Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
ARCHER
I should’ve kept my mouth shut and let her continue believing I hated her.
It would’ve been easier, but after spending the last six hours trapped in a car with a woman who was so clearly exhausted, uncomfortable, and in pain, the least I could do was offer her that reassurance.
Well, that and force her to stop and stretch every two hours like the internet said she was supposed to do to prevent clotting.
And keep her fed, since it became abundantly clear she wasn’t going to do any of that herself.
Between the internet, and the fact that she was a personal trainer, I figured she’d want healthier snacks, but from the brief flash of disgust that crossed her face when she saw the array of options I’d picked, it was safe to say I’d missed the mark.
It shouldn’t have mattered to me if she thought I hated her, and what I said to her wasn’t a lie; she should hate me.
I hadn’t treated her the best. When she told me she was pregnant, I responded like a dick, and it clearly hurt her more than I originally thought, which was the last thing I wanted to do.
In my defense, I’d just had one of the worst nightmares I’d experienced in a while, and when I got to the bar, I was still having phantom pains despite the fact that it was hours later.
It was terrible timing, but that wasn’t her fault, and I took it out on her.
Darcy had every right to hate me, or at least be upset with me, and yet .
. . I didn’t want her to. And that thought scared me because if I didn’t want her to hate me, then I wanted her to . . . what? Like me?
Back in high school, our paths never really crossed.
She was a freshman when I was a senior, and for the most part, she’d never been on my radar, but occasionally, I’d catch her hazel eyes staring at me from across the cafeteria.
She always brought a lunch from home that I assumed her mom or dad made, and everything about her screamed “taken care of.” It made me wonder what that must be like—what having people who loved and cared for you felt like.
It’s why Darcy and this baby were better off if I wasn’t the father. The only experience I had with love and affection died with my mother. I had no idea who the other option was, but he had to be better than me.
My thoughts were cut short when we pulled into a dirt driveway with a mailbox that had what appeared to be hand-painted berries on it, and a sign hanging beneath it that read “Adler’s Berries.
” I did my best not to tense as we approached the blue house that looked part house, and part fairy cottage, but judging from the way Darcy peeked over at me, I’d say I failed.
“Hey, Archer?” She put the car in park behind a red Chevy square-body truck.
I looked over at her, noting how she didn’t seem to radiate the relaxation and excitement I expected she would at coming home to her parents’. If anything, she seemed almost as tense as I was.
“Breathe. It’ll be fine.”
“That wasn’t very convincing,” I said, unable to move my eyes from hers.
The way she rolled her eyes as she exited the car had something like excitement brewing in my stomach. Verbally sparring with this woman was fun, and I found myself trying to find ways to initiate it.
I grabbed our bags, earning a curious look when I grabbed hers too, then followed her up the walkway to the front porch, gravel crunching loudly under my boots. When we got to the front door, she paused and peered up at me.
“Follow my lead,” she said, then she was opening the door and crossing the threshold.
***
The Adler family was everything Darcy said they would be.
Her mother, Shelby, had wrapped me in a hug before I’d finished closing the door.
Her dad had eyed me warily until he watched me help Darcy out of her coat—a move I wasn’t sure abided by the “no PDA” clause of her demands, but I figured it couldn’t hurt—and then he gave me a firm handshake and introduced himself.
I couldn’t be sure because I’d never met anyone’s family, girlfriend or otherwise, but it felt like a stamp of approval, albeit a small one.
They led us to the kitchen where my eyes instantly locked onto Garrett.
Up until I walked into his line of sight, he had been whispering and laughing with a tiny, dark-haired woman who must’ve been his wife, Cory, judging from the colorful tattoos covering her skin.
When he saw me, he straightened, his smile slipping from unrestrained joy, to one of wary politeness.
It was impossible to tell if the change in his demeanor was because he recognized me from school, or because I was the man with one of his little sisters.
Regardless, it was evident he’d be a tough sell on the whole “Darcy and Archer” thing.
“Can I get you something to drink, Archer? Water? Beer? Soda?” Shelby asked, already on her way to the fridge, like a refusal wasn’t an option.
“I’ll take some water, thank you.” I smiled, remembering what Darcy had said about scowling.
“You sure, man? We’ve got plenty of beer.” Garrett spoke from behind me, and I didn’t know why the question felt like a test.
“Thanks, but it’s been a long day. I’ll save the beer for tomorrow.”
“Ahh, did our Darcy subject you to one of her car karaoke concerts?” Jack laughed presumably at whatever memories he had of his daughter doing exactly that.
Glancing down at Darcy whose cheeks were a touch pinker than they had been, I smirked. “No, unfortunately I wasn’t so lucky.” I bent my head down to her ear and whispered, “Car karaoke concerts?”
She turned her head, my gaze dropping to her mouth as she quietly bit out through a fake smile, “Mention it again, and I’ll make third-degree burns seem pleasant in comparison.”
“If anyone could do it, it’d be you.”
Darcy gave me the same look she’d given me back at the Wendy’s we stopped at. It was the one that said she was “trying to figure me out” as she put it, but then her mom interrupted, snagging her attention away.
“Well, Darcy, what about you? Beer? Wine? I’m sure we’ve got vodka around here somewhere.”
It didn’t slip my notice that her options weren’t the same as mine, that assumptions had already been made where she was concerned, however well-intended or accurate they might’ve been.
Before she could say anything, I added, “Or water, or soda?”
Confusion, surprise, and appreciation warred on her face for a moment before she slipped a smile that mirrored my own onto her face and answered her mom. “Actually, some water would be great. Like Arch said, it’s been a long day.”
Arch? Since when had she decided to use a nickname for me? Logically, I knew it had to have been part of the act, but a very real part of me liked the way it sounded coming from her lips.
