13. Allie
ALLIE
Less than an hour passes before there is a knock at my apartment door, followed by, “Allie.”
His voice is low and gruff—tortured in its delivery of my name.
“C’mon. Please. I can’t go back if you’re not okay.”
My hair is tied up in an old T-shirt, still wet from the shower I took when I got home. I’d only just changed into pajamas when I heard him coming up the stairs. I slip on a pair of slippers when I step off my bed and pad through the kitchen.
I place my hand on the knob, then pause. The moment I swing the door open—register his face and meet his eyes—I’ll let him inside. I’ll let him hold me, reassure me, give me promises we both know he can’t keep. And tomorrow I'll hurt worse for it.
“I’m okay, I promise,” I say through the door. “You have an early flight. You should try and get some sleep.” My head falls against the wood—soul splintering like I’m a piece of it myself. “I’m fine, Archer. We’re fine.”
“Allie Mae,” his voice floats through the cracks, airy and light—a forced brightness in his tone. “You know damn well that I’ll sit out here all night if I have to.”
“Archer…” I sigh. “Please don’t.”
He only responds with a slow slide from the other side of the door before a thump hits the ground.
I groan in frustration before I flip the lock and throw the door open. Archer falls back onto my legs, blinking up at me with those debilitating blue eyes. A grin spreads across his lips. “Hi, Allie Cat.”
“Why are you so chipper?” I ask, looking down at him through a narrowed gaze.
“Because you’re not. So I have to be for both of us.”
I step back, retreating into my apartment as Archer rolls over and stands, shutting the door behind him.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I just… It’s become exhausting, you know?
” I unclip the shirt my hair is bundled in, bending forward as I take it off and shake out my curls.
“We always have the same goodbye, and I… I couldn’t do it again. I can’t.”
I snap back up, meeting Archer’s gaze as I scrunch out the bottoms of my strands. His brows are drawn, eyes distant, studying me with somber severity.
“I know.” He huffs, rubbing a hand over his jaw.
“I know it’s hard. You think I don’t know?
” He drops his head before he begins pacing across my kitchen floor.
“It fucking kills me, Allie. I swear to God, I spend half my time wishing I could quit it all and come home to you. Stay here. Build an entirely different life. But I…”
He turns to me, jaw tensing as his hands run rampant through his dark hair. Archer’s eyes become crazed—grief-stricken, almost. His features morph into something anguished and wild.
He’s looking at me like he’s trying to save us both—like he’s stuck in that same tortured love that I am. He’s clawing at the pits of our mutual despair, trying to get us out of it.
We’ve fought against our chemistry, lost battles to our baser selves. Forced ourselves apart, then fell back together. Walked away, only to come running home.
He’s as exhausted as I am.
I close the distance between us, grasping Archer’s upper arms. “I know. I know.”
I burrow my head into his chest, and he wraps his arms around me, exhaling into my hair as if he’s taking his first deep breath in a while.
“Can I brush your hair?” he whispers against the top of my head, fingers twining with the strands that hang halfway down my back, still heavy and long with moisture.
I nod, unraveling myself from Archer’s body as I walk back toward my bed, grabbing the brush off my dresser as I go. I already ran leave-in conditioner through my curls, and after he brushes them out, I’ll defuse with my blow dryer and wrap my hair for bed.
When I was a girl, my mother would always bring a detangling spray and a hairbrush to the beach when we’d visit Celestia Cove.
When I’d be running through wind, swimming in waves, rolling through sand for hours on end, my mom would occasionally pull me away to brush my hair and help prevent the saltwater from drying out my curls.
Sometimes, if I was having too much fun, I’d throw a fit about having to take a break.
In those moments, Archer would come sit with me.
We’d eat snacks, or he’d read to me from a book while my mom brushed through my hair.
When we got a little older, he finally asked if he could be the one to do it.
I enthusiastically obliged, and it became another thing of ours.
If one of us was a little overstimulated, or frustrated, or just plain tired, we’d sneak away to sit in the sand while Archer brushed my hair.
When we got older, it became an aftercare ritual for the two of us.
Post-sex shower, he’d help me with my hair, then skincare, before we fell into bed together, dreaming of a future where every night would look just like that.
