the side of my face as I set the picture down. “Thankfully, I had my grandparents. My grandma died about two years later—Pops always said it was from a broken heart.”
Archer was quiet for a moment, letting out a sigh before he spoke.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? How much destruction broken people can leave behind.
And they move on without a second thought of what’s trailing behind them as a result.
” Archer reached up and tucked some of my loose hair back, his thumb tracing the shell of my ear.
My spine shook, but I kept still, stayed unmoving.
“You turned out better than I did, though.”
“Archer, your life is hardly a waste. Look at all you’ve accomplished.”
“I’m not fishing for compliments.” His eyes briefly glanced over my shoulder toward the other room, where the Pops and Gavin were watching the birds.
When he seemed sure we still had privacy, his gaze locked on mine again, and he dragged his thumb down the edge of my jaw.
“In every metric that matters, you’re a better person than me.
You burn so bright, and I’m not even sure you realize how powerful it is, being around the kind of light you generate. ”
He might not have fit a single criterion on my silly little list, meant to protect myself from exactly the kind of destruction he was talking about, but there was no mistaking it anymore: I’d have an Archer-size hole in my heart when he walked out of my life.
His features were blurry now, and I willed back the tears. When I opened my mouth to respond, he gently pressed his thumb to my lips. “Don’t worry, I’m not flirting.”
I had to blink a few times to clear my vision. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
Archer took a step back, his gaze tracking over my face. “Just stating a fact, firefly.”
A smile threatened before I could stop it. “Firefly?”
“Yeah. Pretty and bright. Everyone loves seeing them around because they make things a little bit more magical.” He tugged gently on the end of my ponytail. “Am I allowed to use that one?”
There was no way I could speak over the emotions wedged tight in my throat, but I managed a shaky nod.
His eyes warmed. “Good.”
Archer’s hand slipped down my arm, the wall of his chest skimming my shoulder when he left the room. I speared my hands in my hair and blew out a slow breath through puffed cheeks.