26. Piper
Piper
W hen I walk in the house, there’s a strong smell of fish, but not in the foul way I’d expected.
The air is heavy with lemon, spices and the sounds of chopping.
My stomach growls and I follow my nose to the kitchen, noticing everything is much cleaner than when I left this morning.
So clean, in fact, that I wonder if I’ll find Frankie in the kitchen.
That would make more sense than Archie cooking and cleaning.
What I find in the kitchen—to my surprise—is Archie at the kitchen island, his bare back to me. He’s in his usual day wear of board shorts and nothing else, except a full apron.
And, yeah, it’s been a few days, but it doesn’t take much to reignite the image of his little towel-dropping antic.
Especially when his shorts sit just below his waist, clinging to his hips for dear life, so when he crouches down to get a pan from a lower cabinet, I hold my breath until he stands back up and his shorts stay with him.
“Hey,” I say as he starts to bend again. I can only take so much temptation before I won’t be able to look away from my own personal Thunder From Down Under show.
Archie startles and turns around. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”
I’m about to ask him where Frankie is when the picture on his apron catches my attention.
Archie, shirtless and in board shorts with a stunning view of the ocean behind him, is wearing a full apron with a “Surf City High” image of him, Dex, and Rhys…
wait for it…shirtless and in board shorts, Frankie in a bikini, all of them holding surfboards against a backdrop of blue skies and the ocean.
I mean, this has probably been the worst day of my life, but I can’t let this meta moment pass without comment.
“Nice apron.” I point to his chest.
Archie looks down and smooths his hand down the front of the apron. “Cheers. Figured you’d admire the shameless self-promo.”
I laugh.
He smiles.
My day gets a little better.
“Is she here?” I poke my finger at Frankie and hit Archie’s ab—I’m guessing number four of his sixpack. He jolts like I’ve hit a live wire.
“Are you…” I want to say ticklish, but if I do and he says yes, I’ll have to confirm and knowing I can torture Archie—in a good way—feels risky. “Cooking?”
“Frankie is hanging with Dex and Britta tonight, and yes, I’m cooking.
I told you I’d have dinner waiting.” He sprinkles salt over some kind of white fish.
A cutting board on the island is covered with avocados and tomatoes in various stages of being chopped.
Fresh corn is on the grill side of the stove, and Archie actually looks as if he knows what the hell he’s doing.
“I assumed you meant takeout.”
Archie laughs. “Why would you assume that?”
“You said you can’t cook.”
He shakes his head. “I never said I can’t cook. I don’t cook. At least I didn’t while Dex and Britta were living here. She insisted on doing it all.”
“So…you can cook?” I cross my arms and study him.
“Of course I can cook. Did you think Dex won a world championship eating fast food while we traveled?” He smirks. “His nutritionist planned the meals. I prepared all of them.”
This is a fascinating turn of events. Once again, I’ve underestimated Archie.
“So, no Frankie?” I scan the room for signs of her, wondering why my pulse is pounding at the idea of being alone with Archie.
“No Frankie. I thought we could do dinner, just the two of us.” Color creeps up his neck to the tips of his ears, and the same heat travels across my skin.
I uncross my arms and move closer. “All right. Show me what you’ve got.”
Archie glances at me with a smile, then moves to his left to make room for me.
We’re inches apart, and over the combined scents of onion and cilantro, I smell coconut sunscreen, lapping waves, and the faint trace of board wax and wind-warmed skin. I smell him.
“Should I be worried?” I ask him, almost without thinking.
“About what?”
I swallow words that would give away how much I enjoy being this close to him—watching him do something he’s so clearly good at—and lean into the teasing dynamic between us that I’m weirdly comfortable with.
“A couple days ago you couldn’t find the salt and now you’re cooking dinner for me? Are you planning to poison me?”
His lip twitches. “I can’t do something nice for you without suspicion, simply because you made my room smell worse than a sashimi fart trapped in a sauna?”
I burst out laughing. “A sashimi fart? What even is that?”
“The worst thing I can think of, but also exactly how my room smelled.”
The olive oil he swirls into a hot pan snaps, creating the perfect background music for his playful smile.
And even though I started the teasing, I realize what I owe him. “I really am sorry about that. I’m totally irrational without my morning coffee—which I assumed you’d hidden—and I just lost it. By the time I got to my bus stop, my rage had fizzled and guilt kicked in…even before I saw you.”
I raise my eyes to his to ask the question I hope I already have the answer to. “What were you doing there? At my bus stop?”
Archie shrugs and turns his back to me while he lays the fish in the pan. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says quietly.
I have a sudden urge to trace my finger over the constellation of freckles sprinkled across his bare shoulders. “Thank you. That was really nice.” I take a step back, tucking my fingers into my palms. “So nice, I feel extra guilty about the sushi,” I joke.
Archie turns and leans against the counter. “Mission accomplished then.”
He holds my gaze, sending another wave of heat across my skin.
There’s something behind his smile I haven’t seen before that both worries and excites me.
The teasing between us is so much safer than wanting to touch him.
I wonder how many hours of the next week I’ll have to spend trying not to stare at his abs.
And his shoulders. And the thousands of freckles sprinkled there.
I’m guessing a lot, since his only job besides starting a company appears to be ‘beach’. Beach Archie, a Ken doll, but with better biceps. Probably because they’re not plastic. But also, he could give Ryan Gosling’s Ken some competition.
