6. Archer
CHAPTER 6
Archer
“Okay, Ellie is out cold,” Ryder announces, trotting down the stairs of his home. He drops onto the loveseat with me and points at the plate I’m holding. “You gonna eat that?”
I look down at the serving of strawberry shortcake I’ve been moving around the plate but not eating while we played Pictionary and shake my head, handing it over. “Take it.”
“Yes,” he gloats, rubbing his hands together. With a forkful already in his mouth, he asks, “So, what are you gonna do?”
“About what?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. When I don’t budge, he rolls his eyes. “About Tinsley, dipshit.”
“What about her?”
“Jesus Christ,” he sighs. “Are you intentionally being stubborn, or has all that intelligence in there—” he says, tapping a finger on my temple, causing me to swat at him, “—eaten away at your common sense?”
I scrub my hands over my face and drop my head back on the cushion.
“I don’t know. I don’t fuckin’ know.”
“She’s single.”
“Yep.”
“And she’s here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So are you going to…”
“Ryder, I wish I knew.”
And I do.
I’ve been asking myself the same thing since we ran into each other. Willful obstinateness when answering my older brother aside, I really wish I knew.
A few years after she left, I tried to move on, but nothing stuck. No one elicited even a fraction of what she could in me, and after several failed first dates, I stopped trying and accepted what I already knew to be fact.
Tinsley is a once in a lifetime kind of woman, and I had a once in lifetime kind of love with her. What we had—it’s not something that can be replaced.
And therein lies the problematic paradox that’s been keeping me up the last several nights.
I’ve moved on from what happened, learned to live with it and all my unanswered questions. But I haven’t moved on from her. She’s still my paradigm of love. I want to be free of her and our history, but I still cling to every moment and memory, choosing to surround myself in them with every song and the few reminders of her having been in my life that remain. I’m angry over her sharing us with the world and turning our relationship into a best selling album despite knowing it could, and probably would, happen one day. But at the same time, I want it to mean something. To mean she’s still as tangled up in me as I am in her. As haunted by the past and the cast aside future as I am.
I want to get lost in her all over again. Let her come in and turn my world right. Get wrapped back around her finger. Feel the soft, warm press of her body molded along mine. Have my fingers tangle in her hair and my lips on hers. Reclaim the pieces of her that were once mine alone and erase the memory of anyone else having had a share of them. Give her back the things I’ve never shared with anyone else.
Even knowing how it ends, I want to do it all over again. Relive it all. Love her as I did then and have it grow with who we are now.
The wreckage would be worth it. It always has been. Because the pain means it’s real.
“I’m gonna tell ya now what I told ya then, and maybe this time you’ll listen to me,” Ryder says, scraping the last of the shortcake onto his fork. “I think you should go after her.” He slaps the outside of my knee with the back of his hand before standing. “Don’t let her get away from you a second time, Arch. The regrets you’ve been carrying for ten years will be your only comfort for the rest of your life if you do.”
“It’s not that easy,” I quietly reply.
“Did you say somethin’?” Ryder asks, turning back from heading into the kitchen.
I shake my head and answer, “No.”
“‘Kay, if you say so.” He starts to walk away but before he enters the kitchen where our mom and Hunter are doing the dishes, he says, “Ease doesn’t matter if you want somethin’ bad enough. And I know you never stopped wanting Tinsley. I also know there’s no way that girl ever stopped wantin’ you. The only thing that has ever been in y’all’s way of being together is the two of you.”
That’s Ryder. Always ready with buckets of unwanted, sage wisdom and an outlook of boiling things down to their simplest form and solution. But how am I supposed to go after her when last time I wasn’t enough?
“Archer, honey?”
“Yeah, Mom?” I answer, getting up from the loveseat and following Ryder into the kitchen.
Our mom, Eleanor, has dark hair that is streaked with gray and is often tied back in a ponytail. At hardly more than five foot two, we all tower over her by a foot or more, our height having come from our dad, Bryce. Hunter’s greenish-blue eyes come from her, but all three of us have been told all our lives we have her smile.
I lean over the island where she’s wiping down Ryder’s counter while Hunter starts the dishwasher behind her. She stops what she’s doing and evaluates my face.
“You’re not sleeping, sweetheart. And when was the last time you took out those contacts? Your eyes are completely bloodshot.”
At the mention of my eyes, I can’t help but rub at them. I normally take them out an hour or two before bed and read until I go to sleep. Since my mind’s been too keyed up to sleep, however, I’ve forgotten to remove them the last three days.
When I don't immediately answer her, she tsks, “If you have to think that long about it, it’s been too long.”
