Chapter Eleven
Echo
A RCHER POINTED TO his chest. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Why do you think I brought you here, tonight?” I asked, my thoughts drifting to what it would be like to burrow into that chest.
“I didn’t know where we were going tonight, remember? And believe me when I tell you, arts and crafts would have been my last guess in a thousand.”
“You said I got to call all the shots for our evening entertainment, so go out there and pick a piece that speaks to you. Then you can put on a smock, and I can help you choose the best glazes to use to achieve your desired results.”
He grinned. “You had me at smock, beautiful .”
The way he said the word beautiful made me feel the following ways.
Number One : I experienced a physical sensation I can only describe as ‘Everything from my ovaries down turning to a gelatinous goo and falling to the floor.’
Number Two : Now I wanted to do more than burrow into his chest. More specifically, I wanted him to burrow into my chest. And then I very much wanted him to burrow into my, now fully recovered, downstairs lady parts.
Number Three : Sheer. Vomit inducing. Panic.
I smiled politely and Archer made his exit.
“Okay, Echo fucking Weston, Warrior Princess. What’s your big plan?” I hiss-pered to myself.
Who was I kidding? I had no plan. There was no way I could have prepared for something like this. Something like him walking into my life. Barging into my life and completely taking over every thought I had. All the time. All day long.
“Oh, my, frog! Are you falling in love with him?” I asked, my hands immediately covering my mouth before I could utter one more insane thought out loud.
Was it an insane thought? Social cues are a challenge for me, but he clearly said he wanted to date me, right?
I mean, he at the very least, implied it, didn’t he?
Or did I read into something he said? Wait, what did he say, exactly ?
You know what, I’ll bet he’s not really into me and he’s just being polite because he’s a nice guy.
And now I’ve developed some sort of teenage crush on him and have made things weird.
I stood up and walked over to the door to the ceramics room, summoning my courage as I did.
The moment Archer walked through that door I was going to straighten this whole thing out.
However, he did or didn’t feel about me, or I did about him didn’t matter.
Any thought of us dating or whatever was ridiculous.
He was a biker and I was, well, me. He gave me a ride because his boss told him to and now, he doesn’t need to do that anymore.
I don’t even know why I brought him here.
Then Archer walked in holding an unfinished, pear-shaped teapot in his hands and I lost the plot.
I went straight at him as he stood defenseless holding the ceramic.
My hands went to his face and I kissed him.
My god, how I kissed him. And then he kissed me back.
It was, without exaggeration, the most thrilling moment of my life.
I’d had a small handful of boyfriends, none of them I’d classify as long term, and of course I’d kissed all of them, but not like this.
We were doing more than kissing. We were connecting.
“Whoa,” Archer whispered, as we finally broke our kiss.
“I don’t know why I did that,” I said, softly.
Archer smiled. “I hope it was because you wanted to.”
I nodded. “I did.”
“Good, me too. Plus, you spared me having to work up the nerve to do that myself. ”
“Can we do it again?” I asked.
“Can I set my, uh, teapot down first?”
“Oh, of course,” I whispered, letting out a quiet chuckle.
Once the teapot was on the workbench, Archer wasted no time.
He pulled me into his arms for a deep embrace and his chest felt as heavenly as I’d imagined.
Then he kissed me and this one was even better than the last. There was absolutely no denying I was falling for Archer.
Doors number one and two could be chopped up for firewood for all I care.
I’d walked through door number three, and it was glorious.
Eventually we summoned the strength to separate our faces long enough to glaze our ceramics. And now, even that term made me think of him.
“Study your teapot,” I instructed my new pupil. “What kinds of tones come to mind when you look at it? What color excites you as you study the piece?” I asked.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“I asked what excited you .”
“ You excite me, so I’d like the teapot to be your favorite color.”
“There’s that silver tongue of yours.”
Archer furrowed his brow.
“What’s wrong?”
“To use your phrase, I don’t like that. Saying I’m silver-tongued makes me sound like I’m handing you lines in order to manipulate you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Good, because I’m telling you right up front, I’m not going to lie to you. I understand how much you value the truth, even when it hurts, and I couldn’t agree with you more. So, if we’re starting something here between us, just know that I'm not gonna play any kind of mind games with you. Ever.”
“So, we’re starting something here?”