“But I’m not a guest, Mom. I can get us water.”
Shelby waved her hands at her daughter. “Well you don’t need to. Go sit with your brother and Cory. Dinner is almost ready.”
I grabbed the waters from Shelby, and followed Darcy to a large, round oak table that was clearly well-used and well-loved.
There were scratches in the finish, and holes from where I imagined a feisty and hangry Darcy jabbed her fork into the table’s wooden surface while she impatiently waited for meals.
“So, Archer,” Cory started, as we all took our seats. “Darcy has told us almost nothing about you.”
I cleared my throat, and was surprised at how easily the lies blended with the truths.
“Yeah, well, Darcy and I had a bit of a rough start, so I imagine if she had told you anything, it wouldn’t be good.
” Darcy’s knee rammed into the side of my leg under the table where her brother and his wife couldn’t see.
I forced a smile and continued on. “I’m actually from here, and went to school with these two, not that they’d remember me. ”
“I remember you,” Garrett chimed in, leveling me with a look that said he remembered exactly who I was. I took Cory’s glare at Garrett as a sign to press on.
“Yeah, well, I’m a firefighter back in town now. Other than that, there really isn’t much to tell.” I took a long sip of water, desperately hoping the topic would move on from me, but of course it wouldn’t—I was the newcomer.
“That’s cool. How’d you meet Darcy?” Cory’s tone was pleasant, but I got the distinct impression that they were playing good cop/bad cop to decipher what was going on here.
Thankfully, Darcy jumped in and saved me from having to answer that one. “He put out a fire in my oven a couple of months back. Turns out, I’m not that great of a cook.”
It was my turn to gently hit her with my knee this time. Really? A fire in her oven? That’s what she wanted to go with? I could already hear the jokes her family would make at Christmas once we clued them in on our situation.
“What the hell were you trying to make? You’re not that bad of a cook, Darse.” Garrett reluctantly moved his eyes from me to Darcy.
She rolled her eyes, a gesture that I was quickly realizing was a Darcy staple. “I am when I forget I’m cooking, and take a nap on the couch. Anyway, that’s enough questioning Officer Nosy. How’s married life?”
The subject change wasn’t subtle, but it worked, and I took a minute to steal a glance at the woman beside me.
Without a doubt, she was gorgeous—anyone with eyes could see that—and she was also fiery, witty, and didn’t take any bullshit, but there was this hardness, this defensiveness to her that I couldn’t understand.
I hadn’t been in the Adler house for more than thirty minutes, but as I sat at the dining room table with her brother, and eventually her parents once dinner was ready and we began passing food around, it was hard to reconcile that hardness with all the genuine love at the table.
The Adlers felt like a Hallmark movie family, I mean they were berry farmers for starters, but there was an easy banter between all of them, except for when it came to Darcy.
Sure, she smiled, and responded, but it felt practised—rehearsed, and I didn’t understand why.
I didn’t understand how someone who grew up like this could end up so similar to myself. It didn’t make sense.
“Garrett, I was just talking about you to Louis, do you remember him? Older guy from a couple houses down?” Jack started, and I noticed a subtle slump in Darcy’s posture.
It wouldn’t have been noticeable if it weren’t for the fact that, over the course of dinner, I’d become hyper-fixated on her.
I glanced at Jack, running his words over in my head to figure out what he’d said that caused her to deflate, however marginally.
Dropping my hand beneath the table, I squeezed her thigh lightly.
Her posture stiffened, eyes snapping to the side of my face, but I didn’t look at her.
I didn’t want to give us away. I let my thumb rub circles on the outside of her leg, not letting myself question what the hell I was doing, because, truthfully, I didn’t know. But then she relaxed.
“Well, if we’re all done, we can break out the chocolate chip cookies. Darcy, want to help me?” Shelby asked. And just like that, Darcy was gone, my palm feeling colder in her absence. It was a good thing though because it startled me out of whatever the hell that moment was.
Jack started grabbing empty dinner plates, and Cory jumped to help him out, which left Garrett and I sitting alone.
I watched him watch his father and wife exit the dining room, and then he pinned me with a hard stare.
If I hadn’t grown up on the receiving end of looks precisely like that, I might’ve squirmed.
As it were, I took a sip of my water and waited him out.
Time for the real interrogation.
“What are you doing with my sister?”
“Dating her?” Lie.
His gaze narrowed on me. “Why?”
“Because I find her interesting. She’s clever, funny, and, yeah, she’s beautiful.” Truth.
Garrett’s eye twitched slightly at the last part, and I smirked. If he didn’t want to hear that I found his sister attractive, he shouldn’t have asked.
“I don’t mean this offensively,” he started, which meant that the next words out of his mouth were absolutely going to be offensive. “But you’re not exactly her type.”
I leaned forward, resting my arms against the table. “What do you know of her type?”
He mirrored my posture. “I know she tends to date nice, successful, clean-around-the-edges guys. Guys you can bring home to your parents.”
So he wasn’t lying when he said he remembered me from high school. And while I respected the “protective big brother” thing he had going on, people could change, and I had. As much as a person with my past possibly could.
I smirked at him. “Maybe that’s the reason those guys didn’t work out. And she did bring me home.”
Garrett went to say more, but the rest of his family came back, and at the sight of his wife, some of the fight left his eyes. Some, not all. Which meant this conversation wasn’t over, and I didn’t expect it to be.
“Cookie?” Shelby held the plate out to me with a mountain of chocolate chip cookies on it, and despite the fact that I wasn’t big on sweets, I took one. The next few days were likely to be hell, but Shelby Adler’s cooking had proven to be anything but.