“I’ll take ‘em out when I get home,” I placate. She doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at me. “And I’ll wear my glasses all day tomorrow.”
“Very good. Now, why aren’t you sleeping?”
“You know, I’m thirty-one; I don’t need you keepin’ after me.”
“I’m your mother—it’s what I do. You three may be grown, but you’ll always be my babies and I’ll worry about your health and how well you’re taking care of yourselves until I die.”
She’s interrupted by a loud vibration coming from the drop bucket where we deposit all our phones and tablets before family dinner.
Mom snaps her fingers and says, “That’s why I called you in here. Your phone has been buzzing up a storm. First texts and now it sounds like calls.”
I reach in and pull my phone out, its screen lit up with Ames’s name.
“What’s up?” I answer.
The rowdy Friday night crowd and too loud music at Dark Horse—Ames’s bar and restaurant—blares through the phone.
“Archer, you there?” Ames yells back.
“Yeah man, what’s up?” I shout.
“I’ll be right back,” he says to someone, and a moment later things on his end quiet down enough for him to speak at a normal volume. “You need to get over here.”
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Your girl and that smoke show of a blonde are here.”
I’m instantly on alert, pinching the phone between my ear and shoulder as I swipe my wallet and keys from the hook and table at the backdoor that leads to Ryder’s garage.
“Are people giving her a problem?”
“Nah man, you know I wouldn’t let that happen. I mean Donny Suthers was tryin’ to take pictures of her earlier, but he’s always had more muscle than brain. Tossed him right out and told him he’s not allowed back if she’s in here.
“I’m callin’ because Tinsel’s fuckin’ plastered—like worse than the Fourth of July when you said, ‘We’ve all been drinkin’ long before turning twenty-one. What’s the harm in lettin’ her try some jello shots?’
“She’s been out there dancin’ with her friend, havin’ a good ol’ time, but that dick Mason Hucksley’s just joined the party and she ain’t tellin’ him to keep on steppin’.”
I grip my phone and breathe for a second, trying to calm the jealousy pounding through my veins. My teeth are clenched and back stiff as I force out, “If that’s what she wants?—”
“It’s not though. Trust me, Arch. When I’m not helpin’ sling drinks, I’ve been with them both all night listening to every word she’s said. Now, are you gonna come remind Mason fuckin’ Hucksley and every other man in here itching to chase her skirt that she’s your girl or what?”
“She doesn’t want me,” I quietly hiss, because I know my mom and brothers are listening in as best they can.
“The fuck she doesn’t. You haven’t been here; that girl could have Chris Hemsworth or some shit proposing to her and she would drop him in the blink of an eye if you so much as smiled at her.”
If Tinsley’s as drunk as Ames says she is, nobody should be joining her night out with Briar. She can’t fucking consent, and the fact that Mason Hucksley is still trying has my red haze of jealousy thickening with anger. The situation and my reaction is murky as shit, but I can’t stay here and do nothing. And if there’s even a chance at what Ames is saying being true, I don’t think I can stay away. Not again.
“I’m on my way.”
“Atta boy. I’ll keep cock blockin’ ‘til you get here.”
“Thanks, man,” I snort, hanging up the phone. I shove it into my pocket and run my hands through my hair before picking up my hat and putting it on.
I say a quick round of goodbyes, staring Hunter down when he makes a derisive comment about me still being pussy-whipped, which gets him smacked with the towel by Mom. Then I’m out the door, in my truck with the high beams on, and leaving the ranch, headed for town.
With a combination of empty streets and going well above the speed limit, I shave ten minutes off the thirty minute drive and am pulling into Dark Horse’s parking lot just after ten o’clock.
Before I’m even inside, I can hear the music and cheering pouring out of the bar. From the doors’ windows, I can see everyone gathered around the bartop, and when I walk in, I know why.
Up on the lacquered wood is Tinsley, Briar, and several women close in age but not from here wearing Bride and Bridesmaid sashes, dancing like this is Coyote Ugly to “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” She’s like a siren on the bar, and without conscious thought, I’m sucked in, my eyes laser focused on her as I make my way through the gathered crowd.
Her hips further entrance me as she moves them to the music, her hands bunching up the skirt of her white dress that’s dotted with wild roses, showing off her toned, tanned thighs as she shimmies down to her heels and back up. Her pink cowboy boots from the other day are replaced by brown ones with white embroidery and the dress she has on has an open, plunging neckline tied together with a brown leather or maybe suede bow. She spins around, her hair in heavy waves and pulled back from her face in a braid, boots stomping to the beat as she and Briar move in close to one another.
