Chapter Twenty-Five Archer
Chapter Twenty-Five
Archer
It was a well-known fact that the two most intimidating people in the front offices were the team owner, Pearl—a stern octogenarian who took no shit from anyone and had outlived multiple husbands—and Coach’s executive assistant, Bridget. Everyone knew she held the real power in the building.
Lucky for me, I was facing both of them.
I approached with a polite expression on my face and clasped my hands in front of my body, in case I needed to protect my balls.
Pearl stood behind Bridget’s desk, wearing a pink tweed dress and a diamond necklace that probably cost more than my house.
Anytime I was near, her facial expression resembled a faintly annoyed parent who still loved their kid but also fantasized about smacking the shit out of the back of their head.
“You want something from me?” she barked. “If you’re trying to ask for a raise, I haven’t had enough sleep or coffee to laugh you out of this office.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m here for Bridget.”
Pearl sighed. “Lucky her. You gonna earn your paycheck this season?”
My neck felt hot. “Yes, ma’am. I hope so.”
She grumbled something under her breath, snapping the binder in her hands shut. I thought she’d go back to her office, but both women merely waited for me to speak with faintly amused expressions.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “Bridget, I came to get that . . . thing.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Yes, this thing cost me about seven favors in order to get it done in thirty-six hours, so you owe me, Evans.” From behind her desk, she produced a sleek white box with the Buffalo logo on the top.
“Don’t worry, though. I’ll call it in at a very inopportune moment when you least expect it. ”
The box was light in my hands, and I held it carefully. “Can’t wait.”
She smirked. “Who’s it for?”
“A friend.”
Bridget and Pearl traded a look, but Pearl was the one to speak next. “If it’s a female friend, the kind that you’d like to play naked Twister with,” she said pointedly, “I suggest flowers and jewelry. Not merch.”
The ground could swallow me up at any point.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
Bridget snorted quietly.
“Thank you,” I told Bridget, lifting the box slightly.
Her eyes warmed imperceptibly. “I hope it achieves the desired result.”
“Me too.”
Since Remi had walked out of my house not even forty-eight hours ago, time had slowed to a sluggish crawl. My entire body vibrated with the need to seek her out. She hadn’t asked for space, per se, but she was off the day before. Therefore, I had no reason to be at the shelter.
Missing her was the best I’d ever felt in my entire life. It was an ache that felt good, like the healing of a bone, or the stretch of an unused muscle flaring back to life.
That being said, I didn’t really know what to do either.
There was no protocol for this. No game plan I could take home and study.
Remi wasn’t like reading a defense, who had a clear, definable objective, lining up against me while I tried to execute my own. Nor was she an opponent, even though it felt at times like we were always in opposition.
Wanting the same thing, going about it in entirely different ways.
Left up to me, we’d have spent the entire night in bed, and the next day doing clothed activities that I wanted just as badly.
I could’ve taken her out to breakfast. Her and Gavin.
There was this place not far from my house that served the best cinnamon rolls I’d ever had in my life, and I wanted to see their faces when they tried one.
We could have watched a movie or played Mario Kart in their small living room, and I would have been the happiest guy in the entire fucking world.
Even if she couldn’t see a clear path there, Remi wanted that too. All that was left was to find a compromise, if there was one to be found.
The sun was bright as I exited the building, and I whistled quietly as I walked to my truck. Just as I hooked my seat belt over my chest and lap, my phone buzzed in the console, the shelter’s name appearing on the home screen.
A smile spread over my face before I could stop it.
God, I was a sap for this woman and couldn’t dredge up a single fucking ounce of shame over it.
“Good morning, firefly,” I said.
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Remi?”
“Yeah, no, this is Vanessa, I’m just . . . stroking out over here about the nickname.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Good morning, Ness,” I amended.
“Firefly? That little shit, she did not share that with her friends.” Then she muttered something under her breath that I couldn’t catch.
“What was that?”
“Oh, just that the giant hickey on the side of her neck makes a lot more sense now.”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth, resting my head back as I slammed my eyes shut, thankful Vanessa couldn’t see the heat climbing up my cheeks. “What can I do for you?”