The older we grow, the more far-fetched that fantasy seems to be.
Archer crawls onto my bed, propping himself against the headboard and my pile of pillows. I settle in front of him, crossing my legs before I reach behind myself and hand him my brush.
“I do wish I could quit sometimes,” he admits quietly as he softly runs the brush down the length of my strands, untangling my curls at the ends.
“On hard days, when I’m bone tired and I’ve forgotten what the fuck I’m doing all of this for.
I want to give it up, catch a flight, and run straight to you. ”
“What are you doing it all for?” I murmur.
“So many people have sacrificed for me to reach this point. Including myself. It would be a disservice to us all if I gave up now.”
“And you still love it?” I ask. “Football?”
His breathy laugh rakes over my neck as he lifts the hair from my nape, brushing beneath.
“Yeah. I still love it. When I’m on the field, everything else disappears.
It’s only me and that ball and my team. I love that.
The escape of it. The pride and exhilaration.
It’s when I step off the field that everything else starts pressing down on me. ”
“If it didn’t make you happy, I’d tell you to hell with the sacrifices.
I’d tell you to come home. Be with all of us.
” I sit up, scrambling to spin around so that we’re facing each other.
“But I know it’s who you are. What you were made for, and I’d never forgive myself if I drew you away from that. ”
He holds my gaze, eyes flaring with something intense—something like awe. “You’re what I dream about, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
He lifts a hand, cupping my cheek. “I don’t look at my life in the long term.
It’s too stressful. I see it as a ladder, but my eyes are only on my feet.
I can’t look toward the top, I can only watch myself take one rung at a time.
My entire focus is on each practice, each individual game and season.
If I look up, I get lost. There is too much at stake and I become afraid.
I have to stay focused on whatever task is directly in front of me.
” Archer pulls a strand of my hair forward as he wraps it around his finger, shaping my ringlet.
“But when I do allow myself to dream, you are always the center of it. In my perfect world, you’re the nucleus.
You’re what I wake to, what I come home to, the image at the forefront of my mind.
When I step off the field, and I’m overwhelmed by it all—football, the draft, my education, and my future—you’re the reprieve.
The reminder that I can be more than all of that. I can be yours.”
Emotion pricks behind my eyes, and my gaze falls, studying the place where my knees rest between his. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I hate the goodbye as much as you do, and I think you may have forgotten that. You’re operating as if you’re in this alone.
As if the ache is only gnawing at your chest. As if it’s not right here”—he points at his heart—“obliterating me too.” He drops that hand to my thigh, the one on my face inching down my cheek so he can grasp my jaw.
“You seem to have forgotten that we’re in this together, as we always have been, even if we’re apart.
That every stolen moment with you drives me forward, and when I forget who the fuck I am, you remind me.
Without that…” He swallows, licking his lips as he raises his eyes to mine—piercing me with multitudes of blue. “Without you… I can’t keep going.”
Pressure builds in my sinuses, and Archer blurs in front of me. I blink hard, fighting back the nudging emotion. Cupping the back of his neck, I pull us together, dropping my forehead against his—close enough to share breath.
His warmth is what I bask in—the elixir to heal my aching soul.
It’s always short-lived, though. Because he’s the only cure for the wounds his absence causes.
“So…I am asking—no. I am begging you, Allie, don’t let us leave things this way.
I won’t survive it.” He drags his nose along the length of mine, lips close enough I can almost taste them.
“You have no clue the power you hold. The way you could snap your fingers right now and I’d throw it all away.
I’d leave everything behind if I thought it would make you happy for a single second. ”
“It wouldn’t,” I whisper, unable to muster the courage to say much else.
Fighting the urge to tell him to do exactly that—give it all up for me.
The truth is, I’d never ask him to because I love him. Because he loves football. Because he wants to live his dream. The same way he’d never ask me to follow him, settle down wherever he ends up and become the wife I know so many women would dream of being.
Sometimes I wish I could want that, the same way he wishes he could be content with a simple life here in his hometown, taking over the family business, and raising a few kids on the beach.
The harsher truth is, I’d love him less if he settled for a life he didn’t truly want, just so he could have me.
“I know,” he whispers. “That’s why I’ll go. And you’ll stay. Just like we always do.”