“Did you at least find the bag before I texted you?” I ask to get my mind off how good he looks under that apron.
He does his lip-biting thing and chuckles. “Do you want the truth?”
I huff a laugh. “I would have texted sooner, but I didn’t have your number. I frantically texted Stella on the bus to see if she had it. I tried Frankie, too, but I have her old number.”
“Seriously, Piper, no worries. According to Frankie, my dirty laundry stunk worse than the sushi.” He goes back to his fish and sprinkles some fresh herbs over it.
“Was she mad at me?”
Archie glances at his recipe. “About the sushi? No. She laughed and declared me the official loser of this prank war…” He looks over his shoulder and points the tongs at me. “That you started.”
I laugh, equal parts relieved that Frankie’s not mad and Archie doesn’t seem to be either. “Uh, I reckon you’re forgetting about the Vegemite incident. I’d say that was ground zero.”
“Which you responded to with a nuclear attack.” He points to his hair, then his face.
“Guilty as charged.”
We lock eyes again, but there’s no teasing in the intense heat between us.
“Can I help you with anything here?” I clear my throat and step aside to create more space for him at the island.
“I don’t know.” Archie disregards the distance I’ve tried to make and stands so close we touch. “Do you know how to cook?”
My words get lost in the sensation of his skin brushing mine. I shake my head. “Will you show me?”
He nods and his Adam’s apple bops with a hard swallow. “Let’s start with the onion. Dice it into small pieces.”
He hands it to me, then faces the stove to turn the corn and check the fish.
I set the onion on a cutting board and pick up a knife. “So…I slice it this way?” I make a cutting motion across the onion.
“Peel it first.”
I stare at him blankly.
“You’ve never cut an onion before?”
“I buy them pre-chopped or frozen. It’s faster.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy and takes the onion from me. “Onion needs to be fresh.”
After grabbing a metal container, he peels a layer off the onion and drops it into the container.
“What’s that?” I point to the metal thing.
“Compost.”
“What do you do with it?”
Archie stops peeling and looks at the container. “I don’t know. Britta or Dex always took care of it. Or maybe the housekeeper.”
I laugh, and he scowls at me. “At least I know what to do with an onion.”
He takes my knife from me and sets the onion back on the cutting board, then demonstrates how to slice off the ends and cut it in half.
“Now you slice it lengthwise in thin strips.”
He hands the knife back to me, and I make one crooked cut. “Like that?”
Archie shakes his head and steps behind me. Before I realize what’s happening, he’s wrapped his arms around me and his hands over mine to demonstrate how to hold the onion and knife. He drags the knife through the far side of the onion, working his way to the opposite end.
There’s no space between us. The only sound is the clap of the blade against the wood cutting board with each slow slice. Archie’s chest rises and falls against my back, his breathing matching the rhythm of the knife while sending slow shivers up my spine, one vertebra at a time.
My eyes water from the onion, but I can’t see because I’m too focused on the comfort I feel in Archie Forsythe’s arms.
The best part is how natural it feels to be here. The worst part is how much I don’t want it to end. Which is wrong in too many ways to count.
“I think I’ve got it,” I say breathlessly.
“I reckon so.” The words caress my ear even as he unwraps himself from me. “Not bad at all. Keep goin’. When you’re done, slice the opposite direction, so you have diced pieces.”
I glance at Archie as he turns back to the stove, worried he’s seen how flushed I am.
Then I notice his hands trembling.
I finish slicing the onion, then dice it, all while wondering if I imagined Archie’s slight tremor…wondering if he’s shaky for the same reason I am.
When I finish, I pretend to watch Archie flipping the fish and seasoning the corn when really I’m breathing him in, remembering his skin against mine: warm and ocean-slick, smelling of salt, sun, and something earthy and addictive—like the scent left behind on someone’s skin after hours in the sea.
“Smells good, Chef,” I say softly.
“Thanks.” He smiles over his shoulder, which only makes me want to touch him again.
I don’t understand what’s happening here. The tension that’s been between us for the past week seems to be morphing into something else. Something closer to… attraction ?
Even if I wanted to move away from Archie, I don’t think I could. His admission that he followed me to the bus stop to make sure I was okay keeps replaying in my head. He wanted to protect me. Maybe that’s why I want to be near him.
I’ve been the only person looking out for me for a very long time. I like the idea of someone else taking a turn.
Valente has stolen everything from me. Not only my designs but also the piece of my soul I poured into them.
I spent countless hours developing those ideas.
Fine-tuning them, obsessing over how to get them exactly right.
And Valente took them as if they had the right to. Like they were entitled to them.
I look at Archie with his cropped, platinum-blond hair and slightly-orange face, cooking me dinner, and I remember the times I’ve accused him of being entitled. Of being like Malcolm.
I was wrong.
Archie wouldn’t take something that’s not his. He’s not like the people who’ve used me, or dismissed me, or stripped me of credit and called it mentorship. He’s stubborn and messy and occasionally infuriating, but he’s also kind. Loyal. Protective in a way that feels safe, not suffocating.
And as I study him now—concentrating on what he’s cooking like the fate of the world rests on getting it right—I feel it. The slow, certain unraveling of all the reasons I thought I couldn’t care about him.
Because maybe I already do.