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A frown tensed his brow, and he twisted so we could face each other. “Celebrate what?”
“Bad meatloaf,” I told him. “Apparently, they’re moving in together. Or correction, we’re moving in with him.”
Archie’s brows skyrocketed. “She said he asked her to move in?”
“She said they made some decisions—they’ve been seeing each other for months.” I hated everything about this. “Archie—she said he and your mom are gonna get divorced.”
“No they’re not.” He almost laughed, but seemed to think better of it. “I mean, I suppose they could, I have no doubt there’s an iron-clad prenup floating around, but—Edward’s…” He winced. “Frankie, this is not his first affair.”
“I know. I tried to kind of point that out, but that didn’t go well.” I set the burger back down. I didn’t know if I could eat it, so I reclaimed my coffee instead. “I don’t want to move—I mean, I do eventually. But… where are we going to move in? Here? Where your mom still lives?”
The corners of his mouth curved. “I’d love it if you lived with me, the guys might have cow. But I’d like it.”
“Please be serious…”
“I am being serious,” he promised. Then he reached over and curled the end of my ponytail around his hand. “Frankie, I don’t know what’s going on with them, and honestly—I don’t want to know. Edward’s… he’s done this a lot. He never leaves Muriel. Toxic or not, they are this volatile chemical mixture that just keeps churning.”
Which meant my mom was going to end up getting hurt, again. I sighed.
“Look, I don’t know what he said or what she wants to do, but it’s not a done deal yet, and hey—” He nudged a finger under my chin to lift my gaze to meet his. “Whatever happens, that’s on them. Not us.”
“But whatever they decide is going to affect me—affect you.”
“Not for long,” he said. “A few months and we graduate, and then we get the hell out of here. We go north, you go to Harvard…”
“If I get in.”
“Whenyou get in. You know what, if you end up taking a skip year, fine, then we’ll go see Europe and get as far away from the drama as possible.”
It all sounded great… “Arch, we live in the real world.”
“Pfft, overrated. I much prefer my fantasies as long as you’re a part of it.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t that funny. It was hard to dredge up the humor when it felt like I waged a war against tears. “My mom really likes him,” I told him. “She does this, I know she does…she falls for guys, and it never works out. But I’ve only seen her this happy a couple of times, and I made her mad—because I pointed out he was still married.”
“You have a right,” Archie said. He’d eaten some of his burger, and he motioned to mine. “You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” I was still nursing the peppermint mocha. There was ice cream.
“You have to be hungry, there’s ice cream and wallowing to be had.” All the teasing in the world wasn’t going to make this better. When that didn’t work, he moved all the food—including my coffee—and dragged an arm around me to pull me close.
Closing my eyes, I buried my face against his neck and just held on.
“It’s going to be all right, Frankie,” he said. “I know you hate this, and I know you’re worried about your mom. It’s going to be all right.”
Yeah. She had plenty of breakup experience. Didn’t make it any easier.
“You know what I hate most about this…”
“No, but I’m hoping you’ll tell me,” he said, his tone dry. “I hate trying to guess.”
I laughed. Okay. That was funny. Lifting my head, I looked at him and he grinned. When his gaze dipped to my mouth, I don’t know which of us moved first, but then he was kissing me, or I was kissing him. Heat bloomed in my belly, dislodging the heavy rock there, and it flared outward as I clung to him and he fisted my hair. The kiss hadn’t started gentle, and it didn’t seem headed that way.
The scrape of his teeth sent a jolt over my skin, and my nipples tightened as I shifted on his lap. Then he sucked on my lower lip, dragging it out before releasing it with a pop. “Hi…”
My breath came in little pants. “Hi.”
“You were telling me something.”
