42. Chapter 42 #3
I don’t need to look at the screen to know who it is.
I remember the ringtone.
Archer.
Skye takes a single sobering breath, then answers the call. “Hey, Archer.”
I take solace in the fact that she doesn’t call him baby or even Arch. Still, she clambers out of bed—naked, and beautiful, and utterly devastating—and walks out of the bedroom.
“Yeah, just finishing up some errands,” she says. Then, “Oh really? I don’t know, I have to check my settings, maybe. My location service has been a little wonky lately.”
She sounds innocent enough, but I grin despite myself. I have a feeling her location service would work just fine—if she turned it back on.
“Just random errands, Archer, nothing special,” she says, her tone slipping into something defensive.
I listen harder.
“I will still be at dinner… Yeah, I should be done in about an hour.”
I can’t help the feeling of dread seeping into my skin. I don’t want her to go.
I don’t want her anywhere near him.
“Alright, why don’t you finish up with Jake, and I’ll see you at six.”
There’s a long moment of silence before she finally says. “I love you, too.”
I close my eyes.
The words sit like bricks in my chest cavity.
I told myself I wouldn’t fall for her. Swore I wouldn’t let it get this far. Not when she’s still with Archer. Not when I’m still… me.
But I did.
I have.
I’m in love with her.
Truly, deeply, painfully in love with her.
Except I don’t know what the hell is supposed to come next.
When I hear soft footsteps on carpet, I open my eyes to look at her.
She’s still so utterly perfect.
She’s quiet, arms wrapped around herself, shoulders tight. Her aqua eyes though hold something I don’t immediately recognize. Not guilt exactly. Not regret either. Maybe just… resolve?
“You okay?” I ask, already bracing myself for the answer.
Skye nods, but doesn’t look at me.
“Stormy…”
She tilts her head up, eyes wide as they lock on mine.
I hesitate, but there’s no putting this back in the box now. I’m already lost to her and ruined for anyone else. Might as well take the risk of shattering completely. “What… what are we doing?” I inhale a shaky breath. “Where is this going?”
It’s a plea. It’s me laying my heart bare, knowing full well it might break in her hands.
She doesn’t answer right away. Her gaze flicks between my eyes as she draws her bottom lip between her teeth like she’s stalling for time.
My chest tightens. Every second of silence feels like a countdown to something I’m not ready for.
Then she shrugs. Barely.
“I… I don’t know, Boss,” she whispers, voice thin. “What… where do you want it to go?”
I swallow hard, my heart thudding against my ribs like it’s trying to outrun the things I’m about to say.
“I want you,” I say quietly. “I want to know that when I come home at the end of the day, I’m coming home to you.”
Her aqua eyes widen, lips parted. I can’t read her.
So I keep going. “I want this to mean something. All of it. You being here, the way you look at me, the way you let me touch you… the way you touch me like… like I matter.”
I shake my head, breaking our eye contact for a second to take a steadying breath.
“I’ve wanted you for years, Stormy. Since long before I understood what it meant to want someone so badly it hurts. I’ve always wanted you. Even when I was away. I never stopped.”
She looks at me like she’s afraid to breathe, like she’s waiting for the catch.
So I give it to her.
“But I know it doesn’t work that way. I know wanting you isn’t enough.”
I get off the bed and stand, my voice tightening with the truth cinching my vocal cords shut. “I have nothing to give you. No apartment until two days ago. No money. No future that doesn’t include clawing my way out of a hole I didn’t dig.”
I look away, jaw clenched.
“And… I know you’re with Archer. I know you love him. You guys have been together for a long—”
Skye steps forward. “I want the same things, Boss.”
The air leaves my lungs. Something flickers in my chest—something that dangerously resembles hope. Fragile and burning. I take a tentative step toward her, my heart beating double-time in my chest.
But before I can say anything, Skye grabs her underwear from the floor and pulls them back on. I stare, confused, as she steps into her jeans.
“Skye?”
“I mean it,” she says, but doesn’t look at me.
There’s something in her voice. A tightness that doesn’t match her words.
“I want all of it. Everything. With you.”
The room tilts, hope blooming so fast it hurts.
She pulls her shirt on while slipping into her shoes.
“But… are you leaving? Right now?” I ask.
The weight of her absence is already pressing in.
“Yeah.”
“Skye, if we both want the same thing, then why not—”
She shakes her head. “I can’t explain it right now.”
She takes a step toward the door, her face guarded.
“But tomorrow,” she says softly, pausing in the doorway, her fingers resting lightly on the frame. “Tomorrow you’ll understand.”
Then she’s gone.
And I’m left in the silence, the air still filled with her scent and the echo of promises I don’t understand.
My heart is cracked wide open.
Bleeding.
Waiting.