“No.”
“Archer?”
“Mm?”
“I’m going to stop pretending to be reluctant now.”
Something in his face goes very focused. “Okay.”
“Jack said I’d be surprised.”
“Jack,” he says, with the tone that says he’s deeply ambivalent about Jack being right about things, “is occasionally correct.”
“Occasionally,” I agree.
“More than I’d like,” he admits.
I look at him. At the river. At the wildflowers on theblanket. At the basket that Tristan packed and the spot that is Archer’s spot that he brought me to. I think about the first night on the river path,I’m not afraid of you,and the way he stood at the game alley entrance. I think aboutyou’d be surprised.
“Your place,” I say. “Is it far from here?”
He looks at me. The focus in his expression sharpens. “A few minutes.”
“From here?”
“From here.”
I watch the river. “The bread was very good. Tristan should be told.”
“I’ll tell him,” Archer says. His voice has dropped a register.
“After.”
“After,” he agrees.
He stands and he offers his hand again. This time when I take it he doesn’t let go immediately. He holds it and we walk back up the river path in the cooling afternoon. The carnival hums through the trees and I am carrying wildflowers that he picked himself. I am, despite everything, not reluctant at all.
I haven’t been reluctant for some time.
I was just waiting to see what he’d do with the space I was giving him.
He filled it well.
The pack house is above the river path. I didn’t know you could get to it this way. He takes me through to his bedroom. It is entirely Archer. Cleanlines, minimal, nothing that doesn’t have a purpose, and the purpose of everything is clear. Books that are read rather than displayed. A guitar on a stand in the corner that I look at and don’t comment on.
He watches me look at the guitar.
“Don’t ask,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything,” I reply.
“You were about to.”
“I was going to say it’s a nice guitar.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“No,” I agree. “I was going to ask if you played.”