When I reach the front, I’m standing beside Mason, right beneath Tinsley, and it’s like we’re magnets. We’re immediately pulled to one another. She spins back to the front and her eyes find mine, locking her in on me. Mason’s presence is completely forgotten. Her body snakes to the music, hands pulling the skirt of her dress higher and higher until she’s bunching it between her thighs and lowering down into a slow, sensual crouch right in front of me.
Her whiskey eyes are bright with exhilaration and alcohol, her smile wider and more genuine than anything I’ve seen of her in the last ten years. She mouths, “Hi,” and then snatches my Stetson right off my head, winking at me as she puts it on, and moving her sexy as sin body back up to standing.
Tinsley and the rest of the girls all crowd together in a line, shimming into and back from one another until the chorus hits again. Then, with a quick break away from the others, she slaps her hands down on her thighs before throwing her arms up and tossing her head side to side. When the guitar riff hits, she mimics it on air. And when Joe Elliot starts in on peaches and cream, she stares at me, unblinking, as she sings along, egging me on to fire her up.
My jeans are uncomfortably tight by the time the song is over. Any honor that could have been found through my jealous motivations of coming here is gone. Especially when she starts to slide off the bar and, unable to control myself, my hands find her waist and help her down, lowering her slowly and with hardly any room to breathe between us.
Her hands come up to my chest when her feet hit the floor. I know she can feel my heart racing beneath her palm as sure as I can see her chest rapidly rising and falling, rivulets of sweat rolling down her chest into her cleavage, begging to be licked, and her nipples drawing up into hard, unignorable points against her dress. I take one hand off her waist and reach up to adjust my hat she stole so I can see her eyes, her head tilting back to look up at me.
We’re drawn into one another, her tongue peeking out and licking her lips as I start to lean down. Electricity courses through my veins, my fingers drifting from the brim of my hat to her hair where they’re begging to thread through, and with the hand still on her waist, I pull her closer.
That small jolt breaks the spell. Instead of letting me close the space between our lips and kiss her, Tinsley’s shoving me back and turning away so she’s facing the bar and Ames.
“I want to close my tab,” she slurs, her arms coming around herself as she curls over the bartop.
“Not a problem, Tinsel.”
She looks around for a minute and I think she’s misplaced her purse, but then she shouts for Briar. The blonde skips up to her side and flicks my hat on her friend’s head.
“I’m ready to go,” Tinsley tells her. “Can we pay and get out of here?”
“Sure but we need to get a rideshare. It’s too far to walk back.”
“Not to mention dark and desolate. Didn’t you say you were renting by the lake?” Ames objects. “It’s not safe.”
“I’ll take you both home,” I offer.
“No thank you,” Tinsley dismisses without looking at me. “We’ll walk. Or Ames, maybe you can bring us when you’re done?”
“I would, Tinsel, but I don’t close until two and it’ll be another hour at least after that to clean and close out the registers and shit.”
She huffs and turns to Briar, taking her by the elbow and moving her down a few stools where they whisper back and forth.
I pull out my wallet and lean over the bar, handing Ames my card.
“Awe, aren’t you sweet?” he says, batting his eyes like a fool as he takes the card.
“Shut up or I won’t tip.”
“You invested in the bar; you can’t tip me. You shouldn’t even be paying.”
“I’m always gonna pay, Ames.”
He jabs his knuckle at the screen, pulling up Tinsley’s tab and closing her out on my card. With the receipt printed off, he rips it from the machine and hands it over to me. “Thanks, man. It means a lot that you did this for me.”
I wave him off and stuff the paper in the back pocket of my jeans without looking at it.
“Did they eat?”
“Not much. I dropped some bacon cheddar fries with ranch and Tinsley ate a few but not near enough to absorb all the alcohol she’s had, and her friend’s even worse for wear. She doesn’t eat meat or dairy and you know I ain’t got any of that fancy L.A. shit here, so she’s been munching on celery and carrot sticks. I've been keeping them as hydrated as I can, but I’m pretty sure they’re sweating tequila at this point.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and mutter, “Fantastic,” trying not to laugh.
It's going to be exactly like the Fourth of July when she said she wanted to have alcohol for the first time and I let her go to town on the jello shots she ended up liking.
The girls come back over and Tinsley’s arms are crossed and her face in a mean pout while Briar looks so sweet you know she’s gotta be anything but.
“Tins,” the blonde coaxes with a soft slur, nudging her friend forward. “Don’t you have something to say?”
