Minka
Archer watches me the next morning, his lips clamped firmly shut, his eyes warming the side of my face. And every time Cato so much as breathes a little louder than usual, his fiery stare transfers across like he’s not sure which of us will kill the kid.
Him or me.
“So…” Cato lies on the couch, hidden from where I stand, but he throws a bright orange basketball into the air and catches it again when it comes down. He throws it up, and then he catches it on the way back down. “Power stayed on overnight.” He clears his throat. “Good news, huh?”
“Shut up.” I set my coffee mug under the machine’s spout and select the kind I want—strong, black, unsweetened—then I stalk out of the kitchen and around the couch.
Not so I can see the kid who tries his hardest not to meet my eyes, but so I can sling the heavy window open and pray for a little cross breeze.
It smells like sex in here, and I don’t mean Archer and Minka sex.
“I’d like you to spend time at the hospital today, if you don’t mind.
” I straighten out and turn back, but when his glittering green eyes tiptoe over and meet mine, I shoot my gaze toward the ceiling, my chin up, my shoulders back.
Not today, Satan. Not today. “I spoke to Steve for a little while last night. He should be even better today. He needs company, and I need a set of eyes on him so I know what’s happening. ”
“All good.” He throws the ball up, then catches it when it comes down again. “I’ll go. I have nothing else to do today, since Whittaker said the stadium is closed, no exceptions, and that chick I was seeing thinks a flesh-eating bacteria ate half my fuckin’ brain away.”
“You confuse a viral infection with necrotizing fasciitis.” I return to the kitchen and wait for my coffee, impatiently tapping my foot. “I have a textbook you can borrow if you like. A little light reading while you sit beside a sick old man for a few hours.”
“We don’t need textbooks anymore, Doc.” He sits up on the couch and looks this way, so even if I don’t turn and meet his gaze—I refuse—I still feel the heat of his gaze on the back of my neck.
“We have this handy-dandy thing called the internet, and it’s on all our phones.
It’s fun, really. I can read a book or write a paper.
I can Google necrotizing fasciitis or gamble a few dollars. I can even watch people have sex.”
Frustrated, I lose my war against myself and peer over my shoulder.
He smirks. “You won’t let me have sex. The least I can do is watch it.”
“The porn industry is predatory and not victimless.”
“Yeah, but you keep running my dates off, and now you’ve started a rumor that includes me, STDs, and mental incompetence all in the same sentence.
” He lays down again and resumes tossing his ball.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think your insistence on keeping these women away was because you had the hots for me.
” The ball goes up. The ball comes down.
“If you want me, Chief, you just gotta say so. We can work together to get rid of Archer.”
I fist an empty mug and spin on my heels, my war-face on and a metric ton of rage bubbling in my veins. “Listen here, you little f—”
Archer intercepts, smoothly stealing my mug and turning me around again, then he shuffles me toward the door, grabs my phone and keys, and slips them into available pockets.
He dashes back to the coffee machine and snags my full mug, before joining me in the hall and slamming the door shut.
“Time for us to go to work.” He’s too smiley.
Too happy. Too relaxed. He hands me my coffee and slings his arm over my shoulders. “I knew that would blow eventually.”
“He says shit to annoy me.” I allow him to lead me toward the stairs, and though it’s piping hot, I sip my morning caffeine. “His entire goal in life is to see how close he can come to death at my hands, then escaping juuuust before I slit his throat.”
Cato opens the apartment door behind us and leans against the frame, folding his arms. When I glance over my shoulder, he winks. “Vote for Pedro.”
“You heading in to see Steve before the office?” Archer palms the side of my face and forces my gaze forward again. “Got time, or…?”
“No. It’s Thursday, and that stupid wedding is Saturday.”
“Stupid wedding?” He chuckles. “You mean the wedding between two of our closest friends and, in my case, my oldest brother? The wedding between two people we love very much, even if we don’t like them all the time? The one between two people who love each other very m—”
“Blah blah blah blah blah.” I make my hands ‘talk’, opening and closing my fingers and imitating a yapping mouth.
