22. Archer
CHAPTER 22
Archer
“You going to answer that?” Briar asks, nodding to where my phone is vibrating across the makeup vanity Tinsley was sitting at before being brought over to the wings of the morning show studio we’re at.
I glance at the screen to confirm it’s still Hunter calling and answer, “Nope.”
“It’s been weeks.”
“Years,” I correct. “He lied to me for years. And he’s not even apologetic about that; he’s just sorry I found out. So until that changes—” I reach out and silence my phone “—I’m not talking to him.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes at me, adjusting herself in the director’s chair, ankles uncrossing and recrossing as she checks the hem of her skirt. Elbows on the arm rest, she laces her fingers together and props her chin on them. “Look, you have a great family unit going on. Like, I’m so jealous of that. I know Tins is too, even though she’s basically one of you at this point. I’m just saying, and I know she would agree with me, don’t let your anger get in the way of that.
“You two have come back together and nothing is going to get in the way of that again. You're both adults now, like true adults, and you both know what it’s like to live without the other. Everything else… it’s just backstory in what is, like, the most epic love I’ve ever seen.”
“Quiet on set!” someone yells out, interrupting the reply I've yet to formulate.
Briar swats my knee with the back of her hand and whispers, “Come on; they’re coming back from commercial and our girl’s next.”
I step down from the chair and hold my hand out to help Briar, more than a little impressed by how agile she is in her dagger-like heels that bring the already tall blonde only an inch or two beneath my six foot five.
We’re led over to a spot opposite where Tinsley’s going to be coming out and watch as someone on set counts down from five, growing quiet before the hype man in the audience gets the crowd going for the show’s live return.
“Good morning and welcome back to The Katie Sylvain Show. We’re here, live in the studio, and about to welcome our next guest.
“She’s a chart topping performer with a sold out global concert and a recent surprise album release that has quickly become everyone’s summer soundtrack, with ‘Destined To Fall’ absolutely shattering records. I am, of course, talking about none other than Tinsley Jacobs!”
The members of the studio audience go absolutely crazy for my girl as she comes out with a beaming smile, waving to everyone. She’s wearing the sparkly white dress she had on for Ellie’s birthday with pink and white cowboy boots on her feet, and her dark chocolate hair a riotous, sexy mess.
Katie Slyvain stands up from her couch and meets Tinsley halfway. The two hug and excitedly chitter about the other’s outfit. They sit down together, Katie tucking a leg under herself as she curls up with her coffee mug as if she’s at home and not on a live talk show that’s airing across the country, and Tinsley primly smoothing the short, poofy, cupcake-like skirt of her dress, legs draped to the side and ankles crossed.
“So,” Katie starts, setting her mug down. “How have you been? It feels like forever since I’ve had you on the show.” Before Tinsley can answer, she gives a leading smile and says, “My producer told me you brought a certain someone with you this morning.”
Tinsley's smile instantly goes from the pretty, practiced one to a shy blush. She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks down, teeth biting her lip. “Um, yeah,” she softly answers, making the audience whisper.
“Girl, you have to tell us everything. I mean, you come home for a hiatus from your tour, are all over social media for keying Corey Withers’s car, and then you disappear for weeks, only to turn back up here in L.A. with—based on what tabloid photos have been able to capture—a very sexy man. Who is he? Is it serious? Tell me everything.”
“Goddamn it,” Briar hisses, snapping her fingers at the producer. “We explicitly told them you were a non-topic. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I dismiss, enjoying watching Tinsley in her element. It’s entirely different from seeing her on magazine and tabloid covers or quick clips on social media. She’s effervescent and radiant, effortlessly getting people to eat out of the palm of her hand. For all her stardom, she looks and sounds like someone’s best friend, genuinely down to earth and unaffected by her starpower.
“It’s not fine,” Briar snaps. “It’s a direct steam rolling of her boundaries. Uh-uh, I won’t have it.” She’s off, high heels echoing on the floor in sharp staccato, inviting herself to the stage’s foreground where the cameras and producers are.
I stay in the shadows of the wings watching, unable to help myself as I smile. Tinsley was made for this.
They are a few minutes into the segment—Tinsley graciously trying to redirect Katie’s attention away from our relationship—when Katie asks the audience, “What about you guys? Don’t you want to meet Tinsley’s mystery man? I mean look at him,” she encourages, gesturing behind her where the digital screen of L.A. changes to the tabloid photos of us. “And look at her! She’s glowing.”