She swats her friend’s hand away and is cute as fuck when she grumbles, “We are very appreciative of you offering to bring us home, Archer. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure, Shortcake,” I reply, the old term of endearment rolling off my tongue far too easily.
I’ve seen her twice and already the past and the present are blurring together, the floodgates on our history giving way and making it impossible to not succumb to her all over again.
“Don’t call me that,” she quietly snaps, her lip quivering so badly she has to sink her teeth into it to stop it.
Her arms appear to tighten around herself, pushing her tits closer together, and it’s an act of God not to look but I manage. She’s so small and vulnerable right now that it would make me the worst sort of asshole to let my gaze roam over her when she clearly needs someone to comfort her.
From behind the counter, Ames holds out two trash bags that I take and stuff the tails of into my pocket as he says, “Y’all are all set.”
“But the tab,” Briar protests, suddenly unsteady in her teetering heels.
“Archer took care of it,” he answers, coming out from behind the bar. He places his hand on her elbow and says, “You look a little unsteady; let me help get you into the truck.”
“Well thank you.”
They head toward the door and I offer my hand to Tinsley. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” She nods, her earlier sensual exuberance gone without a trace.
She doesn’t take my hand, but as we weave our way through the crowd, she stays close to my side, allowing me to guide her through with a hand on her bare back. It’s a small win, but with her guard suddenly up and impenetrable, I’ll take it.
The girls are quiet the whole way with Briar passing out about halfway and Tinsley only speaking enough to tell me they’re renting the old Whiticker house so I know where I’m going.
When we get there, we’re met by a new gate on the property, flood lights and cameras, and a security system I’m not entirely sure is made available to the general public.
“Mikey and John went a little overboard,” Tinsley explains. “Just uh… just put in 7-8-7-3-7-6-2-6. It’s my personal code; I’ll change it tomorrow.”
“I’m not just gonna let myself in and waltz up to your front door, Tinsley.”
“Hold on,” she says, unbuckling her seatbelt when a phone starts ringing from the backseat after I put in her code.
She grabs the small purse Briar had and pulls out a phone. Accepting the video call that’s waiting for her, she greets, “Hi, John,” making an odd sweeping gesture with her fingers across her collarbone.
“Understood,” he curtly replies before smiling, all traces of his harshness evaporating.
She rolls her eyes and then groans, her palm going to her forehead.
Whoever John is, he snorts. “One night and you’re already three sheets to the wind. You realize it’s not even midnight, right?”
“In my defense, I did drink nearly a whole bottle of rosé before we went out.”
“Is there anything we need to handle?”
“No, just coming home,” she answers, looking a little pale. “You know, you’re supposed to be on vacation. Not monitoring my security system. Have you and Mikey even left Tennessee? Or are you two hanging out like a bunch of spooks at the resort watching me with sniper scopes?”
A second man’s voice comes through and asks, “Who’s driving?”
“Just open my gate.”
“Uh-uh, not until you tell us who drove you home.”
I think it’s John who adds, “Have ‘em hold their driver’s license up to the screen.”
“Oh my God,” she whines, before slapping a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she looks at me.
I know that face. It’s about to be the Fourth of July spent on the bathroom floor while I hold her hair back all over again all over again.
“Uh guys, we don’t have a lot of time. Those shots and strawberry margaritas are about to make a reappearance.” To speed things along, I give them my full name and rattle off my driver’s license number.
“You try anything and we’ll hunt you down, you hear me?” one of them threatens.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I respond, punching the gas as the gate swings upon.
“Miss Jacobs, we’ve already unlocked the doors and disarmed the house. You’re good to run in as soon as you get there.”
“Thank you,” she whimpers, before ending the call and dropping the phone on the floorboard.
“I don’t feel so good,” she moans, a tear slipping free.
I reach over the console and wipe my thumb over the wet trail and murmur, “I know, baby.”
As soon as we pull up in front of the house, she’s stumbling out of the truck and flying inside.
I get out and come around to the passenger side. Opening the back door, I unbuckle Briar and sling her arm around my neck, lifting her deadweight out of the truck. I bump the door closed and follow Tinsley inside, the sound of her retching coming out from a bathroom just off the living room. With only a sliver of light reaching out from the bathroom, I can’t make out too much of the house. What I can see are massive picture windows that frame the waxing moon and its reflection on the glass-like surface of the lake.
“I’m gonna put Briar in her bed; which room is hers?” I call out.
Over the sound of the toilet flushing, Tinsley sounds pitiful.
“Upstairs, second door on the right.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” she answers before puking again.