“The point is, the wedding is coming soon, and I have a whole heap of work to get through in the meantime. Chances are, Aubree’s gonna try to hang around today, too, since she’s a toxic workaholic who struggles to find a healthy balance between it and life. ”
“How toxically horrible of her. I can’t believe she—and only she, and definitely no one else we know—would behave in such a way.”
“You’re being extra obnoxious, too.” I drink my coffee and relish the burn. “I need to tie up a bunch of loose ends at the George Stanley, so I can clear out at least half a day on Saturday for Aubree. She’s going to want hair and makeup—”
“At a minimum.”
“And probably to try on dresses.” I drop my head back and sigh. “Again.”
He snickers. “I understand this is an especially difficult time for you.”
“I will not hurt my husband. I will not hurt my husband.” Chanting my mantra just loud enough for him to hear, I hide behind the lip of my coffee with a small grin, but as we move from one flight of stairs to the next, and eventually arrive at the bottom, my levity falls away, and my brows come together. “I don’t know how I’d deal if he died.”
Solemn, he takes my hand and helps me off the last step. “It was a pretty big scare.”
“I don’t like people. I don’t like depending on them, or holding affections for them, or caring if they’re around.
I learned a long time ago that pinning my emotions on someone other than myself typically leads to disappointment.
” We move across the overheated lobby-like space and through the front door without a hug or a witty good morning from the man who usually waits for me.
His absence is like waking up without coffee.
Like being alone with my husband and not touching.
Such a waste. Emerging into the filthy heat outside, I release a sigh and turn left.
“In my experience, hoping someone else is safe and happy is a quick way to being miserable.”
“You care about me.”
I make a sound in the back of my throat, a dissatisfied grumble that rolls through my chest and up, past my lips. “I made an exception to an otherwise important and well-thought-out rule.”
“And that time I got shot, you made damn sure I stayed alive. Since you’d invested such vital effort and importance in my survival.”
“I hear you mocking me.” Despite the heat, I walk closer and lay my cheek on his chest. “Being alone worked for me for a good long while, but then I moved to this dumb city, met a dumb boy, and broke all the rules.”
“And that dumb boy is, of course, Steve Morris.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“He’s gonna be okay, Minnnka. And you’re gonna hound whichever nurse we buy for him, regardless of her bra size.
You’re allowed to rely on people. It sucks when it goes pear-shaped, but we established last night, didn’t we? The good outweighs the bad.”
“The good will outweigh the bad for us. For me and you. Because we still have seventy years together, and at the end of it all, we have a plan to ensure neither of us is left behind. It’s not the same with Steve, though.
He’s going to die, Archer. Not today. Probably not even this year.
” I draw a heaving breath and fill my lungs to bursting, then I release it again, hot air escaping on a shuddering exhale.
“But he’ll die in a decade, at most. We get ten years, and in those ten years, he’ll deteriorate.
He’ll get weaker, and his hospital stints will get more and more common. He’ll—”
“You’re catastrophizing something that hasn’t happened.
” He drags me to a stop and backs me up until my shoulder blades touch the coarse brick wall behind me.
Staring into my eyes, he rubs my arms. “You know the human cycle better than anyone, babe. We’re born, we live, we die.
It’s the way the world goes. But keeping people away because you’re afraid of the inevitable end isn’t healthy.
Imagine never knowing Aubree, because you don’t want to feel that loss someday? ”
“If I never knew her, I wouldn’t have to try on stupid dresses this week. Twice.”
His lips curl sweetly. “If you never knew her, you wouldn’t be sad that she moved away.”
“My point exactly! She left, and she didn’t even consider how she used to be in my kitchen most mornings, crowding my coffee machine and making it just a little easier for me to carry my bad mood.
Joke’s on me, because I came to rely on her being there, then she went and fell in love with a stupid boy, and now I—”