When I get up to my room, I collapse on the bed and finally unleash the hold I have over the river. Tears stream down my cheeks as I snort my way to a sob. It’s ugly. It’s full of pain. Full of everything I lost when I came here with something to gain.
It’s pure and utter devastation. I know I fucked up, and maybe being on the field after his game was thewrong move. Maybe I should have waited. But it was Cooper’s idea. How the hell did it fail?
Maybe I should call him and ask him that.
I would never. But it’s a thought.
I’m still crying, but I force myself up and over to the window to look out at the view. Lights flash and twinkle in every direction, and there’s a whole sea of people down there having the time of their lives after the baseball game, or out for a bachelor party, or just visiting on vacation.
And here I am up here, alone and desperate.
I grab my phone and look up flights. No sense in staying here in town longer than I need to if I can get home sooner, right?
But all of the flights are tomorrow, and they’re all way out of my price range compared to the one I already booked for Sunday.
I throw my phone on the bed and resume my staring out the window.
My phone dings with a text, and I rush over just in case Cooper gave Archer my number.
It’s not Archer. It’s Jackie.
Jackie:Hope you’re happily humping and it all worked out. LMK!
I start to type a reply about how nothing happened when I hear a knock at my door.
Ugh, seriously? Someone has the pure audacity to knock on the wrong freaking door when I’m in the middle of this mess?
I ignore it, hoping they’ll go away.
They don’t. Instead, the knocking gets a little louder.
I must look like a mess.
Maybe it’s just housekeeping.
I wipe under my eyes with a tissue and blow my nose, and then I move over to open the door with an annoyed expression on my face.
That expression is frozen in place as my eyes meet those of the man standing in the doorway.
“Archer,” I whisper.
“Millie,” he says, his voice low.
We stare at each other for a few beats. “Can, uh…can we talk?” he finally asks.
“Yes, of course,” I say, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
“I thought maybe you’d tell me to beat it. That I was too late,” he says quietly.
“It’s never too late.”
He walks through it and straight to the windows, where his eyes fall down onto the view.
“Good game tonight,” I say softly, moving in behind him but nottooclose.
“Thanks.” He turns to look at me. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t been okay for weeks, Archer.”