Where the show’s producers sit, Briar looks far too calm to be anything but homicidal as she quietly continues to argue with them, her head whipping around to where I am. She shakes her head no, telling me I don’t have to do this. She looks at me too long, however, because as Tinsley’s sweet voice is growing more steely in her adamance about keeping us private, one of the cameras pans in my direction. I jump further back, praying my black t-shirt and dark jeans blend with the shadows and keep me from view.
There’s a reason most of the pictures Katie is showing are from when we landed in L.A.
That first day, I wasn’t prepared for just how intense everything would be. From the second the plane’s door opened, it was chaos with paparazzi taking photographs of her from a distance. The madness only grew when we came through the other side of the private airport and were no longer protected by FAA and TSA security regulations. Even with Mikey and John and members of their team already on the ground waiting, creating a barrier for us to pass, we’d been swarmed. Flashbulbs going off in our faces, shouted questions that rang in our ears, pushing and shoving to get as close as possible.
They were like sharks with blood in the water, an unchecked frenzy as they rushed through and around each other for the best shot and a chance at catching us speaking or her answering a question.
I’ve lived with anxiety my entire life. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t overly cautious, calculating the risks in a situation, or easily overstimulated by the world around me, leaving my skin crawling and agitation on a hair trigger. But I’d never known terror like I did then, feeling my heart seize as my mind became consumed with every possible scenario of how things could go wrong, leading to Tinsley being injured. It was made worse knowing that if something were to happen, it would be seen as an event to capitalize on and not an emergency situation.
She strategically put herself in front of me and held my hand behind her and not at her side acting like a tiny, protective shield. But when one of Mikey and John’s guys lost hold of their line and were jostled closer to us, I reacted by tugging her back and into my side, my arm coming around her and guiding her head into my chest, my own head coming down over hers, effectively blocking their view of her with myself and the brim of my hat.
Since then, it’s become part instinct to keep her cocooned away from them and part a fun game to ruin as many possible shots of theirs as I can to keep them from capitalizing on invading Tinsley’s personal space and privacy. Only problem—the more elusive I appear to be, the more they seem invested in finding me out. Even this damn talk show host.
“He’s very private,” Tinsley insists, her ankles uncrossing as she prepares to stand.
I know right away she’s at the end of her patience and is ready to walk off set. I also know—or can at least fathom—the media shit storm that would cause her. And the last thing I want to do is become a problem for her image. So even though my palms are already sweating and I can’t stop rubbing them on the outside of my thighs, I suck in a breath, check that my glasses are relatively clean, and step out of the shadows.
I wait on the other side of the wings for a moment until our eyes connect. The smile Tinsley gives me is sad and apologetic, and I offer her what I hope is a reassuring one. A camera is quick to focus in my direction and without being asked, someone is manhandling me and shoving a mic pack into the back pocket of my jeans, clipping the small microphone to my shirt. Someone else reaches up to accost me with some sort of powder on my face and my head jerks back. I eye them for a moment and then force myself to relax.
I can do this; for her, I can do it.
Tinsley meets me halfway, and from the blurry corner of my eye I can see the audience light up with phones taking pictures and videos of what’s happening.
Her hand comes over her mic and I do the same to mine.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You were gonna leave.”
“You're a hard line in the sand for me, Superman. They weren’t respecting you.”
I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles, murmuring thank you before leading her back to the couch, her small hand giving mine reassuring, pulsing squeezes as we sit down.
* * *
Wild hair tamed in a knot on her head and her face free of makeup, Tinsley crawls up the bed wearing my t-shirt, slotting herself between my thighs. She props an elbow to my left and rests her chin in her hand. The fingers of her other hand caress the ladder of my ribs on the right side.
She traces the few weeks old ink I had Easton—Ames’s brother—add to my ribs the morning after my confrontation with Hunter.
It’s of a dandelion blowing in the breeze. Intermingled with the puffs that float free are musical notes, and weaving between them are lines from the first draft of “Reckless,” in her handwriting. The final touch is her name that makes up the stem.
I mirror her and glide my fingers up the black t-shirt to brush along the arrow.
“I’m sorry about today,” she murmurs, letting her head fall to my abdomen. “It never should have happened. We made it absolutely clear that?—”
“Shhh,” I soothe, reaching out to pull the tie free of her hair. I comb my fingers through the thick tresses and assure her, “I don’t blame you. Or Briar,” I add for good measure. “I’m learning very quickly that where you’re concerned, people have a lack of respect and boundaries and that’s not your fault. It’ll never be your fault.”
