Page 85 of Loving at 40

“I know you loved Ryan to pieces, but it’s okay to give all your pieces to someone else.”

She’s right. I know she’s right, but she also knows as well as me that there’s a fear in opening up to someone else. As the brazen party girl, I kept up the façade that I didn’t need a man. I needed to get laid. But deep down, I’d wanted that man who understood me, stood by me, and loved me. I pushed back for years because of that one relationship early on, but I let Ryan in, and I couldn’t go back to being that girl who kept men at arm’s length. I didn’t have the time or energy for it.

Archer wasn’t arm’s length away. He was in my space.

“Are you bringing him to the fundraiser this Friday?”

“I already have a date.” I couldn’t believe I’d asked someone, but I didn’t want to go alone when most of my closest teacher friends were bringing their significant others. I never minded before, but this year I did. Although no one had known about Archer and my fling this summer, I didn’t want to be the woman going stag again.

Tricia tips up a brow. “Well, this could be interesting.” She giggles while patting my arm. “But I’m happy for you. You deserve this. You deserve him.”

She doesn’t mean my date but Archer. The man on my couch. In my house. And wedging his way back into my heart.

34

[Jenna]

“Absolutely not.” I hear coming from the front door, which Archer has answered on Friday evening. He’s been at my house for a week.

Frick. My heels tap on the hardwood and barely drowned out his next words.

“What the fuck is this?” Archer’s voice carries, and I pause as Mason stands on the front stoop looking every bit model-worthy in a dark suit.

“I told you I had a fundraiser to attend.” Teachers are invited as a courtesy. Did I mention Mason was my date? I might have skipped that detail, thinking Archer would be gone before I left. I’d been encouraging him to take a night off. I had a sitter lined up, and the girls love Natasha, so I didn’t want to cancel her. Plus, Archer had turned into a regular househusband of sorts, and he deserved a break.

“And hello to you,” Mason says, letting himself into the house and closing the door as Archer turns to me. His eyes lose focus as he stares at me in my deep purple wrap dress. When I came down the stairs wearing it, he couldn’t take his eyes off me for an entire minute before he finally told me I was stunning.

“You didn’t mention a date.” Archer’s hands come to his hips as he glares at me. “You said you always turned him down.” Archer tips his head at Mason.

“When did I say that?” I anxiously rub my hands down my hips, and Archer’s eyes follow the motion. The way he’s looking at me, he wants to outline my body after he pisses a circle around me.

“Last summer.”

I vaguely remember teasing Mason about how he asks me out whenever we run into one another, and I always decline.

“You remember that?” I ask Archer.

“I remember everything.” His eyes pin mine, and I hate how my mind races back to images of Archer and me in his bed, twisting and turning and tonguing one another.

“Speaking of summer,” Mason interjects. “Where the hell have you been?” If steam could come out of Archer’s ears, it would. He’s mad enough as it is, and with Mason’s reminder of Archer’s disappearance, he’s pouring lighter fluid on an open flame.

“Working,” Archer snaps in response while keeping his eyes on me.

“Couldn’t call your sister?” Mason adds. Archer turns on him, and I mutter Mason’s name. He ignores my warning tone. “Your sister who has been worried sick once again that you’d disappear. Or worse.”

The scolding implies the loss of Ben, and I know how Anna feels. I had my own fears that Archer was dead. Even my girls had questioned his existence.

“Alright,” I intercede, stepping up to Archer and smoothing a hand down his chest. “Natasha will be here any minute. Why don’t you head out?”

With one final piercing look, Archer steps away from me and reaches for the jacket he’d hung on the hook by the front door. It’s been hard to admit how right his coat looks hanging there among our things.

“Yeah. I’m out,” he mutters without a second glance back at me, and I hate how my heart drops as he silently closes the front door behind him.

+ + +

“So Archer is back?” Mason says to me as we head to Red Barn Table, where the charity event is being held. Ethan Scott owns the place, which started as only a restaurant in a fieldstone building on the old cherry farm property and eventually turned into a place for weddings and large parties.

“He just sort of showed up last Friday,” I state, recalling Archer’s face when he turned to me after finding Mason on the stoop. I’d never seen him look angry except that time another man was dancing with me when we went line dancing last summer.