I get Briar into her bed, laying her on her side with a leg dropped and bent forward and the trash can from the attached bath on the floor beside her. I time her breaths for a minute to check for signs of alcohol poisoning, and when it appears she’s in the clear, I head back downstairs.
Through the crack in the bathroom door, I see Tinsley’s kicked off boots. Gently, I knock on the door, it creaking open just a bit more.
“Tinsley?”
“Go away, Archer.”
“I can’t leave you alone like this,” I murmur, pushing open the door. Inside, she’s a heap on the patterned tile floor with her arms wrapped around the toilet and her cheek resting on the rim.
Tears are freely falling from her ashen face.
“I don’t need you.”
“I know,” I laugh mirthlessly. “Trust me, I fuckin’ know that.” I sit down and pull her hair back from where it’s fallen in front of her shoulders. With the thick mass of wilting strands gathered in one hand, I smooth my other along the slope of her spine. “But since I’m here, let me take care of you.”
It’s sudden and violent when she pukes again, weeping through the dry heaves as she fumbles around for the toilet handle.
When she’s done and slumped back over, I rip a wad of toilet paper from the roll and wipe her mouth, tossing it in.
“What’s your wife going to say when you get home?” she mumbles, eyes heavy.
For the life of me, I can’t place where in the world she got the idea that I’m married. I don’t have a ring or even a tan line of one. Hell, I’m not even dating anybody. It’s such an absurd assumption or miscommunication that I can’t help the laugh I let out.
“I’m not married.”
“Fine, girlfriend,” she wrongly corrects. “I mean, I’d be pissed as a wet cat if my, whatever y’all are, was out in the middle of the night with a woman who wishes she was still fucking him.”
That’s a sobering confession. One I hadn’t expected from her and has my chest feeling light as air. But she’s drunk. It doesn’t count. So I let that airy bubble of sudden elation and dangerous hope float away.
“I don’t have one of those either.”
More tears roll down her cheeks and I try to catch them, wiping them from her pretty face. I hate when she cries. Her tears make the honey in her eyes glow and shine. It would be beautiful if not for the false warmth they give off.
She sniffles and blinks, freeing more. Her voice is a soft stutter.
“But you have Ellie and God is she beautiful, Archer. She’s such a beautiful little girl. I’m happy you have her, really. I just wish…”
“What?” I whisper, welcoming her back against my chest as I lean against the wall and she follows. “What do you wish, Tinsley?”
She rests there for a moment, her breath turning slow, and I can’t help myself. I wrap my arm around her, lowering my chin to rest on her head.
I think she’s fallen asleep when her fingers trail over my watch, playing with the clasp. She pops it free and lets it slide further down my arm, exposing the tattoo that still lives there.
Her thumb caresses over the red ink, and I feel her soft touch along my whole body.
“I wish you had her with me.”
“Had who?”
“Ellie.”
She’s nearly asleep, and I don’t want to disturb her, but the laughter bubbles up in my chest, gently jostling her as I try to suppress it.
“Shortcake,” I murmur, tucking her hair back, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “You’ve got it all wrong. Ellie is Ryder’s daughter. Not mine.”
Her drowsy eyes crack open and search my face.
“She has your eyes.”
“Yeah, the same as Ryder and our dad.”
“So she’s not yours?”
“No, baby, she’s not mine,” I confirm.
Tinsley nods her head slowly, her eyes falling back closed as sleep finally claims her.
I hold her there on the bathroom floor for a few minutes longer, soaking in the part of me that’s been missing, trying to fill myself up with her before I leave and tuck her confession away with the rest of my memories.
When I start to drift off as well, I pull back. Standing up, I easily pick her up and carry her upstairs to an open bedroom overlooking the lake. I lay her down in the slated iron bed and pull the fluffy comforter from one side over her body, tucking her in. Before I leave, I bend down and kiss her forehead, offering her one middle of the night confession in exchange for the one she gave me, though she won’t hear mine.
“I only want babies if they’re with you.”
Then, after turning the fan on, I head back downstairs. In the girls’ kitchen, I find bottles of fancy electrolyte water in the fridge and grab two. I also remove two bananas from the bunch hanging from a fruit basket on the counter and quietly open the drawers and cabinets until I find a bottle of non-acetaminophen pain killers mixed in. I run everything back upstairs, dividing it between both their nightstands.
And because I can’t resist, I leave a note for Tinsley on her pillow with my hat before heading out, giving a two finger wave to a camera I spot above the front door.
And though I said I wouldn’t, when I lay down in my own bed, I think about her wish and what it could mean for us before falling asleep.