8. Archer
ARCHER
“Are we going to talk about it?”
“Why would we?” she mutters from the passenger seat, her knees hiked to her chest, one hand wrapped around an ankle while the other props her chin up against the window.
“Because it’s not okay, Allie.”
I keep my eyes on the road, but catch the way she shrugs in my periphery. “Maybe not, but it’s also nobody’s business but mine.”
“Now, you and I both know that’s not true.” I tut. “Your business is my business. Always.”
Inescapably so.
After Allie let it drop that she gave her shitty boyfriend a hall pass—with plans to get back together at the end of the month after I return to Texas—I was fucking fuming.
I was able to hold my tongue through the surf competition we attended for Weston, who is now officially Willow’s new boyfriend.
I like the kid. I think he’s good for Willow, and she deserves someone who is obsessed with her the way he seems to be.
Though, he wiped the fuck out during the semifinals, and once we confirmed he was going to be okay, Leo urged the rest of the family to head home.
He said Weston would be too embarrassed to face so many people after his performance, and I don’t blame him.
The last thing I like to see coming out of the locker room following a bad game are the faces of the people I’m playing for.
The moment I got Allie in my car and merged onto the interstate toward Pacific Shores, I realized I couldn’t hold back anymore. I need to understand her reasoning, especially after the theory her father shared with me during a break in competition, when Allie and Willow took a walk along the beach.
“Why would she do that to herself? Why would she entertain someone who treats her that way?”
“Why do you think, Archer?”
I glanced at him, unsure what he meant.
“Sure makes it easier to call things off the second you roll into town when the guy was never nice to begin with, right?”
That fucking gutted me.
I know I broke her heart years ago, and she knows she broke mine too, but I’d meant what I said back then.
I hate seeing her with someone else, I hate the idea of her falling in love with anyone who isn’t me, but her being unhappy on purpose, waiting for me to come home, hurts more than the rest of it combined.
It’s exactly why I forced myself to let her go.
We promised each other we’d move on, and it appears that neither of us is holding up our end of the bargain.
When I realize Allie never responded to me, my fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Why, Allie Cat? Why would you stay with someone who treats you like that? Why would you let him off the hook with such a ridiculous agreement?”
“Better than being alone,” she murmurs, staring out the window when I glance at her.
“Then why the hall pass?” I ask. “Why not get back together now?”
“I wasn’t going to choose him over you.” She sighs.
I scoff. “So you’ll just wait until I leave?”
I’m gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles are white as I take the off-ramp into Pacific Shores. I chew on my cheek, contemplating how to salvage this afternoon, because I know that each minute with her is rapidly fleeting.
She spent the past week in Pacific Palisades with her parents, and though I drove up for a day to see them and spend time with her, it wasn’t enough.
I head back to Texas in just over two weeks.
Between Allie’s job at the bakery, my meetings with Lou—who is now officially my agent—training, and preparing for my final year of college football and the impending draft next spring, our time together is already limited.
I don’t want to waste a single second with her being anything less than happy.
“You’re gonna leave anyway. At least I’ll have something to go back to at the end of the summer.” She shrugs.
I pull into the parking lot behind the boardwalk, cutting the engine. “You told me to go.”
“I know.” She nods. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just said that.
” Finally, she turns toward me, reaching across the center console to take my face between her hands.
“I am so proud of you. I hope you know that. I’m your biggest fan, and I cannot wait to someday sell the story of how I took your virginity to a tabloid when you become the face of professional football. ”
I snort, rolling my eyes. Allie grins—wide and playful.
The very smile that had my knees buckling at the age of seven, when I first realized she was my best friend.
Her gaze sparkles, the same brightness in her chocolate irises that had my heart leaping into my throat at the age of twelve, when I discovered what a crush felt like.
Her palms rest on my cheeks, skin soft and warm.
The touch that had my entire soul fracturing at the age of seventeen, when I realized just how irreparably in love with her I was.
I can’t stop my gaze from darting to her lips, remembering the way they taste. That familiar ache grows in the depths of my bones—that inherent need for her.
“I don’t want to argue about this anymore,” she murmurs, and my eyes snap to hers. They’re darker now—half-lidded, like she’s feeling that ache too. “I’m yours until you leave, all right? I want to make the best of the next couple weeks we have together.”
“You can’t call yourself mine,” I rasp. The air inside the cab of my Jeep—the car my parents bought me as a teen that I leave here in Pacific Shores while I’m at school—has grown thick and hot. A haze of desire infiltrates every molecule of oxygen we’re breathing in.
“What if I did?” Allie whispers, inching closer. Her hand slides down my neck, curling around my nape as her fingers tangle in my hair. “What if I’m always yours, anyway?”
A shuddering exhale leaves my lips and lands on hers—we’re that damn close.
I have to close my eyes to gather my composure because staring at her will have me dissolving completely.
I can’t look at her face when I tell her no.
The word will get lodged in my throat, and her eyes will have me saying yes instead.
“We can’t…” I swallow, my throat thick with need. “We promised—”
“I know.” She sighs, and her forehead lands against mine. “I know.”
I lift my arm, cupping the back of her head as I hold her against me.
I run my fingers through her curls, savoring the heat of her breath against my cheek, the tender touch of her hands on my skin.
For just a moment longer, I wrap myself in her embrace, reminding myself that for as much as this hurts, it’s far less painful than having her completely, knowing I’ll have to walk away.