Archer smiled wide. “Well, yeah. I hope so. I’ve never met anyone like you before. You keep trying to convince me that I’m gonna think you’re weird, but I don’t. I feel like I can read you like a book. Most of the time, anyway. The rest of the time you’re a complete mystery to me.”
“I know I can be difficult some—”
Archer stopped me. “I didn’t say you were difficult, I said you were mysterious, and you don’t need to apologize for that or anything else for that matter.”
I’d never had a one-night stand or slept with someone on the first date, but I swear if I had let Archer keep talking like that for one second more, I would have locked the door and let him take me right there on the glazing table.
“Okay, let’s focus on our pottery for a bit, huh?”
Archer smiled, placing his hand over his heart. “Whatever you say, professor. I am your humble student.”
He joked, but Archer was humble. He was cocksure, but not cocky.
If he’d never met a woman like me before, I’d certainly never met anyone remotely like him.
A tall, not so dark, and handsome motorcycle club member with the soul of a poet.
I still couldn’t believe I marched up to him and read him the riot act like I did.
He could have been some sort of maniac biker for all I knew.
But for some reason, I’d never been scared of Archer.
Not for one second. And that’s what scared me the most. There was no question about it.
I really was falling for Archer. It wasn’t rational, sensible, or least of all, convenient, but it was the truth.
“Blue.”
Archer scrunched up his face. “What?”
“My favorite color is blue,” I replied.
He smiled. “Then my teapot will be blue.”
Inspired by Archer’s motorcycle, I chose a silver and black motif for my vase. Using glazes that contain glitter to add extra shimmer to the piece. I guided Archer through the color selection process, explaining that the final color of each glaze isn’t realized until fired in the kiln.
“So how do you know exactly how the piece is going to look as you’re glazing it?” Archer asked.
“You don’t,” I replied. “The more you work with each color, the closer you can approximate how it’s going to look after being fired, but you never know one hundred percent how it’s going to turn out. That’s part of the joy of working with pottery.”
“So, I only saw one throne out there,” Archer said, changing the subject. “Is there a King in this kingdom?”
I shook my head, keeping my eyes on my work. “Not after the queen found out he was sleeping with their accountant. Queen Annette got the business in the divorce.”
“What did the king get?” Archer asked.
“To keep fucking their accountant,” I said .
Archer laughed so hard, the whole building must have heard him.
“Sorry,” he said, covering his mouth. “Your jokes come out of nowhere. It cracks me up.”
“No one has ever told me I was funny before I met you.”
“It sounds like you’ve been hanging out with a bunch of corpses for most of your life.”
“Corpses?”
“Yeah. You know. People who died a while ago and don’t have the good grace to go lie down somewhere.”
I laughed. “I think you might be right.”
We finished glazing our pieces, so I showed Archer to the kiln, and we placed them inside to be fired.
“Annette will fire our pieces tonight, along with the day’s studio patrons. They’ll be ready by tomorrow for pickup, but I usually just wait until next Thursday.”
Archer smiled, raising an eyebrow. “So, is that it for the evening?”
“Is that your way of asking ‘Your place or mine’?”
He laughed. “No, I’m really hungry and was wondering if you wanted to get something to eat.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I told you I’m bad at the whole dating thing. My last relationship was a total nightmare, and I really like you and don’t want to act like…like…me.”
Archer smiled, taking my hands in his. “You really like me, huh? ”
I nodded.
“Good,” he replied.
Once again, everything below my equator turned to goo.
* * *
Archer
Ten minutes after finishing up with my last client of the night, I was on my bike headed north to Vancouver.
I was ‘on a mission,’ as my mom would say when I was a kid.
She told me I’d get this certain look on my face, coupled with a forward leaning posture that let her know I was on a mission.
Dead set on accomplishing a specific task, damn the torpedoes.
I arrived at Sir Ramic’s Kingdom just as Annette was saying goodnight to her last customers of the night.
“Oh, Arrow,” she said, looking a bit rattled. “Is…is…there, ah, some…something I can help you with?”
“It’s Archer,” I said, pointing to my name patch. “It says so, right here. And yes, there is something you can help me with.”
“Oh?”
“Echo mentioned last night that our ceramics would be ready to pick up today. I’d love to do that now if I could.”
“You…you want to pick up your…”