Chapter 22
TWENTY TWO
DARCY
Taking a walk to clear my head always sounded like a good idea in theory.
The reality was it was freezing, and the only thing I was clearing was my sinuses with the way my nose wouldn’t stop running.
The wind was an endless torrent against my face, snowflakes clinging to my eyelashes as I charged ahead, sticking to the snowy parts of the road for better traction.
Lights suddenly illuminated the road in front of me and I heard Garrett’s truck rumbling down the road, but I didn’t slow down.
It wasn’t that I was mad at him, he hadn’t done or said anything, but that was kind of the point wasn’t it?
He hadn’t congratulated me either. I didn’t expect them to leap for joy, it was the whole reason I’d wanted Archer there for support, but something about anticipating their disappointment and actually experiencing it were two different things.
It would’ve been nice to have been proved wrong.
I was fast, but I couldn’t out walk a truck, even if said truck wasn’t going very fast at all. Red paint crept into my peripheral, and I continued trudging forward, the snow crunching beneath my shoes until I heard the window roll down, and a voice that was distinctly not Garrett’s call out.
“Darcy!”
Archer.
I came to a halt, and turned to face him. Sure enough, Archer sat behind the steering wheel of Garrett’s truck. What the hell did I miss in the five minutes I’d been gone?
“Did you steal Garrett’s truck?”
He chuckled. “No, believe it or not, he let me take it. Please get in, it’s fucking cold outside.”
His expression said he expected me to fight the request, but I didn’t. It was cold out, and I wasn’t out here throwing a tantrum to prove some sort of point. I’d just needed some space, and the one thing there was never enough of in the Adler house was space.
Opening the passenger door, I climbed up onto the bench seat, the leather cool, but warm compared to my wind-chilled butt. I held my numb fingers up in front of the vents, and glanced over at Archer who was studying me intently.
“Thank you for coming to get me.”
“Of course.” He smiled, then turned us around and started to drive the short distance back to my parents’. “Want to talk about it?”
I sighed. “It’s silly. I don’t know why I’m this upset—it went almost exactly how I thought it would, with the exception of Linnea spilling the beans.”
“And how do you think it went?”
My eyebrows knitted together. What kind of question was that? He was there, he knew exactly how it went. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, pulling back into my parents’ house, and throwing the truck in park. When he turned toward me, he rested an arm on the steering wheel. “I’m merely trying to understand what happened that set you off.”
I scowled, not able to keep the bite out of my words. “You mean besides none of them saying anything remotely congratulatory to me?”
“Yeah, besides that.” He brushed my attitude off as if it was a speck of dirt on his shirt, or an annoying fly buzzing around his head.
“They were shocked, like I knew they’d be, like they should be.
It was a shock for me too.” I studied my hands in my lap.
“But they weren’t shocked in the oh-my-gosh-you’re-pregnant way, they were shocked in the I-can’t-believe-Darcy-is-pregnant way.
Their questions felt like they think I’m the last person who should be a mom. ”
Archer nodded at that, but waited me out, as if he knew I had more to say.
“My whole life I felt like the child who couldn’t do anything right. Not necessarily wrong, but different, and maybe it’s my middle child showing, but being different always felt inferior.”
“How so?” he asked.
It felt absurd, sitting here talking with him about this, when his traumas were actual trauma.
Mine were just wounded self-worth and pride.
I thought for a while, then settled on an example to give him.
“Okay, well, for instance, there was this one time Linnea and I had both drawn cats, but hers was black and brown with white paws, and mine was green with blue stripes like lightning. My mom complimented Linnea on how life-like hers was, how talented she was, but when she saw mine, I got a cool. To be fair, I think she said it was very cool, but still. It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, and maybe it is, but it’s always been little things like that, and at some point I started to feel less than.
Then both my siblings got these incredible jobs helping people, and I .
. .” I trailed off. Verbalizing it all felt so childish, like I should be over this by now, yet I wasn’t.
He prodded gently. “You what?”
“I guess tonight they made me feel like I screwed up by not telling them—like I’m not someone who should be allowed to change her mind about wanting children. Like because I went about having children differently than they did, I somehow did it wrong.”
My words hung in the cab between us for a minute.
“Do you actually believe they think those things about you?”
