Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
DARCY
The next morning, I woke to an empty bed.
For a split second, my heart was light and unaffected, and then everything Archer told me last night came crashing down on my consciousness, making my heart ache with renewed vigor.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, or if I moved out of Archer’s arms before I did, but his side of the bed was now cold, and he was nowhere to be seen.
I dressed quickly, stopping in front of the mirror resting against the wall to notice a slight curve to my lower abdomen. It wasn’t much—no one else would probably notice—but it was something. The second I pulled my sweater on, though, it was as if it were nonexistent.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, the Thanksgiving preparations were already in full swing, with my mom—and Archer, of all people—at the center of it. He was dicing potatoes, his back to me, but my mom caught my eye, shooting me a wink as she walked to the fridge.
“Good morning,” I said, approaching the sink next to Archer.
He glanced down at me, a small smile on his face. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock, actually,” I said, then lowered my voice. “And you? Did you go back to sleep?”
Shrugging, he peeked over at me. “Not really, but I rested.” Sliding the freshly chopped potatoes into the enormous pot on the counter next to him, he lowered his voice slightly. “Probably had something to do with how hard you kicked me.”
Joking was a good sign, right?
“It was the best I could come up with on the spot,” I whispered defensively, before sobering slightly. “But really, how are you—”
“As much as I love seeing my Darcy girl finally with someone, there’s a lot to do!” my mother interrupted, ushering me toward a bag of apples and handing me a knife. “Those need to be apple pie.”
“On it,” I said and grabbed an apple, taking a bite and swallowing my frustration at my mom’s interruption. The only meal the Adlers ate on Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving dinner itself. The rest of the day was spent snacking on everything that went into preparing it, so that’s what I did.
When I peeked over at Archer, he’d already started on the next bag of potatoes, his back to me once again, and after that, we were too busy to talk.
We did Thanksgiving on the earlier side, and my parents only had one oven, so timing everything just right was an art my mother had perfected over the years.
The turkey was already in the oven since that took the longest, and then it was a matter of throwing in each of the sides according to their bake times, and what could be put back in the oven later to reheat.
Linnea arrived right in time for dinner, and despite coming off a twelve-hour overnight shift and immediately getting in a car to drive the six hours here, she looked amazing.
She told us about her night as we sat down at the dinner table, and my parents gushed over her, peppering her with questions about the deliveries and the babies.
The conversation eventually moved onto Garrett and the exciting things that were happening at his work, and then to Cory and her shop.
After everything that happened two years ago, there was almost always an update on her front, and my parents loved hearing all about it.
Then, of course, it turned to Archer, which kind of meant it turned to me, but everyone was mainly curious about his fighting fires.
By the time we were cleaning up after dessert, I think I’d said all of ten words, and almost all of them were to Archer when he’d asked if I was okay—three times.
I was fine. It was probably for the best that we didn’t talk about me anyway.
Linnea probably would have let my baby news slip, and if I was being honest, the only new things in my life were the baby growing inside me, and the man sitting next to me; the latter of which I desperately wanted to get alone so we could talk.
Everything that happened the night before felt unfinished.
I had so many questions about all of it, but especially about the last thing he’d said.
Did he really believe that his father was an indicator of how he’d be in the role?
Was he scared the violence had rubbed off on him, or was he worried that his dad would come back? Was his dad still alive?
However, as badly as I wanted answers, what I wanted more was to be alone with him.
Last night had felt like a turning point, at least to me it had, and I wanted to see if I was imagining it or not.
There’s no way I was. He’d trusted me with his past, with his trauma, and I got the sense that that wasn’t something he did often or with very many people.
Sure, we were sharing a bed when he started thrashing and screaming, but he could’ve told me it was a nightmare and to go back to sleep.
He could’ve brushed me off, but he didn’t, he let me in.
I had just finished the last of the dishes, and was about to snag Archer so I could pull him aside when my mother stopped me with a cup of coffee and a look that dared me to try to slip away.
It wasn’t that I was avoiding talking to my mom, but I wasn’t exactly dying to get one-on-one time with her.
I’d never kept a secret of this magnitude from her before, and being alone with her meant I had those too-perceptive eyes trained on me.
“Archer seems nice,” she started, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Yeah, he is.” I smiled.
“Makes me wonder why we’re only just meeting him now.” She wasn’t even trying to be subtle. I wanted to blame that on age, but I don’t think Shelby Adler had ever been one for subtleties.
I swallowed, hoping she didn’t catch the movement. “We’re still pretty new, Mom, and I live six hours away.”
She pinned me with an unamused look. “What? Is your phone broken? You could’ve called me.”
If it were real, I would’ve. Probably. I still might have waited a month or two to make sure we were steady, but I definitely would’ve told her before now.
A part of me felt bad that I hadn’t, but it wasn’t real, not that she knew that, and the guilt over upsetting her niggled in my chest. I couldn’t fault her for wanting to know what was going on in her daughter’s life—she merely cared.
Really and truly cared, which made me feel like a terrible human being for lying to her about all of this.
It’s only temporary, I reminded myself.
Shrugging, I took a sip from my mug. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure of what we were. And like Archer said yesterday, we had a bit of a rocky start.”
“So he said. What happen—”
My lovely, darling, beautiful saint of a sister chose that moment to pop her head into the kitchen.