“But I asked you to come.”
“Shortcake, the whole reason I’m here is to be with you. I wanted to come.”
She rolls her face down pressing one, then two, kisses to my skin, breathing me in. “I appreciate that so much. I just wish—and maybe I sound spoiled for wanting this considering everything I get in the trade off—but I wish we could just be us when we’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
Her hand roams over the rosebud patterned duvet that covers her bed, picking at an imaginary thread. Her room is no longer what it was in that video I saw what feels like a lifetime ago.
Pink gauzy curtains hang over her windows and pool into puddles on the floor. Distressed nightstands with elegant, Victorian lines flank her bed with giant cracked mercury vases filled with peonies and roses on top. Her bed is a curved, upholstered cocoon with gilded edges, and hanging behind it is a massive mirror in the same antique gold.
It feels like a home now, like her: soft and elegant with whispers of country charm.
“I love my life—especially now that I have you in it again—so please don’t think I don’t, because I do. I genuinely love what I do.”
“But?”
A resigned sadness colors her words when she continues. “But there’s so much more than the pretty dresses and the award shows and performing for sold out stadiums that people don’t realize.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” she tosses around, looking for something to illustrate the depth of her melancholy. “Like Paris. I’ve always wanted to go to Paris and see it, you know? As a tourist. Stroll the Champs-élysées to the Louvre and get lost inside. Eat my weight in macarons and crêpes and gaze upon Monet’s water lilies. Drink champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower and watch it light up the night sky from Pont Alexandre III.” She smiles up at me and adds, “Lose an entire day making love to you in the hotel suite.
“This summer will be my sixth time performing there, yet I’ve never done any of those things. There’s never been time. I’m always too busy rehearsing, doing press, sleeping off jet lag or exhaustion from twenty shows in five weeks and twenty more to go, or hustling to the airport so we leave on time for our next stop. I’ve only ever gotten to experience the city through a hotel window.”
“Then I’ll take you and we’ll do it, all of it.”
Tinsley’s laugh is indulgent and hollow as she says my name. “Where in my schedule will you find the time? Not to mention, you would have to fly there.”
“I know.”
“It’s across an ocean,” she stresses.
“I know,” I repeat, tugging on her hair to kiss her. “Leave it to me—and Briar; we’ll make it happen for you.”
“Okay,” she placates, though I know she doesn’t believe it.
Letting it go to the table for now, I ask, “What else?”
“Simple things really. I miss being able to go to the grocery store without needing crowd control. I want to be able to eat a pile of Ames’s buffalo wings and a shortcake from Dream Brulée without guilt or worry of putting on weight, even if it’s just bloating. Go out to dinner and a movie with you and not be swarmed by paparazzi. I just want to do the things we do at home here. I have to be here at least some of the time, and I just want it to be home for us too.”
I reach for my phone and clear out the text messages Hunter has sent from my notifications and unlock it.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you out, baby. You want to have a normal night, and I’m gonna make it happen,” I answer, searching what’s in the area. Finding a movie theater where we can dine in the screening room, I pull up their showtimes and hand my phone to Tinsley. “Pick a movie, Shortcake. I’ll change and grab you some clothes.”
“Archer, I can’t just go to a movie!”
“Why not? It’s less than three miles from the house, so I know they must get celebrities in there all the time. Only summer sessions are going on at the university nearby so the campus will be a ghost town, and it’s going on seven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Realistically, who is going to be out?”
“I can’t believe I’m even considering this,” she smiles, beginning to scroll through the listed movies.
“If you hurry, we’ll have time to stop in Whole Foods as well,” I tempt.
That does it. Tinsley springs up from the bed, racing past me to the closet as she starts talking about the actor in one of the movies as if she knows him. It’s as she’s shimming into her denim cutoff shorts that it dawns on me, she probably does. And for a moment, more than anything I’ve experienced with her since coming to L.A., hearing her talk about a barbeque at his house last Fourth of July reminds me just how brightly she shines.
I start to second guess if this is a good idea, especially since I plan to slip her out without John, who’s in the gym, accompanying us. But when she looks up beaming with excitement, my Tinsley shining brighter than anything the world gets to see, I push it away.
She makes me reckless in the best ways, and I wouldn’t change how free we make each other feel for anything.