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For a moment, he was silent. When he spoke, he actually sounded shocked. "Well, yeah. You don't speak with much of a discernible accent, let alone a southern drawl. I take it you've had vocal coaching?"
Tired of being unable to see his face, Archie wriggled off his lap, stood, and turned to straddle his legs in the narrow chair. It was a tight fit, but bearable. She touched her palms to his shirt, curled her fingers into the material. "I took a few drama classes while I was in college learning graphic design. For fun, rather than any urgent desire to be the next Julia Roberts. I was good at acting, but better with graphics." Her lips curved at his lifted eyebrow. "I can replicate pretty much any accent. Some friends and I spent hours teaching ourselves how to alter our voices."
"Oh really? We're gonna have to play with that later. I think I might like to fuck a sassy Irish wench one night." He winked at her. "So you went to college. Bet your grandma was proud of you."
God, there weren't words to express how proud Grandma had been. Archie's smile faltered. "From the day I went to live with her, Grandma pushed me to excel. I hadn't done well with schoolwork up until then. Mom loved me, but she was more preoccupied with trying to find money to pay the bills to concentrate on helping me with homework, then she got sick. Dad just didn't give a shit. But Grandma? Oh boy, it was a shock, let me tell you. We sat down at the kitchen table every night and worked through my assignments together. My grades didn't leap into greatness, but they started to creep up."
"She wanted the best start for you."
"She gave me it. I struggled with math, hated it, but she asked around and found me a tutor. I graduated at seventeen with better grades than I would have had if I'd stayed with my dad, so I guess that's something to thank him for." She lifted a shoulder carelessly. "About the only thing I can thank him for. Grandma lived fairly frugally, and she'd saved up a lot of money over the years. She told me if I got a GPA over three point zero, she'd pay for me to go to college to do whatever I wanted."
"Of course, you scored over three," Jasper scoffed. "There's a smart brain in this pretty head."
Archie ducked said head shyly. She'd never thought of herself as overtly intelligent, but she'd proved herself wrong. "Three point four. Grandma was so happy, she opened a bottle of fancy wine she'd bought back in 1984." Archie laughed at the memory of dancing around the kitchen, drunk and happy, with her future wide open in front of her. "That was a good night."
"I can see it in your eyes. Good memories, happy ones." Jasper stroked a fingertip under her eye. "You lost her."
The hole that had never really healed inside her chest throbbed. "Yeah. I was close to finishing my graphics course. I'd started playing about with images on my laptop in my spare time when I was fourteen, and found I had an aptitude for it. I didn't just seethe images in my head, I could create them with enough time. I chose to make it my career, selected the course, and only had three weeks to go when I got the phone call from one of the neighbors."
"Oh, kitten."
"No, you don't have to be sad for me, Jasper. The neighbor had called round to pick Grandma up. They both played bingo, and they carpooled. Company for them both. Only this time, Grandma didn't come out of the house when Betty honked the horn, so Betty went in. I should tell you that Grandma had taken up yoga in my absence." Archie tried to swallow the snort of laughter that bubbled in her throat. "A beginner in every sense of the word, but she wasn't one who believed in starting slow. She, ah..." No, she wasn't going to be able to hold in the laughter for long. "The coroner believed she was trying to execute a position called the King Pigeon Pose. It's...advanced."
Ice-blue eyes narrowed. "Go on."
"The best way I can describe it is, you make a circle with your body. Backwards. Your feet and lower legs are on the floor, then you arch up and back from the knees, forming a bridge. Then you keep bending until your face pretty much rests on your soles." Anarchy giggled and pressed her hands to her face. "I shouldn't laugh. I shouldn't, but it was just like her to try the impossible. She had a heart attack during the attempt, a fatal one. She was dead before she knew it."
Jasper yanked her into him. "You laugh all you want, Anarchy. You knew her better than anyone."
The problem was her laughter wasn't just seeing the humor in her grandmother's demise. It was almost seven years since her death, and Archie hadn't fully grieved for the woman who pushed her to be something other than an unwanted, motherless child. Laughing was the only way to suppress the grief, but she knew it was how the grief would escape one day.
She'd laugh until she cried, and couldn't stop.
Not today, Anarchy. Too much grief already.
So instead of laughing, or crying, she nuzzled her face into Jasper's neck and breathed deeply of his scent until she calmed. "It's okay, I'm good. There's not much left to say. I left college, went home and arranged the funeral, got the legal shit out of the way. I inherited my mother's share of the will, but Grandma made sure I couldn't squander it all. It's locked in a trust until I'm thirty," she added ruefully. "She wanted to make sure I could fend for myself before I found myself with a healthy bank account I hadn't earned. Got myself a job working at a little design company, had some fun and polished up my skills before moving on to where I am now."
"You've had a busy life for someone barely in their twenties," Jasper told her. "Have you thought about what you want to do for the rest of it?"
She hummed quietly, thinking over the question. What didshe want to do with the years ahead of her? She knew there was a chance she wouldn't make it out of her thirties if she inherited the cancer genes from her mother, but she'd deal with that if and when it happened. She wasn't going to live her life in fear. Everyone died at some point, whether it was cancer that got you, or a heart attack while trying to twist your body into a pretzel. Hell, she could get hit by a random piece of a passing satellite falling from miles above her head, or cut herself and get tetanus.
Death wasn't the enemy, in her opinion.
Death was just the end of the journey.
"I don't know," she replied honestly, easing back to watch his face. "I haven't a set plan to work by. I suppose marriage is on the cards somewhere if the time and the man is right, but it's not the Holy Grail. Kids are a vague possibility. I've never had much to do with them, so I can't say I want any for definite. Um...I guess I'd like to do something more with my career. I love design work, but the technology available is expanding so quickly, I want to explore it. How about you?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Now you know all my secrets, are you willing to give me some of yours?" She threw it out there, not expecting a positive response. But her tongue was loose now, given free rein, and she simply said what she wanted.
Shadows clouded his eyes, darkening the blue. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "What the hell. There's a chance you'll find out about me from outside sources. I suppose it might be less shocking coming from me."
Oh boy, that sounded dark. Anarchy tilted her head. "I suppose it might, Sir."
"Okay, before I tell you, I want to reassure you that I'm not what I was made to be. I'm still the man you've known for the last several months." Uncertainty flickered over his face, tightened his mouth. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't run away screaming."
"Unless you tell me you're a deadly assassin, I'm sure I'll cope," she joked, then froze when the hard body beneath her turned to steel. Apparently, she'd inadvertently struck the nail on the head before he had chance to say a word. The breath left her lungs in a long oooohof sound. "Seriously? No. No, you're not. Are you? No."