“Game time!” she called, glancing between the two of us.
And either she didn’t see my mom’s “not now” look, or she saw mine that said “thank God, please now.” Either way, she announced, “You’ll never guess what we’re playing. ”
“Oh, I can’t wait!” I said, a little too enthusiastically if my mom’s narrowed eyes were anything to go off of, but I’d worry about that another time. Right now, I needed to get out of this conversation.
By the time Monopoly finally ended—Garrett winning yet again—I was too exhausted to do much more than change my clothes, brush my teeth, and fall into bed, my plans of talking to Archer firmly squandered.
The last thing I remember was Archer coming into the room and shutting the lights off before getting into bed, but even that might’ve been a dream.
The next day was somehow worse. I’d almost had him alone for a couple of minutes over coffee, but then Cory came in and started asking him about the tattoos on his arms. It turned into a whole show and tell, which was actually kind of cute to watch, but then my mother rounded the corner and ordered us all into cars to go get a Christmas tree.
Cory and Garrett took his truck so we could throw the tree in the back, and the rest of us piled into my mom’s car since it could fit the five of us.
When we got to the farm, we split up, meandering around the rows of trees and calling to the others when we thought we found a good one.
My mother would rush over, walk around it a couple of times and determine if it was “the one” or not.
Historically, the first five were never it.
Once we found one that was Shelby approved, Garrett cut it down, and hauled it back to the truck.
Back home was a flurry of decorating, and a cacophony of Christmas music.
I think the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was probably quieter in concert compared to how loudly my dad played their songs.
My mom strung the lights on the tree because she was very particular about the spacing, and then the rest of us hung the ornaments one at a time so that my mom could share whatever memory was associated with each one.
The guys were put on garland duty, hanging it over every doorway, and around the banisters to the staircase, while the girls placed the rest of the tabletop decorations in their annual spots.
By the time dinner rolled around, we were all starving, and we ate leftovers in near silence.
I felt Archer’s eyes on me a couple of times, and when I met his gaze, it seemed like maybe he was wanting to talk to me too.
Or maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see.
Regardless, it wasn’t until after the post-dinner coffee my family always had, and after we’d said goodnight, blaming a long day of driving tomorrow for our early turn-in, that I finally got him well and truly alone.
“Hi,” I said once we’d both gotten ready for bed, and were under the covers.
A relieved smile spread across his face. “Hi.”
“So, the past two days have been . . . a lot, huh?”
He propped himself up on an elbow, and looked down at me. “Your family is definitely into festivities, especially your mom.” He chuckled softly, and I didn’t think I’d ever get over that sound. “But it was actually kind of nice.”
Relief filled me over the fact that he wasn’t hating it all. “Holidays are her thing; she loves them. I’m glad it hasn’t been too much for you.”
“Not at all.” He paused, eyes roaming my face. “Has it been too much for you?”
How did I explain to someone with his past that yes, it was kind of a lot for me sometimes? That for as much as I loved my family—and I did genuinely love each of them—it sometimes felt suffocating?
I chewed at my bottom lip and shrugged. “At times. Not telling them about the baby feels weird.” I didn’t say that it was also because I wanted to talk to him more than I wanted to eat Thanksgiving with my family.
He glanced down at my stomach, then back at me. “Are you ready to tell them?”
How had we ended up talking about me, now, of all times, when all I wanted was to talk about him? “I think I’m getting there. Knowing who the dad actually is will help I think. I don’t like lying to them.”
“You mean more than telling them I’m your boyfriend?”
I glared at him, but there was no bite to it. And why did him calling our relationship a lie sting? “It’s a play on words. You’re a boy who is also my friend, so it’s not technically a lie.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “We’re friends now?”
“I don’t have many, but yeah.” I smiled tentatively. “I mean, I’d like to be.”
Nodding thoughtfully, he shot me a soft smile before lying back down. “I’ll do the paternity test first thing when we get home.”
“Thank you.”
A calm quiet settled between us, and it would’ve been so easy to relax into it and let sleep take me, but I’d finally gotten Archer alone, and I was not pushing this conversation off any longer.
“Hey, Arch?”
“Yeah?” His response was light, and I hated the feeling that I was about to start picking at wounds that had barely scabbed over.
“That thing you said the other night,” I started before backpedaling.
“Listen, I don’t expect anything from you if you are my baby’s father—I don’t need money, or help, or anything like that.
But if you are the dad, and you want to be in our lives, you can.
What I’m saying is, I don’t think you should let your dad decide anything for you.
And for what it’s worth, you’re nothing like him, and I don’t think you ever could be. ”
He was unnaturally still for a while, and I was worried my word-vomiting sent him spiraling, but then he finally answered. “You don’t know that for certain.”
“I think the fact that you’re scared of becoming like him is evidence enough that you never will.
” Glancing at him one more time, his eyes never leaving the same spot on my ceiling, I turned the light off.
I still had questions, but for now, that was what I had really wanted to say.
The rest I would have to trust him to tell me on his own when he felt like talking about it.
In the minutes that followed, the darkness made the silence in the room louder in the way that relaxed you entirely, and my eyes grew heavy until I was unable to keep them open any longer.
Sleep had her claws sunk in me, and was about to pull me under with her, so I couldn’t be quite sure, but I thought I heard Archer whisper from his side of the bed.
“Thank you, Darcy.”