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Remi won’t call you because she’s been handling her own shit for ten years, and while I’m all about being an independent woman, I’m also not a huge fan of arriving at work to see my friend being harassed by paparazzi.”
My head snapped up. “She was what?”
“Maybe harassed is a strong word, but she was unloading some stuff from the parking lot, and those nosy little fuckers were snapping pics and asking her questions about you, and it was a whole thing. Had her pretty flustered, and I told her to call you, but she insisted on not bothering you because it wasn’t your fault. ”
The silence that came after this statement very clearly pointed to the fact that it was, in fact, my fault, and we both knew it.
“They still there?”
She hummed. “Hanging just past the property line. I think they’re waiting for you, pretty boy.”
I clenched my jaw and turned the truck on, the roar of the engine ratcheting up the pulse racing in my ears to an unhealthy level. “Give me fifteen minutes and they’ll get what they want.”
“Glad to hear it. I may go entertain myself in the meantime, but it’s good to know you’re so responsive.”
The drive over wasn’t just tense—I thought I’d snap the steering wheel in half from the pressure of my clenched fists.
This was my dad. It had to have been.
The cavern inside my chest was brittle, like if I breathed in too deeply, hairline cracks would appear.
This was Remi’s nightmare, playing out on her metaphorical front yard.
It was so much more pleasant to spend my morning obsessing over the way she tasted, over the feel of her soft skin under my hands, the noises she made when my tongue touched hers.
Even though she’d pulled back, our parting hadn’t felt like a rejection. It hadn’t felt like defeat.
But now defeat was the thing knocking at the door, an ominous tapping with cruel, bony fingers.
If my dad was behind it, he’d picked a hell of a weapon.
The irony, of course, was that prior to this, I was always more than capable of detonating my own kind of destruction.
Now that I’d started making better decisions—decisions meant to inject distance between us—he was snapping at my heels, trying to light fire to the entire thing.
When I was tiptoeing toward something good, something pure in my life, something untainted by him, he had to do this.
By the time I arrived at the shelter, I was well and truly pissed off, anger rolling off me in waves.
Except they were gone.
There were no guys with cameras. Only two cars were in the parking lot—Remi’s Toyota and the white Jeep that belonged to Ness.
I hopped out of my seat, slamming the door behind me so hard that the entire truck rocked from the force. The fact that they’d left was good, and yet I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that I didn’t get to smash someone’s camera.
And the moment I did, they would have another headline. Another piece of ammunition. I sank against the side of my truck and scrubbed my face with my hands.
“Ness is in so much trouble.”
The sound of Remi’s voice made me drop my hands and straighten. She approached, her arms crossed over her stomach. Her hair was down, covering the thin straps of a royal-blue tank that made her eyes bright like jewels.
Those eyes could hardly meet mine, and the realization slid like a knife into my gut, quick and sharp and soundless.
“What’d they say to you?”
Remi sighed, glancing over her shoulder at the shelter. “I told her it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Remi . . .”
She shook her head. “They snapped pictures of me when I was unloading a crate of puppies from another rescue. Once I got the dogs inside, I came back out to ask if they needed something.” Finally, her gaze locked on mine.
“They knew my name. Asked when you’d be getting here.
Asked if we’d been spending a lot of time together because of your community service,” she said pointedly.
I ground my teeth together, my hands clenching at my sides. “Anything else?”
“I asked them to leave,” she said with a helpless shrug. “They reminded me they were just outside the property line, so even if I called the cops, there was nothing I could do.”
“And then?”
Her eyes dropped down to the pavement and she leaned against the truck next to me but stayed far enough away that there was no risk of her skin brushing mine. Those few inches felt like a fucking mile.
How was it just last night that I’d thought I finally had her? That she would finally be mine? In the harsh light of day, and with reality intruding like a storm tearing the roof off my fucking house, the space she was keeping between us felt like a death knell.
“Then I went back inside and ignored their questions.” She tipped her head up, like the warmth of the sun on her face made her feel better. I might have tried it, too, but there was no tearing my eyes away from her. “I freaked out to Vanessa a little bit, and she called you.”
“When did they leave?”
Her mouth softened into a smile. “When Ness came outside with a bucket of dog shit and said she had really good aim.”