“Yes,” I said stubbornly before groaning. “No. I don’t know. I know they love me, it just always felt different from how they love Garrett and Linnea. Not like they loved them more, but like they loved them in the same way, but me in another.”
“You want to know what I think?” There was an intensity in his eyes that had me trapped, his voice quiet with sincerity.
“What?”
Archer shifted so his body was facing mine completely.
“I think what you picked up on over the years was there, and it had to have hurt to watch your siblings get praised differently for their accomplishments, but I don’t think they did it intentionally.
I think they parented you differently from your siblings because you are different.
Garrett and Linnea are free-spirited, bubbly, rays of sunshine that are extroverted people-pleasers. ”
I snorted. “I’m telling Garrett you called him bubbly.”
He rolled his eyes, something I’ve never once seen him do, and slid closer to me.
Grabbing my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted my head back so that I was forced to look at him.
“You on the other hand, are headstrong, and independent. You’re outspoken and competitive, and you can take care of yourself.
I think they saw that you didn’t need their approval or encouragement to thrive. ”
I let that all settle briefly. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.”
“I’m not saying they didn’t drop the ball there, but I think they dropped the ball because they sensed you could catch it.”
“Wow, okay, Dr. Phil.” I giggled. “Look at you getting all deep with me, Mr. No-Feelings.”
His eyes roamed over my face, and he still hadn’t let go of my chin. “I have feelings. I’m just not great at showing them,” he murmured.
My gaze dropped to his mouth, the sharp cupid’s bow of his upper lip, the fullness of the bottom, and flashes of our night at The Crooked Quill flashed through my mind.
The way his mouth devoured mine as he pressed me against the wall.
How he’d nipped and licked at my throat, my breasts, my pussy.
I knew exactly what those lips could do, and I wanted more of it.
“Practice makes perfect, or so I’ve heard. ” I breathed. Did I really say that?
“That’s what I’ve heard too.” There was no trace of amusement or mockery on his face.
“Archer?” I didn’t know if he felt the all-consuming pull between us, or whatever else I was starting to feel for him, but I didn’t have it in me to care right then.
All I wanted was to feel his lips against mine—for him to crush my body to his and light me up like he had the first time I’d kissed him.
“Darcy?”
“I know it’s against one of my stipulations, but—”
His hand darted from my chin to the back of my head and then he dragged my mouth to his.
It was fast, and scorching, almost like he’d been thinking about it too, but had been holding himself back.
Pressing myself closer to him, I was inches away from crawling into his lap when a rap at the passenger window had us quickly separating.
Cory’s face filled the window as I rolled it down, a knowing smirk toying at her lips. “Yeah, so, um, they sent me out here to retrieve you two. If, you know, you’re almost finished.” She started walking away, calling over her shoulder as she went, “No rush though! It’s a great spot!”
I looked around as if I’d find evidence of what Cory was insinuating lying around. “That was more than I needed to know about those two.”
Archer’s throaty laugh brought me back to him, and I couldn’t keep the goofy grin off my face.
“Should we—” I started, but Archer cut me off.
“Do that again?”
My grin deepened. “I was going to ask if we should talk about that?”
“Right, yeah. We should probably talk about that,” he said, staring at my lips.
I ducked my head so that my eyes took the place of my mouth, snapping him back to the present. “Do you want that to be a one-time thing?” I asked, suddenly nervous about his response.
He opened his mouth to respond when Garrett stuck his head out the front door. “Stop wasting my gas and get your asses in here!”
Damn it, Garrett.
“Later?” I asked.
Archer nodded. “Later.”
I hadn’t finished taking my coat off when my parents asked to speak with me for a minute. Archer nodded and wandered off toward the kitchen with my siblings and Cory, while my parents and I sat in the living room.
“We’re so sorry, Darcy. We should’ve congratulated you instead of bombarding you with questions. We were just so—” my dad started before my mom jumped in.
“We were shocked. Out of all our kids, you were the one most reluctant on the kid front. Plus, we didn’t even know about Archer until Thanksgiving.
The idea of a baby being your big news was the last thing I would’ve suspected.
It blindsided us is all, but we are happy for you.
Truly. All we want is for you—for all of you—to be happy. ”