13. Archer
Chapter thirteen
Archer
Present
T here’s nothing better on a rainy day than Nora’s country fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy. When she asked me to come fix a few busted wall panels in her garage, I knew I could sweet talk her into making my favorite meal. After the way the past few days have gone, her comfort food is my only saving grace.
I didn’t think it’d be this difficult to be around Tilly on a regular basis.
The more I work with her, listening to her hum songs and dance (something I haven’t seen her do in years) and arguing with her over shelf space and décor, I realize I’m in hell. Not the college version of hell where I longed for her sunshine and peppiness after a grueling week of football three-a-days, but genuine hell where I’m burning up—in equal parts anger and longing—for something to change between us.
Closing her out is a knee jerk reaction, a coping mechanism I’ve developed. I push her away when all I want is to pull her closer, and it’s bitten me in the ass. I so badly want to beg her to forgive me for all the shitty things I’ve said to her and the distance I created, but I know there’s no excuse. I have to prove to her I can change, and helping her get her bakery opened is the first step to becoming friends again.
“Do you want a second helping?” Nora asks, sliding her reading glasses up her wide nose. Her silver hair is pulled back into a tight bun and she’s got a light smattering of blush on her umber skin .
“Nope.” I pat my stomach. “You’ve spoiled me already, might have to roll me out like an Oompa Loompa.”
She laughs, and the crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepen. “I’ve gotta take care of my boy. You, Shantel and Malik, and Tilly are all I have left.”
My stomach torpedoes into my throat at the honesty in her voice, the longing for how things used to be. The backs of my eyes burn with tears. I rise from the chair and clean off my plate in the sink. “You’ve taken plenty care of me. It’s time someone takes care of you.”
“We all need someone to take care of us, son. Even when we think we’re doin’ just fine on our own.”
I chuckle. “You gonna let Mr. Hawkins finally take you out?”
A dishtowel hits me in the side of the head and drops to my forearm. Nora stands propped against the island with her arms crossed and a playful look on her face.
“I’ll let Hawkins take me out when you finally make things right with Tilly.”
I choke on the baseball lodged in my throat, sputtering as I turn off the water and dry my hands, heading to the island. Nora’s been a buffer between us since Jessie passed, but she’s never been one to meddle in her kids business. I’m not sure if Jessie ever told her how he ended up being the one to ask Tilly out, and I’m not going to be the one to tell her.
“Things between Tilly and me are fine.”
Her weathered hand rests upon mine. “Son, I may not be your actual mother, but I’m still a mother, and I know when something is wrong with one of my babies.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’m fi—”
“Don’t lie to me, boy,” she reprimands. “I’m not blind. You looked like a lovesick puppy when she tore outta here that night. ”
Heat rushes to my cheeks, my chest, my neck, suffocating the tiny vessels of my heart. I thought I masked my surprise well during dinner when Shantel mentioned Tilly getting back into the dating field, but I guess not. It shouldn’t matter to me—she deserves happiness more than anyone I know—but it does. And the way my heart twists every time I think about her being happy with someone other than me shows me I’m nowhere near unbothered enough to pretend like it doesn’t affect me.
Stunned by her words, I struggle to find something to say.
“You know,” she says, “sometimes things don’t work out the way we want, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change our path.”
A strangled laugh finds its way out of my mouth. “Ok, Confucius.”
She whacks me again. “I’m serious, Archer. Time is fleeting, and you never know when you may miss an opportunity to tell someone how you truly feel about them.” She pauses, gulps. “I’m part of a club no parent wants to be in, but having you and Tilly still in my life helps me on the hard days. You’ll understand when you have kids of your own, but when someone is important to you—“ she pins me with her sharp gaze “—you don’t waste another second allowing them to feel like they’re anything but that.”
Her words convict me, reminding me of all the times I wanted to divulge my feelings but chickened out. An image of Tilly—the most important woman in my life outside of Nora, the one I’ve made feel like she’s inconsequential to me—pops into my mind like a pesky jack-in-the-box. I shake my head, clearing the image away. “There’s no point in trying to repair our friendship when I’m probably leaving anyway. I’ve got another interview coming up.”
“We don’t always get a chance to fix what we’ve broken, or to make things clear to those we love. ”
My skin prickles with her comment. There’s so much I wish I could’ve said to Seb, so much I wish I could’ve changed or made right with him before he passed, but I don’t feel like that with Jessie. We were best friends, brothers by choice. I made a promise to him about Tilly, and he made one to me too. We both knew the score, and I lost.
“Your relationship with Tilly is worth repairing.” She gives me a wry smile then shrugs. “And maybe it won’t just be friendship that you find.”
Shock hardens my stomach, and a cold sweat breaks out over my body at her insinuation there could be anything more than friendship between me and Tilly. As Jessie’s mother, I feel like she should be angry at me, worried that I wasn’t being a good friend to her son, but all I see in her eyes is hope.
After she blew up on me about how I was treating her, there’s no way Tilly sees me as anything but the person helping her get her bakery ready for opening. But if there’s some chance of repairing our friendship, then I need to try.
“Okay.” I ignore her comment, grab my tool kit, and head to the garage to clear my head. “Now, how did these panels get busted?”
Nora shuffles behind me. “I think the foundation shifted some, because those panels weren’t that close to the side the other day.”
I laugh, and she punches me in the shoulder. Grasping my arm, I play like I’m hurt, and she threatens me with another knuckle sandwich.
“Don’t start, boy.”
I get to work fixing the wall Nora ran into, and my mind buzzes with everything we spoke about. If anyone knows how short time is, it’s me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give up for another day with Sebastian and Jessie, and knowing my time might be limited to make things right with Tilly, I can’t risk pushing her away anymore .
Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I shoot her a text to see what time she’ll be coming to the bakery in the morning. Tomorrow I’ll start repairing what I’ve broken.